Ritual slaughter
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"The question whether animals should be stunned or not remains a hotly contested issue, where animal welfare concerns regularly clash with religious concerns." --Sholem Stein |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Ritual slaughter is the practice of slaughtering livestock for meat in a ritual manner. Ritual slaughter involves a prescribed method of slaughtering an animal for food production purposes. Animal sacrifice by contrast involves motives beyond mere food production.
European restrictions on ritual slaughter
A number of countries in Europe (as well as Australia) have issued restrictions or outright bans on ritual slaughter. As of 2018, Slovenia is the only European country which has prohibited ritual slaughter altogether. A number of other countries, most notably in Scandinavia, has introduced legal requirements for animals to be stunned either before or just after having their throats cut during ritual slaughter. The question whether animals should be stunned or not remains a hotly contested issue, where animal welfare concerns regularly clash with religious concerns.
Bans on ritual slaughter have been proposed or enacted in a number of European countries, from the 1840s onward. Most of them have been removed. Although ostensibly introduced for reasons of animal welfare, the consistent involvement of antisemites in the campaigns from the outset in the 1840s has, among other things led Pascal Krauthammer in a doctoral dissertation to conclude that the aim of the Swiss anti-Semitic campaign, that included elements from blood libel accusations in neighbouring countries, was to reimpose restrictions on Jews at a time when they were just beginning to achieve enfranchisement.
In 2014 Denmark ruled that Islamic and Jewish slaughter practices are inhumane, requiring that all animals be stunned before being killed for food, sparking a debate on religious freedom and the relative harms of different methods.
