Running head: WHY THE MURDER AND CONSUMPTION OF ANIMALS IS WRONG 1

Why the Murder and Consumption of Animals is Wrong

Ryan Rivera

Arizona State University

Abstract
WHY THE MURDER AND CONSUMPTION OF ANIMALS IS WRONG 2

The mass consumption of animals across the globe has lead to widespread distress and murder of

innocent animals. The food industry has a high demand for animal products and produces

focuses on quantity over quantity, specifically in the United States. Standing arguments about

whether or not animals can feel pain as they’re dying and if they serve any purpose other than to

be eaten by humans are addressed in this essay. The conclusiveness of the essay is whether or not

animals should be killed and eaten.

Keywords: animal welfare, ethics, rights, progressive

Why the Murder and Consumption of Animals is Wrong

WHY THE MURDER AND CONSUMPTION OF ANIMALS IS WRONG 3

With the world being able to survive on plants alone, should we still be killing animals

for food? Is it okay to kill an animal for the satisfaction of your tastebuds? Have you ever taken a

bite into a strip of bacon or chunk of steak and thought, “Where does this come from, and how

did it become this?” In human culture across the world, it is natural to kill and consume animals

without a second thought. When buying our steak and bacon all we see are the nicely packed

meats at the supermarket and become detached from the fact that these were once living animals.

Some people can argue that as the planets apex predators we are entitled to the right to consume

any and all other beings. In other words, why should humans care what animals think or feel?

George R.R. Martin’s quote from season 5, episode 2 of the hit television series Game of

Thrones sums up this ideology perfectly, “A lion does not concern himself with the opinions of

sheep.” The quote implies that more dominant beings are entitled to the rights of those they

consider lesser than themselves. These implications raise the question of whether or not humans

should be entitled to the rights of all other beings on the planet. In short, the answer to that

question is no. Humans do not have the self-control to responsibly control the fates of all other

beings on the planet with fairness and respect; when we attempt to exercise our own will over

everything we blur the lines between what is best for us and what we want, putting not just the

welfare of animals at risk but ourselves as well. Animals are sentient beings just like humans and

should not be subject to the slaughter, consumption, and mistreatment exacted upon them by

humans. Despite the surfeit amount of animals mistreated by humans, there are some exceptions

where people choose to spoil and love animals as pets and parts of their family. This

inconsistency between treatment for different animal species raises even more questions. One

outstanding question that begs explanation is why society is okay with eating piglets but not

puppies.
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The answer to this question is that as humans we tend to place value on animals based on

their mental qualities. When animals have a conscious and personality we start to care more

about their welfare and empathize with them. It's important to remember the animals we eat can

feel like the pets we keep (Bastian, B., 2019). Many of today’s laws and ethics support the idea

of animals having feelings just as humans do, though maybe on a less sophisticated level.

However, there are still some places and practices that disregard animal welfare where there are

little to no laws to protect animals from undesirable life cycles. The United States has legislation

protecting animals from animal cruelty. While all 50 states are by law forced to abide by animal

cruelty rules there are agricultural exceptions, so farms are exempt from these rules to continue

"customary practices." In the UK there are strict and refined laws in place to protect animal

welfare. No animal can be kept at a farm if it is harmful to its health and welfare, and things like

pig castration and docking are banned by law (Transatlantic, 2014). However, with the election

of a new president, the United States looks to be regressing from their previously progressive

movements.

The Trump administration has proposed new regulations for the inspection process in

food and safety protection which negatively impacts the inspection process for animals and

humans. The idea behind their new proposition is to increase profits for the pork industry and

potentially risk safety and quality of the meats that food plants produce. Trump's suggestion is to

take trained health food inspectors and remove them from food processing plants and replace

them with untrained company employees while also performing fewer health inspections on

product lines (Berkowitz, D., 2019). The proposal also removes any limit to the rate at which

pigs are slaughtered. The rate that pigs currently get slaughtered at is approximately 1100 pigs

per hour (Berkowitz, D., 2019). With the new rule removing the regulation, the concern is that
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those rates could end up being pushed up to 1600 pigs killed per hour (Berkowitz, D., 2019). The

risks of packing this much more meat are that it becomes harder for workers to package that

much meat effectively and makes it more difficult for inspectors to check everything that is

being produced by the plant, putting consumer health at risk. In addition to consumer health

being at risk, food plant workers are also at risk due to the high speed that the line would have to

be run at to kill 1600 pigs per hour, forcing workers to be rushed and more prone to make errors

that would result in them getting injured or even the animals being conscious while slaughtered

(Berkowitz, D., 2019). However, in some parts of the world, like Asia, there are no humane

practices made for the animals to feel less pain as they are killed, and in some cases, the animals

are stripped of their parts and left to die.

In an attempt to bring to light the issues of shark fin hunting, celebrity Chef Gordon

Ramsay explored the Chinese city of Taipei, well known for their love of shark fin soup, in his

2011 documentary Shark Bait. In the documentary, he goes to a high-end restaurant there to

assess whether or not the soup that costs hundreds of thousands of sharks their lives each year, it

is really worth it. After the chef tastes the dish he immediately concludes that there is no special

attribute to the soup and that outside of Chinese tradition the dish is not worth the lives of the

sharks being hunted. To further explore the cruelty behind this dish chef Gordon dug into the

illegal market and procuration of shark fin hunting. According to Gordon, there are laws that

state fishermen must bring back whole bodies of sharks they fin to port to prevent over-hunting

of sharks, but there is video evidence that fishermen will fin sharks alive and then dump their

live finless bodies back into the ocean to die. Disgusted by the inhumane killing of the sharks

chef Ramsay sets out to join a finning crew and see first hand how the business is handled. To

chef Ramsay's astonishment, it’s even worse than he had anticipated. Sharks are killed
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indiscriminately without regard for endangered species laws or age of the animal, and sharks

with bodies too big to carry back to port are dump back into the ocean or cut up into pieces to

use as bait to catch more sharks. The results of his findings were presented to a board of

influential people in the Chinese culinary world and political world and actions were taken to

ban shark fin soup. Shortly after the release of the documentary tremendous support for the

banning of shark fin soups was helped push countries and companies to ban shark finning and

shark fin soup (Ramsay, G. 2011).

Even upon seeing such brutalities as shark finning, some people may argue that animals

do not have feelings and can not process emotions like humans, which justifies killing them

because they can not process pain. This idea was difficult to challenge because it was difficult to

test how animals process pain experimentally. Unsubstantial evidence proving that animals felt

pain let cruel practices performed by animal

caretakers continue to be performed. Pig

castration is a common practice of pulling or

cutting off a male pigs testicles before it becomes

a juvenile. This process is considered to be

reasonably painful, but it has been challenged by

the scientific community as to whether or not the

pigs actually felt and processed pain or simply reacted to any discomfort instinctually. A study

was done to evaluate whether or not pigs felt pain thorough observation of pig castration. It was

determined that pig behavior was a form of self-expression and how they processed pain was

linked more closely to their subjective experiences, concluding that pigs could process pain and

were not just reacting to it (Fox, M. W., & Mickley, L. D. 1985). The study was done over thirty
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years ago where the laws and ethics at the time may have differed, but the fact of the matter still

remains that it is an unethical experiment by today's standards.

People may also argue that because animals are not the same species as humans, it is fine

that we domesticate them and eat them. This stance is

based on the belief that because some of the traits we

have differ from those of animals, such as size and

color. Animals have a will of their own they are like

humans, they’re beings of higher intelligence and they

should have some of the same privileges as humans,

one of which at the very least being their own rights. African and dark skin toned people were

once thought of in the same way as livestock around 250 years ago, less than human and a

commodity for sale (Wise, S. 2015). Animals were dismissed the same way we dismissed black

people as people not too long ago. As a society, we should be progressive and recognize the

intelligence and integrity of the animals who are so similar to us humans.

Animals are far more closely related to humans than they are credited for, almost anyone

who has ever owned a pet can acknowledge that their pet has emotions and consciousness to

some degree. Animals suffer when they are sought after for food like shark fin soup, getting their

limbs ripped apart while still alive. Additionally, when humans mass produce animals for

factories they become prone to food born illnesses passed on from insufficient packaging and

curing of the animals, making people suffer as well as animals. Currently, developed countries

are increasing in their progressive approaches to matter regarding animal welfare and passing

more laws and restrictions to protect animals from being put in harm's way. It is important for

humans to continue to be progressive and adapt our views and opinions for betterment our own
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well being, and the preservation of the planet and the animals on it. Making a difference always

starts with one person, let us counteract the errors we have made in the past and look to improve

the ways we go about protecting animals. Help combat the issues of animal welfare, start by

limiting the amounts of animal products you use, donating or volunteering to help animal

preservation projects, and most importantly spreading the word about making a change to make

the world a better place for people and animals alike.

References

Bastian, B. (2019, March 17). The meat paradox: How we can love some animals and eat others.

Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-meat-paradox-how-we-can-love-some-

animals-and-eat-others-149

Berkowitz, D., & McMillan, S. (2019). High-speed pig slaughter will be disastrous for everyone

involved. In Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit, MI: Gale. (Reprinted from

High-speed pig slaughter will be disastrous for everyone involved, Guardian, 2018, April
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17) Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/apps/doc/GZDUMO9

62532230/OVIC?u=asuniv&sid=OVIC&xid=80b0a4df

Fox, M. W., & Mickley, L. D. (1985). Advances in animal welfare science 1984. Boston:

Martinus Nijhoff.

Ramsay, G. (2011, August). Retrieved February 26, 2019, from

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt312

1886/

Texas Tech University. (n.d.). Laboratory of Animal Behavior, Physiology and Welfare.

Retrieved from http://www.depts.ttu.edu/animalwelfare/Research/PigCastration/

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. (2014, July 10). EU and US Farm Animal

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eu_vs_us.pdf

Wise, S. (2015). Chimps have feelings and thoughts. They should also have rights. Retrieved

from https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_wise_chimps_have_feelings_and_thoughts_they_

should_also_have_rights?language=en

World Animal Protection. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://api.worldanimalprotection.org/

methodology