Candy Reyes
Prof. Waldron
November 14th, 2013 Animals We Love
Factory farming has been in the American and European culture for over 200 years now, and is considered one of the foremost sources for our food supply for today’s population. However, with the growing awareness to animal cruelty in this world, many people have been considering our current culture and removing many instances of these acts from it. Along with laboratory testing, poor shelter conditions, and pet abuse, the idea that factory farming can be considered animal cruelty is a current debate in today’s world. As a matter of fact, that is my argument. We have relied on factory farming for so long that we overlook the experiences these animals go through in the factory process. It is no secret that animal cruelty is just wrong, and in this paper I present the many reasons in which factory farming is in fact animal cruelty, and that it should be abolished from our culture.
The term abuse refers to the use or treatment of something that is harmful. Most of us are already aware of abuse in our society. Spousal abuse, child abuse and pet abuse are most commonly talked about and referred to. Many of us are not aware that the meat that we eat is produced in an abusive way. While they are alive we should treat them well. Like humans, farm animals are sentient beings capable of feeling pleasure, pain, stress, frustration, and even fear. We will die one day as well, but this is not a reason to mistreat human. “If we feel jealously, then dogs and wolves and elephants and chimpanzees feel jealously. Animal emotions are not necessarily identical to ours but there’s no reason to think they should be. Their hearts and stomachs and brains also differ from ours, but this doesn’t stop us from saying they have hearts, stomachs and brains. There’s a dog joy and chimpanzee joy and pig joy, and dog grief, chimpanzee grief and pig grief” (Marc Bekoff).
Many people ponder the question whether or not animals do have feelings, but ultimately that answer is yes. In a documentary that I recently have watched I learned a lot things, in which were completely disturbing. I am personally a huge animal lover, I don’t know about most people but it is hard to sit back and watch what these factory farms do to the animals they have. “Birds make up 9 out of the 10 billion farm animals killed each year in the U.S” (Vegucated- the movie”). These people, who most likely have a pet at home waiting for them, are the ones responsible for cutting off Piglets tails and even testicles. Are you okay with agreeing that this is Humane to do, that it is okay to operate like this without anesthesia, or any kind of pain killer for that matter? These employers treat these animals like they are lifeless creatures; they castrate Steers with a rubber band. They do not care about the pain the animal is feeling, anesthesia is not a necessity. If this was your dog would you have the heart to go forward with this process, what exactly is the difference?
To say that animals are incapable of feeling is outrageous. Elephants and Gorillas mourn when they have lost a fellow friend, or family member. More and more people are becoming appalled by the treatment of animals in factory farms, both the everyday treatment and the occasional illegal acts revealed through undercover investigations. As a result, many people consider humanely raised meat to be anything that was not raised in a typical factory farm. These farms raise animal in tight confinement, feed them grain that fattens them unnaturally so these companies can raise as many animals as possible. “Those of us that raise our own animals are doing so because we don’t want to be part of the industrialized agricultural machine that routinely abuses animals for the sake of the almighty dollar” (James McWilliams).
Buying food that has Humane Labels does not mean you are purchasing food that did not suffer like Factory Farmed animals. Organic labels do not always