A Painless Death

“Death, though never pleasant, need not be painful” – Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

For one second, let us just say that all problems with eating meat is demolished. Let us just say that eating meat is okay. In this case, perhaps all of people’s attention concerning animal rights would be directed towards the killing method of animals – whether there is a painless way of killing.

In the current day, what is considered the most humane way of killing, is to have animals “stunned by electric current or a captive-bolt pistol and have their throats cut while they are still unconscious” (Singer 150). Perhaps this method of killing does not give any physical pain to animals. However, no matter how painless the death is, animals do feel anxiety leading up to the killing.

When these animals are loaded up into the truck and are being taken away from their normal hypothetical healthy grass fields, or when they smell the scent of the blood of the animal killed before them, can’t they feel fear and uneasiness leading up to their slaughter?

This brings me to a question that has been bugging me for a while since I started doing my readings for this IP: How are different religions so sure and keen about specific types of killing? If their goal of these methods of killings is to do no harm to animals, how are they certain that these animals do not feel mental pain? Is there any way to find out? If not, are these killing methods just a way to justify our evil humanly needs?
Eager to find answers to these questions, I interviewed a Muslim student, Zahra Marhoon ‘17, who is on a strict halal diet. “Halal diet is the way that Islam advises to eat. There are certain kinds of food that you cannot eat and there is a specific way that the animals that you eat have to be killed in order for you to eat them,” Zahra says. “We believe that if you bless the animals, the animals are not afraid and are willing to die.” When I asked her whether vegetarianism is popular among Muslims because that seems like a more humane diet, she responded by saying that “a lot of people go vegetarian because they cannot find Halal meat in where they live.” What still remains a question to me, is the true motive behind the Halal diet because it seems to me that the diet is based on the self-satisfaction and assumption of painless killing and the availability of such meat. Are religious diets that claim to reduce animal suffering legitimate excuses for consuming meat?