The ‘Strongest Farmed Animal Protections’ in the US are Under Threat - What Can You Do?
The protection of animals is under attack after the Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to do just that. Recently, the Supreme Court upheld Prop 12, which is considered the ‘strongest farmed animal protection law,’ and establishes minimum space requirements for hens, calves, and pigs. In response to this ruling, members of Congress have introduced a counter act to prohibit these protections.
According to Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS), the proposed EATS Act, which stands for Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression, is to ‘ensure state’s autonomy over agricultural practices.’ The reality, however, is much more grim for farmed animals and consumers of meat.
Animals in factory farms, meaning animals raised for slaughter, are often barely treated like living creatures. Resigned to a life of not being able to move or lay down, let alone have social interactions, these animals are suffering. To combat this suffering, many states have enacted laws, such as Proposition 12 in California, to require more space for animals in factory farms.
Beyond the protection of animals, Prop 12 also protects human well-being due to the link between extreme confinement and foodborne illnesses like E. Coli and Salmonella. The EATS Act will trample on states' rights, preventing them from banning products on the grounds of cruelty and safety, both for humans and animals. This means waving goodbye to individual states' power to protect animals and enforce better laws and regulations for agricultural practices including farmed animal welfare standards.
The EATS Act in Action
The EATS Act is an attack on laws such as Prop 12, and it is an attack on the livelihood of animals. If passed, the act would undermine states' ability to enact laws affecting agricultural practices, jeopardizing numerous state-level farmed animal protection laws. The EATS Act is modeled after the King Amendment, which was put forth by former House Representative Steve King (R-IA), which would have prohibited states from ‘establishing animal welfare standards for agricultural products sold in-state but produced elsewhere.’ The King Amendment ultimately failed, but clearly other alternatives are cropping up in its place.
“The EATS Act will trample on states’ rights, preventing them from banning products on the grounds of cruelty and safety, both for humans and animals.”
The Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law School published a 48-page report on the EATS Act and the dangers of it being enacted. The report not only challenges the constitutionality of the Act, but also outlines how the language of the EATS Act threatens farmer livelihood, the very people it set out to ‘protect’.
The conclusion of the report states that ‘significant questions are left open by the language of the EATS Act, and each of these unresolved questions has the potential to determine the fate of entire industries, billions of dollars of investment, and the flow of interstate commerce. Even for producers who initially might benefit from the EATS Act, this uncertainty and disruption could be extensive.’ Because of the language and potential interpretations of the Act, the ramifications ripple far beyond animals.
Although Prop 12 is notable after being upheld by the Supreme Court, there are over a thousand other state laws that would be threatened or completely void if the EATS Act were to pass. And a lot of them are not just for animal welfare, but human safety. In Iowa, for example, there are regulations to report any poultry or birds that have been exposed to or infected with infectious, contagious or communicable diseases. According to the EATS Act, common sense laws such as these ‘impose preharvest standards or conditions on imported poultry by requiring specific measures be taken before live birds may be brought into the state,’ meaning that it could be prohibited.
The Reality of Animal Farming
Factory farming at its core is about maximizing production while minimizing the costs to raise farmed animals. The overwhelming majority of Americans, 94 percent to be exact, believe that animals raised for food ‘deserve to live free from abuse and cruelty.’ However, nearly 99 percent of farmed animals in the United States come from factory farms, and the true conditions of the animals are often hidden to prevent pushback from a general public that favors animal welfare.
Credit : Andrew Skowron
Chickens in factory farms are largely raised in indoor sheds where the lights are kept on to ensure the animals are always eating and growing. Because they are bred to sizes not natural to the animals, they often suffer from chronic pain and organ failure as a result. For egg-laying hens, they are kept in cages about the size of a filing cabinet drawer, up to 10 hens in each. Pigs are kept in facilities without fresh air or natural sunlight, and display behaviors such as tail-biting due to the unnatural circumstances. Instead of addressing the inhumane conditions, the industry has begun to simply cut off tails or teeth. Cows on factory farms rarely have room to graze or lie down and live very short lives. Veal calves are killed after only 8-16 weeks.
The list of horrors goes on for factory farmed animals — they live short lives, a far cry from how they are meant to exist and thrive in nature.
Take Action
Please consider reaching out to your members of congress. You can use this link to find your state representatives. Simply type in your zip code and your state representatives will appear, under each person’s photo there will be a contact link. This will take you to their individual contact page where you can fill out an online form asking them to oppose (H.R. 4417 / S. 2019).
You can send a note as simple as:
Dear Representative _____
I am your constituent, and I am writing to urge you to oppose H.R. 4417 / S. 2019, the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act. This bill is an example of extreme overreach which violates the rights of individual states to make their own laws. This bill is designed to circumvent democratically enacted laws to protect animals such as California’s prop 12 which was upheld by the Supreme Court, and it would erase hundreds of protections for animals from the worst forms of cruelty such as the extreme confinement of farmed animals, the abuse of dogs in puppy mills, and the torture of animals in testing laboratories. This law is an affront to democracy and morally bankrupt. Please do the right thing, respect states’ rights, and say no to H.R. 4417 / S. 2019.
The most critical thing you could do to end factory farming and the animal suffering it causes is adopt a plant-based lifestyle. As long as there is a demand for meat from a growing population, animals will continue to be farmed with only profit and production in mind. A vegan lifestyle not only decreases the demand for factory farmed animals, but is far more sustainable for the environment. You can try the Species Unite 30-Day Challenge here, and you can also sign the Species Unite petition to oppose the EATS Act here.
Written by Olivia Deming
Olivia is currently studying Political Science and Anthropology at Columbia University. She writes and edits for the Columbia Political Review, and is the President of the Women's Wrestling Club.
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