All Eyes Are on Kentucky, But Montana Is Stealing the Real Headlines
by Fran Jurga | 2 May 2009 | The Jurga Report
Didn't we fight the Civil War over this very issue?
States' rights is an amazing aspect of the US legal and legislative system. If you are old enough, you may remember when abortion was legal in some states and not in others. Roe v. Wade made it legal in all states but not everyone wanted to accept the Supreme Court decision. And they still don't. Ditto for any number of legal decisions that are morally or ethically based.
Including horse slaughter.
As celebrities and wealthy patrons of all stripes walk the rose-strewn carpets of Churchill Downs today, the focus might be more on the safety of racing and the tragic losses of Eight Belles and Barbaro than on horse slaughter because many people think that horse slaughter is an issue that has been ruled illegal in the United States. All that is left to do is clear up the nasty detail of shipping horses to Canada and Mexico.
Just a detail, right?
Hardly.
A testing of the waters began in North Dakota, Arkansas, Illinois and other states this winter to see if individual states could foster horse slaughter plants as favored ag industries within their borders. Along with the quiet work of agricultural industry sub-committees was relentless publicity about horse abandonment and neglect in record numbers.
Montana is the first state to technically allow horse "processing" and whether or not a horse plant is built remains to be seen but you have now seen lawmakers and lobbyists getting a job done. It will take a lot of anti-slaughter attorneys and a lot of anti-slaughter money to undo it, if indeed it can be undone.
Or, if the anti-slaughter movement has enough attorneys, enough sympathetic judges and enough money, I suppose it could end up eventually in Washington as some sort of a Supreme Court case.
I still don't believe that there is enough money in horse meat to warrant this action and that this is the larger meatpacking industry preserving its turf from intervention, and have been all along.
Now seems like a great time to start working on a compromise between the two sides to make sure that if slaughter is to be allowed in the USA again, the transport laws will have some teeth and will be enforced, and that the horses that are sent to slaughter are sent there with the knowledge and clear intent of their owners.
I'd love it if someone like Jeanine Edwards on ESPN/NBC today looked straight into the camera and said, "Here I am at Churchill Downs, America's most famous racetrack. Statistics show that a surprisingly large percentage of the horses racing here, as at all racetracks, will end their lives before the age of six, in the chute of a horse slaughter plant."
There just aren't enough roses to cover up the truth. Listen carefully: you will be able to hear the Montana legislators laughing in the distance over the two-minute roar of the Derby crowd.
posted by Fran Jurga @ 5/02/2009
4 comments
4 Comments:
As as owner of an Off-the-Track-Thoroughbred, I've lost patience with the anti-slaughter activists who can't understand that a no-kill policy is just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe all the Thoroughbreds we've saved will start showing up in supermarket parking lots for Adopt-a-Pet Day? That's absurd, but so is our failure to address the problem.
The issue of morality ultimately leads to questions of responsibility. I've heard the figure of 40,000 tossed around, for Thoroughbreds bred per year in the US. There's a lot of money changing hands, but none of it is making it to the bottom of the food chain, where tens of thousands of unwanted Thoroughbreds end up.
There's a total disconnect in the public discussion between the actual problem and any workable solution. And to have industrial meat processing lobbyists working behind the scene, protecting the outer fringes of their turf, is more proof that most people who are sorta paying attention are just running around in circles on this issue.
Thanks for the frank and emotional discussion on this issue -- we need more of it.
Thanks for understanding the point I was trying to make. The fact that the action in Montana happened on the eve of the Kentucky Derby was just too poetic for words, but of course I was totally caught up in the Derby myself!
And all eyes will be watching as Montana is sued over this Bill for being unconstitutional by denying its citizens the right to court proceedings due to lack of funds. That will wipe the smug look off your face.
Quite unfortunately imo for horses in general the slaughter issue is approached from an emotional sense instead of horse welfare. the question is what to do with the unwanted horse. first we define "unwanted" "neglected" "abused". what we discover is that 75% of the OTBs in this country suffer from varying degrees of that. enter most show barns and watch the misery there, month after month, year after year. where are these 6+ year former race horses going to go? the sad truth is that most of them are better off dead. the anti-slaughter folks (supposedly) are concerned with "humane" destruction and "humane" transport. these problems can be so easily solved. you confuse the issues when you close the plants. equestrian sports are unable to exist without a humane slaughter policy. the reality is that large animals simply are too expensive to maintain when they become useless. the alternative is that horse in the back of the show barn subsisting on a can of grain and a couple of flakes a day in its 10 x 10 stall visited by its teen age owner 4 times a year, month after month, year after year. and that one is the lucky horse.
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