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A Stunning Ruling Against Religious Freedom

(JNS) Melanie Phillips - Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia have banned kosher and halal slaughtering practices. Now the European Court of Justice, the EU's highest judicial body, has issued a ruling upholding the ban on kosher and halal ritual slaughter in two regions of Belgium, sending out a devastating cultural signal. A core principle of Western modernity, that minority groups can freely practice their religious precepts in a private sphere within which they pose no threat to the majority, has now been junked in Europe. The ruling upholds neither animal welfare nor religious freedom. Both Judaism and Islam require animals to "be intact and healthy at the time of slaughter" for meat to be kosher or halal. Requiring pre-slaughter stunning of an animal by firing a bolt into its head or by electric shock damages the animal, making it forbidden to eat. Moreover, the idea that stunning is humane is risible. It's often ineffective, causing the animal to be subjected to this assault more than once. At its base, the argument over ritual slaughter reflects the priority now given to animals over humans.
2020-12-31 00:00:00
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