A Meat and Dairy Article used with permission from All-Creatures.org

In Defense of Animals reports on protests and backlash in response to the Minnesota State Fair's cruel, exploitative, disturbing, and dangerous birthing exhibit.

Animal Rights Protests Demanded End To Miracle of Birth Center at Minnesota State Fair
From Staff, IDA In Defense of Animals, idausa.org
September 2025

Images from Canva

ST. PAUL, Minn. (Sept. 2, 2025) — Animal advocates are sounding the alarm over widespread cruelty and disturbing public health risks at the Minnesota State Fair’s Miracle of Birth Center. In Defense of Animals, along with Minnesota-based Animal Rights Coalition and undercover investigator Unparalleled Suffering, are demanding an end to the fair’s birthing exhibit which exploits animals in their most private and tender moments while hiding the truth behind animal agriculture.

Peaceful, colorful demonstrations occurred throughout the fair’s 12-day run, drawing attention to the hidden animal cruelty in food production, deceptive messaging promoted by the fair, and public health risks. Protesters engaged in public education, leafleting, chalk activism, and banner drops to disrupt the normalization of animal abuse at the so-called “family-friendly” attraction.

“The Miracle of Birth Center betrays the values of honesty, compassion, and protecting our children,” said Lia Wilbourn, Farmed Animals Campaign Coordinator for In Defense of Animals. “Families are being misled into watching a sanitized version of animal exploitation, where mothers suffer forced pregnancies, public birthing, and have their newborns torn away — all for entertainment. The Minnesota State Fair is exposing children to animal cruelty and potentially deadly diseases to keep people buying meat, dairy, and eggs. Birthing shows should be dropped from the program because they inflict suffering onto mother animals and their babies.”

Photo from Unparalleled Suffering

For over two decades, the Miracle of Birth Center has masked the brutal realities of animal farming. Each year, up to 200 babies — piglets, calves, and lambs — are born into a crowd of noisy humans armed with smartphones, then separated from their mothers and their bodies grown and made into meat.

Rather than celebrating life, the exhibit puts reproductive exploitation on display: mothers who are forcibly impregnated, confined, and made to give birth on cue for public entertainment. Many endure labor surrounded by noisy crowds, with frightened newborns quickly separated from their mothers to serve human industries, especially dairy.

Eyewitnesses from In Defense of Animals, Animal Rights Coalition, and undercover investigator Unparalleled Suffering have described these birth exhibits as deeply distressing and objectifying, reducing sentient beings to props for spectators.

Photo from Unparalleled Suffering

This year, the Minnesota State Fair suspended live dairy cow births due to the ongoing H5N1 bird flu crisis and its rampant spread among dairy herds — yet exhibits like the “Moo Booth” persisted unchecked, presenting human milking of cows as wholesome education. Internal training materials for volunteers warned of bird flu and E. coli transmission risks, especially for children, while instructing them to assure visitors “the animals are treated well.”

“This isn’t education. It’s cruelty,” said Amy Leinen, Campaign Manager for the Animal Rights Coalition. “The Miracle of Birth Center turns a vulnerable moment into a public sideshow.”

Undercover observations by Unparalleled Suffering documented the trauma of animals forced to give birth in noisy, crowded environments. In the dairy industry, calves are routinely taken away from their mothers within hours — a practice mirrored at the fair. The mothers often cry out in distress, helpless as their babies are removed and their bodies repurposed for human consumption.

After the fair ends, most of the animals — including the babies born on-site — face a horrifying fate: they are loaded onto trucks, transported in extreme weather without food or water, and slaughtered at a fraction of their natural life spans.

More than 11,000 concerned citizens have already urged State Fair officials and the Minnesota Board of Animal Health to end disturbing and risky live animal birthing shows once and for all.

Take action here: https://www.idausa.org/campaign/farmed-animal/latest-news/end-horrific-birthing-shows-at-the-minnesota-state-fair

Find out more about animal farming: https://www.idausa.org/campaign/farmed-animal/why-farmed-animals

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Posted on All-Creatures: September 3, 2025
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