Horse Slaughter Research Paper

The topic of horse slaughter doesn’t usually come up very often in everyday conversation. Horse slaughter is more of an implicit subject, which your everyday person doesn’t know much about. Because it is highly controversial, it has gone through the cycle of being banded and then reinstated twice in the last 5 years. With being involved in the horse industry my entire life, I have witnessed the effects first hand. Some people see it as killing pets, animal cruelty, and morally wrong. However, I see it as a source of income, a way to stop the starvation and abuse of horses, an export industry for the United States, as well as a quality meal for in times of despair.

A question often thought about is whether or not horse slaughter is humane. If you ask many people, they will say no. Why isn’t it humane?

The horse (Equus ferus caballus)[2][3] is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Thousands of horse owners have to drive miles upon miles to either Canada or Mexico to slaughter their horses. People will argue that slaughtering a horse is the “humane way” to relieve the unwanted horse population. Since one is responsible for the over population, one should be the one responsible for reducing the numbers. Horse meat can be used for many things, dog food or other bi-products. One can slaughter a cow or a pig without anyone saying anything. Euthanizing a horse can be extremely expensive, a vet has to come administrate the medicine and then one has to dispose of the body because it is against the law to have a dead horse carcass lying around your farm. The cost of this is often why people just leave their horses to just rot away or throw them on to another farm so it is someone else’s responsibility.

Murder and abuse cases never fail to startle society. Moral codes are flouted with unmatched rigorousness by these indubitable egregious crimes. Sufferers in these cases are often people. Nonetheless, these callous obscenities should not be seen as less important when animals are the victims. Animals undergo horrendous abuse due to barbaric individuals, greed, and unnecessary lab testing.

Recently, the Texas Humane Legislation Network has been leading the attack on the multimillion dollar companies, citing a law from 1949 that "prohibits possession, sale or shipment of horse meat [intended] for human consumption" (St. Petersburg Times, 9/4/02).  Both companies have filed lawsuits in retaliation. They state that the slaughter of horses eases financial strain, feeds other nations, and is accomplished in a humane manner.

The reason why they bleed them to death is so that the meat is good for human consumption. The governments have imposed a law that the horses, or slaughtered animals, must be made senseless. This is done by stunning or electrifying but it doesn’t always work. In a lot of pictures I have seen, the horses are twisting their legs in pain when they are hoisted and their throats

An ongoing ethical debate in America is whether horse slaughter should be legalized in the United States. This debate grabs the emotions of many individuals and arises many questions. Horses are normally considered companions that are used for labor and events. Isn’t it inhumane to kill a companion? Aren’t there enough homes for our furry companions? In all reality horses are expensive animals and aren’t always used for their breeding purposes. Humane societies/rescues barely have enough room for neglected small animals, bringing in larger mammals is not plausible. Saving every animal will cause an overpopulation problem and increase the rate of neglect. Horses are being neglected, starved, abused, and even shipped across the country, banning slaughter houses is the truly the inhumane route. Slaughtering isn’t an easy alternative, but allowing them to suffer isn’t any better.

Horse slaughter is just exactly as it sounds. It is the inhumane murder of innocent horses. I will never understand how someone can sit and actually enjoy a meal consisting of horse meat knowing how that horse came to be served for dinner. It’s a cruel and heartbreaking process that starts from the moment the poor horse is loaded on a transport trailer. These horse suffer in worst fashion from abuse and neglect until they are unfortunately killed and severed for a meal. This is not okay. The practice of horse slaughter must be ended in order to stop the extremely inhumane torture of this precious companions.

Philosopher Elizabeth Harman argues that painlessly killing an animal is impermissible if we have strong moral reasons against causing them pain (Harman 2011). She bases her argument on the premise that animals have moral status, and that harming something with moral status is impermissible. Harman claims that an action which painlessly kills an animal harms the animal, therefore this practice is impermissible unless justified by other considerations.

In today’s society, horses are being viewed as companion animals rather than livestock. The problem is that legally, horses are considered livestock and the laws for the treatment of companion animals versus livestock are very different (Winegar, “The Horse Slaughter Debate: Solving the Puzzle”).

For the last five thousand years the horse has been of greater human interest for its strength than as a source of meat. However, American horses are still shipped over our borders and slaughtered for human consumption overseas. Horse slaughter and the export of horses from the United States should be banned because it is cruel and inhumane; furthermore, consuming American horse meat can be detrimental to human health.

Every little girl dreams of having a horse, but what do you do with that horse when he is too old to be rode and he struggles to come in and eat his grain? Most likely you don’t have the heart to put him down yourself, and to have him euthanized costs so much, but are there any other options? Yes, there is one more option, that is horse slaughter. Don’t be afraid of it just because you hear the word slaughter, the horses are treated well and they are put down humanely. Horse slaughter is a big controversy in the United States, and there are many people that are against it, but I’m here to tell you why everyone should be for horse slaughter. Horse slaughter is something that is needed and not something that is evil. Today I’m going to tell you about why everyone should be for horse slaughter and how it can help to control the horse population, help stimulate the economy and help feed people that are starving.

Some of the ways in which animals are slaughtered include being stunned electrically or gassed before being killed. Captive bolt stunning is the most common way to slaughter a larger animal such as a cow. This involves having a ‘pistol’ placed against their head then shooting a metal rod into their brains. But more often than not, it misses the target. Throat cutting and using chest sticks are alternative ways to kill an animal before being sent off to make meat and are both used to make them bleed to death. If humans were to do anything similar like this to each other we would be locked up for ‘manslaughter’ because it is considered

In 2006, horse slaughter was no longer allowed in the United States. Animal rights groups had many reasons for convincing the public that horse slaughter was bad and inhumane. The regular means of slaughtering some animals involves using a captive bolt gun, but with horses, the captive bolt gun can be ineffective and leave the horse somewhat conscious. This means that the horse will either have to take several blows to the head or they will be conscious when their throat is slit. Many animal rights groups that say horses go through more pain if they go to slaughterhouses. But out in the wild and on some ranches, horses will go through excruciating pain, they will be starved to death, attacked by predators, and be pushed out of their herd due to overpopulation.