Why Is the U.S. So Behind on Animal Welfare?

Imagine that you are going to be reincarnated as a domesticated animal, and you can choose whether to be reincarnated in the U.S., or in Spain. Which country would you pick?

My guess is that many of you will think that if you choose to be reincarnated in Spain, there’s a chance you might be a bull raised to die in a bullfight, and so it is better to pick the U.S and avoid such a fate.

The cruel and bloody ritual of bullfighting does mean that each year an estimated 35,000 bulls die a horrendous death. But it would be a mistake to conclude that animals in Spain have worse lives than in the U.S.

Take, for instance, the matter of egg-laying hens. Around 230 million of them in the U.S.—almost 60% of the hen population there—are crammed into bare wire cages that do not allow them enough space to fully stretch their wings. Whereas in Spain keeping hens in such conditions is illegal, and Spain’s 46 million hens have almost twice the space given. They also have access to a nest, perching space, and litter to allow pecking and scratching. None of those enrichments are to be found in U.S. cages.

These hens spend a full year in their cages, whereas it takes about 20 minutes for each bull to die in a Spanish bullfight. So it is reasonable to conclude that U.S. cages cause more suffering to hens than bullfights do to bulls, given the time and conditions spent in captivity. And given that there are more than 1,000 times as many hens in Spain as there are bulls bred to die in bullfights, a randomly selected domesticated animal is more likely to be a hen, and it will have a much better life in Spain than in the U.S.

Something similar holds for pigs, especially the mothers of the pigs who are reared and killed for pork, ham, or bacon. There are around 6 million of these mother pigs in the U.S., and about 75% of them spend the entire 16 weeks of their pregnancy in individual stalls too narrow for them to turn around, and too short for them to walk more than a step forward or backwards. Again, in Spain keeping pigs in this way is illegal.

Even more gruesome are the methods used in the U.S. to kill millions of chickens and turkeys when bird flu is detected on a factory farm. Often, the birds are killed by shutting off the ventilation to the shed, and bringing in heaters, so that, after an hour or two of heat in excess of 104°F, they die of heat stroke. In Spain, heating birds to death is not permitted.

But it’s not just about the U.S. vs Spain. The laws that protect animals in Spain apply to all 27 countries that make up the E.U., stretching from Portugal on the continent’s most southwestern parts to Finland in its most northeastern ones. The U.K., though no longer a member of the E.U., continues to require standards of animal welfare similar to those of the E.U.

It isn’t only hens and pigs who have better lives in Europe than in the U.S. It is not permitted to test cosmetics on animals in the E.U., nor to import cosmetics that have been tested on animals. There are no such prohibitions in the U.S. and no one knows how many such experiments are conducted and what kinds are done. That’s because the U.S. Animal Welfare Act, which gives the Department of Agriculture authority to regulate research on animals, specifically denies the Department authority to regulate research on rats, mice, and birds, who make up over 99% of all vertebrate animals used in U.S. experiments.

Why does the U.S. lag so far behind the U.K. and E.U. on animal welfare? One view is that Americans are still influenced by a Wild West mentality that tolerates the rough handling of animals. Supporters of that view point to the survival of the rodeo, which, like the bullfight, entertains spectators by mistreating animals. People who find it entertaining to watch a frightened young calf being lassoed by a rope that chokes them and then drags them to the ground are unlikely to be concerned about the suffering of pigs or chickens.

Yet when Americans can vote for laws that give farmed animals more space to move around, they do so. In 2002, 55% of Floridians voted to ban keeping pigs in stalls too narrow to allow them to turn around. In 2006, 62% of Arizonans voted to ban such stalls for both pigs and veal calves. In 2008, 63% of Californians voted to ban such stalls for pigs and veal calves, plus standard battery cages for hens. In 2016, 78% of Massachusettans voted to ban narrow stalls for pigs and veal and standard battery cages for hens, and to ban the sale of pork, veal, and eggs from out-of-state producers using these systems. In 2018, 63% of Californians voted to ban the sale of pork, veal, and eggs from out-of-state producers using systems that do not meet California’s standards. (A challenge by pork producers to the ban on in-state sales was dismissed last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.)

So I suggest that the U.S. is so far behind the E.U. on animal welfare, not because Americans care less about animals than Europeans, but because the U.S. political system is less democratic than Europe’s parliamentary system. In most parliamentary democracies, political parties are stronger and individual lawmakers do not need to raise large amounts of money to get re-elected. Money and lobbying have far greater influence in U.S. politics.

The U.S. congressional committee system also serves to disempower the electorate in a way that cannot happen in a parliamentary democracy, in which the Prime Minister and Cabinet are members of the legislature and have much influence on legislation. In the U.S., House and Senate Agriculture committees in both state and federal Congresses are usually made up of lawmakers representing predominantly agricultural districts, and they effectively have a veto on proposals to protect farmed animals. They often receive substantial donations from factory farm operators. In states without provision for citizen-initiated ballots, only tiny Rhode Island has farmed animal legislation that can compare with the E.U. or U.K. At the federal level, there is no legislation that even attempts to regulate the conditions in which farmed animals are kept.

Most Americans care about animals, and would like their country to be among the leading nations in protecting animals from unnecessary suffering. The reality is more disturbing, and I hope that people who learn the true situation seek to change it.