Trump Sues to Torpedo The Molecule of Relief Given to Animals Used for Food
A few short weeks after a gigantic egg recall due to a Salmonella outbreak across ten states, the Trump administration announced lawsuits to nullify California’s anti-cruelty egg laws.
The administration, constantly bowing to kiss the rings of corporate America, defended this action, saying “unnecessary red tape” led to higher egg prices.
As failure continues to be the Trump administration’s preferred option, by attempting to repeal California’s humane agricultural laws, the consequences will be food that is less safe.
Fortunately, as of May this year, Trump has lost 96% of cases at the US District court level, according to Robert Hubbell’s article Federal Judges Continue to Meet the Moment.
Yes, the humane laws primarily aim at lessening animal suffering, but the new regulations also ensure a reduction in foodborne illnesses.
The California laws passed by voter initiatives in 2008 and 2018 intended to end the sale of eggs in the state, where hens were housed in battery cages. The laws brought minimal relief to hens, allowing them to “lie down, stand up, fully extend limbs and turn around freely.”
Inside an egg-producing factory farm are thousands of battery cages crammed with tens of thousands of hens. These birds are so tightly packed body to body that they cannot move.
In this man-made, unnatural environment, hens will develop osteoporosis or brittle bones. She will suffer foot problems from standing on wire mesh for the entirety of her life. Because of the intense psychological stress of extreme confinement, she may exhibit pecking, cannibalism, and egg-eating.
Even though egg corporations’ own protocols caused these nightmarish scenarios, to mitigate the error of their ways, they took their cruelty another step further: debeaking.
Upon dreaming up this solution, CEOs must have high-fived each other in the conference room. Their new protocols instructed workers to grasp female baby chicks one by one, shearing off their beaks using a hot blade.
In 2023, the US Supreme Court preserved the California animal welfare voter initiatives. These laws created minimum space requirements for pigs, cows, and chickens whose body parts are sold in California grocery stores. Iowan-derived animal meat products where animals have zero welfare protections cannot be brought to market in California.
Trump’s lawsuit aiming to destroy animal welfare protections is the tip of the tidal wave of disaster animals are facing under our Republican controlled government. The Humane League is launching an all-out effort urging voters to contact their Senators and Congresspeople, demanding that they defeat an upcoming vote on the House Farm Bill in which farmers will be given full rein to implement their most useful inhumane tactics.
You and I are the only stopgap that animals have. Millions of animals in the food industry are subjected to the worst imaginings humans can come up with. Animal suffering is of no account if it benefits the bottom line and the human palate.
Please call your Senator or Congressperson demanding that they vote NO on the Farm Bill, which aims to destroy the infinitesimal relief animals in factory farms have been given.