It's about responsibility, stupid!

The following copy appears in an ad sponsored by the National Horse Protection Coalition...
Spill some coffee. Burn yourself. (No one else involved here. You spilled it on yourself.) What's to do?... Sue the server.

Look in the mirror one day and notice that you're approximately 100 pounds overweight. (You ate the food yourself. No one forced you to.) What's to do?... Sue the company that fed you.

Feeding an unwanted old horse (or a young, injured one) becomes a bother. (You wanted him when you bought him.) What's to do?... Contact your friendly killer buyer or send him to an auction frequented by killer buyers. They'll take him off your hands and give you a few dollars to boot.

They're all manifestations of the same problem: irresponsibility. Incredibly, when it comes to horse slaughter, its leading defender is the American Association of Equine Practitioners.

The AAEP has the temerity to state that a law having the backing of a majority of Congress, which would have ended horse slaughter, "has some holes in it." This from a group that chooses to ignore such basic things as the casual brutality these horses undergo, horse theft, and horses bought for slaughter under false pretenses.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad. In fact, it's hard to think of an industry organization less equipped to deal with this problem than the AAEP.

But now they've come up with an idea for a one-day summit on"unwanted horses." We'd like their definition of an "unwanted horse." Weren't these horses wanted when they were acquired? Those who would dump a horse this way have found a defender in the AAEP, the very group that wants to be respected as "healers."

We really hope we're wrong, but our bet is that the AAEP will come out of their summit with a conclusion that fosters irresponsibility -- an empty "anti-slaughter" position, but concluding that "for now" it is a necessary evil.

What else can one expect from a group whose main contribution to the problem heretofore has been semantic (to them horses are "processed" in "plants," not slaughtered in slaughterhouses) and who are possessed of the insensitivity to try to equate slaughter with humane euthanasia in the minds of the public.

How can any thinking lover of the horse swallow that?

Contact your legislators and urge them to support the bill that will
end horse slaughter.

To learn more about this issue or to make a secure online donation please visit: www.horse-protection.org