2024-02-24 02:36:37
Should we tolerate religious practices when they involve the mistreatment and suffering of animals?
In 2017, the Belgian region of Flanders—following other European countries—prohibited the slaughter of animals intended for human consumption without prior stunning, although, in the case of ritual slaughter, it allowed a form of stunning (“reversible”). which causes the animal to regain sensitivity before dying. With this procedure, in the opinion of the Jewish and Muslim communities, the production of meat is impossible. kosher o halal, the type of food in accordance with its religious precepts, “blessed” by an authorized slaughterer, from an animal that has died after having its throat cut and bled, that has not been hormoned or fattened “artificially” and that has lived in relative freedom of movement until his sacrifice.
As expected The matter reached the Court of Justice of the European Union through a preliminary ruling in which the Belgian judge asked whether such a prohibition constituted an infringement of European law to the extent that, on the one hand, article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union establishes freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and, on the other hand, Article 13 of the Functioning Treaty provides that: “… the Union and the Member States shall take full account of the welfare requirements of animals as sentient beings.”
Well, in December 2020, the Grand Chamber of the CJEU ruled that the desire, in this case of Belgium, to protect the welfare of animals constitutes an objective of general interest and that the restriction is proportional (Case C-336/19 ). This same week another European court, in this case the Human Rights Court, has also ruled that, contrary to what the appellants alleged, citizens of the Muslim religion and several NGOs, the Belgian state can justifiably restrict freedom of religion and belief by prohibiting ritual sacrifice.
As with other rights established in the Convention, religious freedom is not absolutebut, as provided in article 9.2., may be restricted to protect public order, health or morals. The welfare of animals is not, as is evident, an express obstacle to the exercise of freedom of religious belief, but the ECtHR, in a certainly novel interpretation, maintains that it can be included in the notion of “public morality.” That this limitation is also “necessary” in a democratic society, as Article 9.2 also requires, is something about which, in the absence of a European “consensus” on the relationship that the State must maintain with the Church(s), s), States have a margin of appreciation to which they must be deferential (Executive of the Muslims of Belgium and Others v. Belgium, February 13th).
«Sport hunting, fishing or recreational activity with animals is not prohibited in the way in which they kill them»
In this way, countries have the possibility—but not the obligation—to eliminate the religious exception to the general rule of prior stunning, and some of them may do so with greater legal coverage from now on. Spain, one of the largest producers and exporters of meat kosher y halal, probably won’t be one of them. And it is that, Beyond the reasons based on pure economic interests—never happily dismissed—I believe that doing so would be a case of major hypocrisy. moral. Let’s see it.
Already when the preliminary ruling question was raised in 2017 before the CJEU, representatives of the Muslim and Jewish communities appealed to the discrimination they suffered against those who, involved in practices such as sport hunting, fishing or recreational activity with animals in general, do not see the way in which they kill animals restricted or prohibited. The CJEU then, and now the ECtHR, dismisses the argument by way of non-discrimination, alleging, very hastily in my opinion, that we are not dealing with analogous activities.
But in reality the question is not that but rather how, particularly in Spain, it would be possible to appeal to a public morality that encompasses not causing gratuitous suffering to animals when bullfighting is allowed, among many others, in addition to a good number of other practices in which the interests of the animals hardly count. And I think that something very similar can be said about the rest of the European countries, countries where, by the way, meat will continue to be consumed. halal o kosheralthough, yes, produced in some “paradise” halal».
But there is more: the treatment of the animals from which the meat is obtained halal o kosheras I pointed out before, can be much more respectful of your well-being; more committed to his freedom from suffering throughout his life compared to the lives that, through intensive forms of livestock farming, we inflict on the animals from which the meat obtained is obtained through prior stunning and subsequent slaughter with a captive bolt gun. “Our animals” says a farm advertisement halal in the United States that serves consumers eager to eat “healthy, organic” meat—live a natural, blissful life and a few minutes of discomfort before they die.”
This being like this: What good reason can we put forward against the Jew or Muslim whom we force to sacrifice their ritual sacrifice? I’m afraid none.
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#Public #morality #hypocrisy #animal #welfare #Pablo #Lora