Stretch Drive for Saving Horses

This do-nothing Congress this week can finally do something about the shameful business of horse slaughter in this country. It can tell the foreign-owned corporations that kill our horses to grace the tables of the French and the Japanese -- and pay little federal tax for the privilege of doing so -- that we no longer will tolerate or permit the indecent destruction of the living symbol of American heritage.

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which comes to the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday, bans the domestic slaughter of horses for human consumption. You read that right. There isn't already such a ban on the books. Last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, approximately 94,000 U.S. horses -- tens of thousands of them perfectly sound and fit -- were killed for food at three foreign-owned slaughterhouses (two are in Texas, one is in Illinois). The businesses get the horse from contractors who buy them dirt cheap at auction, inhumanely kill them through vivisection (the cutting into of a living animal), and then sell and ship the meat overseas to our horsemeat-eating friends, allies and trade partners.

You would think that this political dynamic -- Whose side are you on? All the pretty horses or the freeloading foreign killers? -- is precisely the sort of tug-at-the-heartstrings issue that would generate overwhelming support during an election year. And, indeed, the bill has broad bipartisan support. Rep. John Sweeney, a Republican from the Northern horse state of New York, has teamed with Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Republican from the Southern horse state of Kentucky, and together they have fought for many years to get the measure to this critical point. According to a recent poll, 68 percent of Americans do not support the slaughter of horses for meat.

But, in spite of those overwhelming numbers, the anti-slaughter act also has some very powerful bipartisan enemies in Congress, on the House Agriculture Committee and elsewhere, who are trying to scare their colleagues off this legislation by arguing, among other whoppers, that the practice of slaughtering horses is akin to the practice of assisting in suicides of terminally-ill or painfully-alive humans. In their anti-matter world, the slaughterers are angels of mercy dutifully saving doomed horses from an otherwise worse fate-- neglect or starvation. It is an argument that is as grotesque and as foul as the practice the bill aims to stop.

"This is not a bill that will improve the treatment of horses," said the lead opponent of the measure, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), whose House Agriculture Committee in July tried to poison the pending legislation by attaching to it amendments that would kill both its letter and spirit. "Preventing the slaughter of horses," Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) added, "does nothing but increase the economic strain on families who can no longer afford to care for them, stretch already thin budgets at rescue facilities, and increase the chances that horses will suffer as they become unwanted or old."

But nothing in the Slaughter Prevention Act prevents a horse owner from humanely euthanizing his or her old or sick horse. And so far nothing has prevented the slaughterers from mistreating the horses both before and during the killing process. Right now owners sell their unwanted horses for a few hundred dollars to agents for the slaughterhouses at grim auctions. Surely that is not, in the words of Rep. Goodlatte, "a legitimate industry" the legislation would "destroy" by "government fiat." It is a sick and miserable business that has no place in the life of a compassionate nation. It's no wonder that the mayor of Kaufman, Texas, which is home to one of the three slaughter plants, wants it closed for good.

Opponents of the measure also make an "owners' right" argument. They say that preventing the slaughter of horses deprives owners of a right to dispose of property the way they see fit. But Congress does that all the time. People around the world eat dogs and cats. Can you imagine such an industry surviving in America? Can you imagine any right-minded person making an argument that a dog owner has a right to sell his animal for food and that the government cannot have say in stopping him from doing so? There are plenty of laws in this country that prevent humans from doing despicable things to animals. The only difference with this despicable practice is that there are oily lobbyists on hand to defend it.

Horses helped build this country. And even today they enrich the lives of millions of Americans. Our immense response to the champion Thoroughbred Barbaro's injury -- the cards and emails and flowers are still pouring in -- demonstrate that the regal and loyal animal still holds a special place in our hearts. Now, finally, Congress can do something about that. Our legislators can perform an absolute good. They can side with the horses and not their killers. They can side with common decency in the treatment of animals or they can side with people who fire a metal rod into a horse's head and then hoist it up by its rear legs before cutting its throat. Congress has made so many bad choices this term. Or it has chosen to do nothing at all. This time it ought to be different.

Andrew Cohen is the author of Bench Conference, a lawyer, and the part owner of two standardbred horses. He also is part of a group that saves horses from slaughter, retrains them, and then puts them up for adoption.