Veal Production - Is It The Result of Kidnapping and Murder?
A Meat and Dairy Industries Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Mary T. and Frank L. Hoffman, All-Creatures.org
May 2011

If someone took a baby boy away from his mother when he was only 2 or 3 days old with the full intent of killing him in the near future, there would be outcries of anger from all over the world. But this is exactly what we do to most of the male children of our dairy cows, and the world falls strangely silent.

Think about how a young mother would feel if she had her son kidnapped only two or three days after giving birth to him, and then two years later she had the same thing happen again.

Most of the time, we don't want to face the facts involved in our food production. Veal is one of these products that fall into this category. If someone took a baby boy away from his mother when he was only 2 or 3 days old with the full intent of killing him in the near future, there would be outcries of anger from all over the world. But this is exactly what we do to most of the male children of our dairy cows, and the world falls strangely silent. Why? Because we look upon animals as objects and not as living, feeling, breathing, companions whom God created and placed in our care and protection.

One of the Ten Commandments says, "Thou shalt not kill." Many argue that the Hebrew word should be more accurately translated "murder", and for the most part, I believe they are correct. The American College Dictionary describes murder as "to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously". It also says that one aspect of murder involves malice aforethought. Let's look at veal production in this light.

"Veal" calves are taken away from their mothers and placed in crates or narrow stalls measuring only 22" by 58", and they are chained in these stalls or crates for their entire life. They are unable to exercise or even stretch their limbs Many never even see the light of day. We need to place ourselves in these conditions and contemplate if we would consider such treatment to be humane or barbarous. If we would not like such treatment inflicted upon ourselves, and consider that such treatment would be inhumane and barbarous, then what we do to these calves must likewise be considered murder and not "farming". Additionally, these farmers knowingly and willfully place these calves in unnatural conditions with the full intent of killing them. Isn't that also a description of malice aforethought? I believe it is; which gives us a second reason to consider these actions to be murder and not farming.

These calves obviously have a desire to be with their mothers, but we have denied them that God given and natural right. And likewise, the mothers mourn for their children, but most of us turn a deaf ear.

Mary remembers when as a little girl being taken to a farm for a summer vacation. One day they killed a calf, and nearly sixty years later, she can still hear the terrible mourning cries of the calf's mother. At another farm with a commercial slaughter house, Mary can remember hearing the same horrible cries while waiting for her father on the road outside.

It's time we all begin to hear these cries and do something to put an end to all this pain and suffering.

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