Horses Deserve More Than Slaughter

Horses that need help
By WAYNE PACELLE
Special to the Star-Telegram

"...Of course, if you accept the slaughter industry's line of argument, we would have no laws against any form of cruelty. The dogfighter or cockfighter could just as readily invoke this principle in defense of his own depravities. The argument further unravels when you realize that there are already good federal laws -- including the Horse Protection Act -- that forbid the harming of horses for profit. In fact, historically, it was rank cruelty to horses that first inspired our state laws against cruelty.

The foreign slaughterhouses attempt to argue that they slaughter our horses 'for their own good,' claiming that we'd be overrun with horses but for the slaughter plants. But every reputable humane organization rejects this nonsense. Even if a horse is not faring well, it's much better for these animals to be humanely euthanized where they live, rather than to ship the animal as many as 1,000 miles to a slaughterhouse.

Horse slaughter is not a question of property rights but a matter of personal responsibility and public standards in the care of animals.

As Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Seabiscuit, has written, 'Here are these exquisite, immensely powerful creatures who willingly give us their labor in return for our stewardship. ...We owe them more than we can ever repay. To send these trusting creatures to slaughter is beneath their dignity and ours.'"