Protect animal abuse videos

The U.S. agriculture industry and billion-dollar backers like Monsanto Corp. are behind bills that will make undercover videos that report abuse and unsanitary conditions in factory farms and slaughterhouses illegal.

Videos are proof of egregious abuse; pigs suffering in huge warehouses confined in such small pens they can’t turn around (for years), workers kicking live baby piglets like soccer balls, dairy cows chained upside down hung by one leg in terror on fast-moving slaughterhouse production lines, not knocked out by the stun gun meant to kill them. Some people blame the low-paid, stressed out, often-illiterate workers. I blame the corporations that focus primarily on increasing profit. I blame all of us who ignore the problem.

The Humane Society, Mercy for Animals, Farm Sanctuary and, yes, even the sometimes radical, in-your-face People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are spreading awareness about the horrendous abuse in factory farms and slaughter houses. They know that without video proof no one would ever believe the horror. Videos make us think.

Animals that give their lives for food should live a merciful life and have a humane death. In factory farms and corporate slaughterhouses, they don’t have either.

Ginger Ninde

Medical Lake