.

I would just like to make a couple of points about your recent comments since, though antidotal, they made it sound as if individual vets are almost unanimously against stopping horse slaughter. First, Senator John Ensign who sponsored S-1915 is one of only two veterinarians in congress. I also know many vets who are against horse slaughter. One went so far as to angrily confront Bob Goodlatte at a town hall meeting last year over the issue.

I will, however, admit that a lot of very intelligent and decent veterinarians are against stopping horse slaughter. As far as I can determine, there are two basic reasons why a vet or anyone else might be pro-slaughter (aside from personally gaining financially from it of course).

The first basic line of reasoning is that animals are property and the owner should have the right to sell a horse to slaughter just like a cattle rancher has that right. You have alluded to this. However, this conveniently ignores the fact that almost no individuals actually do this, but rather sell their horses at auctions to dealers often not knowing their ultimate destination. Less than 2% of all purchases by slaughter houses are "walk-ins" and virtually all of these are institutional. Many owners suffer terrible guilt when they find out the fate of their horse and some go to great lengths to try to repurchase the animal. A friend of mine saved such a horse at the very gates of Cavel last year. Therefore we are talking about the property rights of a few dealers and not the rights of the broader community of horse owners.

The "slippery slope" argument is another version of this "property rights" line of reasoning. This reasoning fundamentally holds that personal property rights outweigh the social values of the broader community and its views toward the protection of various creatures. Fortunately this line of reasoning is not paramount in the way our society runs. I would not equate humans to horses, but I will point out that this country once fought a civil war over whether a slave owner's property rights out weighed any inherent rights of a slave. It is unthinkable now, but that is where the "circle of compassion" of our society lay at that time, and largely because the economy of the South had depended on slavery.

In the end, our society expands this circle of compassion as its own basic needs are met. One can argue that slaves around the world owed their emancipation as much to the industrial revolution as they did to great humanitarians. In this country, at this time, the horse is clearly inside that circle in the minds of the vast majority.

The second line of pro-slaughter thought is based on acceptance of the whole abuse and neglect relationship and a belief that slaughter is sadly a necessary evil. It is this group that I will try to influence with facts because I believe they share my love of horses. In the beginning I was not at all convinced that this opinion was wrong, and thus spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get to the truth. If the relationship were true, I would be doing horses a disservice to fight slaughter.

I am sure that the average veterinarian is far too busy trying to save animals from disease to personally spend the amount of time required to research for him or herself all the information and data about horse slaughter. I am also sure, therefore, that many vets trust the AVMA and AAEP to do the research on such issues and therefore tend to accept their positions. Unfortunately, these organizations are very autocratic in protection of their positions. At their conventions they do not even allow the renting of booths for the distribution on information on horse slaughter. So it is very difficult to get information we have found through this institutional version of the brain-blood barrier.

 

could speculate on why these organizations don't want open debate, but let me instead make an observation that I think they should consider long and hard. They made the same claims about abuse and neglect in California when the ban there was being considered in 1998. Dr. Carolyn Stull later admitted that there was no such result. Even so, these organizations lobbied Congress very strongly in opposition to the recent Ensign/Byrd amendment and were soundly rebuffed, largely because of the California history.

In the end, horses are going to owe their salvation from slaughter to the internet much like slaves owed theirs to mechanization. But this is not likely to translate to other slaughter animals because as a society we widley consume their meat. Their protection may come some day when science has developed truly good substitutes for meats (and some are pretty good now). Then other animals may find themselves inside the circle and it will have little or nothing to do with stopping horse slaughter.

Frankly people who care deeply about horses (or anything else) no longer have to depend on "experts" for their opinions, but can educate themselves and make their own decisions. As frustrating as it may be, professionals in all fields better be prepared to be questioned and double checked on everything they say. If I was a member of the AAEP or AVMA, I would worry that their autocratic and inflexible approach is destroying their credibility and their reputation for giving sound advice. In the information age, it is hard to hide the truth for long.
_________________
John Holland
Horse Owner