As discussed in an earlier post, not everyone believes the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (Prop 2 on California’s November, 2008 ballot) is worthwhile. A spokesperson for one such group has stated why and how they plan to beat the measure in November.
Scott Macdonald from the so-called Californians for Sound Farm Animal Agriculture (CSFAA) states: “These kinds of decisions should be made by veterinarians, scientists and animal welfare experts – not at the ballot box,” and CSFAA must “de-emotionalize” the issue through consumer education efforts.
In other words, Macdonald believes California’s citizen-powered ballot initiative process is flawed and CSFAA resents having to answer to simple-minded voters. He also chooses to ignore the thousands of animal welfare experts and vets that support this measure.
He continues:
“[Voters] may not understand farming, but they do understand government regulation. They understand that sticking your nose into somebody else’s business is misguided and needs to be resisted.”
Really? Was the recent massive recall of tainted meat distributed from the Hallmark Meat Packing Company a misguided effort to “butt into” the industry? Given the opportunity to express regret or shock over videos showing downer animals being abused and introduced to the food supply, Macdonald instead seems distressed that they may hurt CSFAA’s efforts to stop the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act from passing:
“It’s already poisoned the well, to a certain extent,” he said. “It’ll make it a little more difficult. We have to stick a pin in that emotional balloon.”
I don’t believe comments like these are helping his cause. If anything, he appears to talking directly to factory farmers, people he does not need to convince. But slaughterhouse abuse videos are not the root cause of his problems, it is the abuse itself that’s the problem.
To win in November, CSFAA must convince voters that animals are not animals, they are product, and the fact that animals feel pain is not important even if Californians think otherwise. CSFAA makes the mistake of underestimating California voters. The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act is clear, modest, and reasonable.