Legal aspects of ritual slaughter

The legal aspects of ritual slaughter include the regulation of slaughterhouses, butchers, and religious personnel involved with traditional shechita (Judaism) and dhabiha (Islam). Regulations also may extend to butchery products sold in accordance with kashrut and halal religious law. Governments regulate ritual slaughter, primarily through legislation and administrative law. In addition, compliance with oversight of ritual slaughter is monitored by governmental agencies and, on occasion, contested in litigation. The most controversial aspect of ritual slaughter is the legality of unstunned slaughter, where animal welfare concerns regularly clash with religious concerns, and split public opinion.

Scope of regulations In Western countries, law reaches into every stage of ritual slaughter, from the slaughtering of livestock to the sale of kosher or halal meat. In the United States, for example, courts have ruled that kosher butchers may be excluded from collective bargaining units, a Jewish beit din (court) may forbid trade with disapproved butchers, retail sellers implicitly stipulate their compliance with rabbinic courts, a state law (NY) may incorporate a rabbinical ruling on kosher labeling, and kashrut symbols may be subject to trade infringement laws. In Jones v. Butz, the action involved "a challenge, under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, to the Humane Slaughter Act and in particular to the provisions relating to ritual slaughter as defined in the Act and which plaintiffs suggested involved the Government in the dietary preferences of a particular religious (e.g., Orthodox Jews) group. The court held that there is no violation of Establishment Clause because no excessive governmental entanglement and by making it possible for those who wish to eat ritually acceptable meat to slaughter the animal in accordance with the tenets of their faith, Congress neither established the tenets of that faith nor interfered with the exercise of any other." In the United States religious slaughter is not practiced under any exemption, as is the case in several European legal codes. Instead the Humane Slaughter Act defines religious slaughter by Jews and Muslims as one of two humane methods for killing animals for food:

(a) in the case of cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine, and other livestock, all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut; or (b) by slaughtering in accordance with the ritual requirements of the Jewish faith or any other religious faith that prescribes a method of slaughter whereby the animal suffers loss of consciousness by anemia of the brain caused by the simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a sharp instrument and handling in connection with such slaughtering. § 1902 The kosher food industry has challenged regulations as an infringement on religious freedom. Secular governments also have sought to restrict ritual slaughter not intended for food consumption. In the US, the most prominent such case is Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unconstitutional a local Florida ban on Santería ritual animal sacrifice. The issue is complicated by allegations of antisemitism and xenophobia. Lastly, recent debate in Switzerland has been contentious, in part, because of comparisons by a prominent activist between kosher slaughter and the methods used by Nazis in concentration camps. The metaphor was borrowed from the vegetarian and Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer who said "I am not a vegetarian for my own health, but for the health of the chickens" and has one of his fictional characters say, "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

Religious slaughter practice

Islamic jurisprudence A 1935 fatwa by the Mufti of Delhi declared that stunning that does not kill the animal and thus is 'reversible' is allowed under Islamic law. Al-Azhar rector Muhammad el-Tayyeb el-Naggar confirmed in 1982 that stunning would not make the practice un-Islamic. Many Muslim authorities accept reversible stunning prior to the cut, such as electrostunning, or concussion with a roundheaded (mushroom-shaped) hammer. Supreme Leader of Iran ayatollah Ali Khamenei permitted pre-cut stunning. In 2014, about 85% of halal meat produced by the Muslim community in the United Kingdom was pre-stunned.

Jewish jurisprudence According to Jewish law, slaughter of cattle and poultry is carried out with a single cut to the throat. According to ShechitaUK, '[a]ll forms of mechanical stunning, which may include asphyxiation by gas, electrocution by tongs or water or shooting with a captive bolt gun, cause pain on application and are thus prohibited by Jewish law.' According to rabbi Norman Solomon (2000), some Reform Jews regard ethics as more important than diet, and reject the very notion of kosher meat. Within the North American Conservative denomination of Judaism, there is a broad consensus of accepting meat from animals stunned before slaughter as kosher. Without exception, Orthodox Jewish communities uphold the prohibition on stunning before slaughter. In practice, a requirement for a shohet (Jewish ritual slaughterer) is that the shohet adheres to a high level of religiosity. Any kind of prestunning for livestock to be slaughtered according to the Jewish Kosher method has not yet been accepted by orthodox Judaism. In practice, kosher slaughtering is carried out by orthodox shochtim (authorized slaughterers) because the meat produced by Conservative slaughters from the Conservative denomination would not be acceptable to orthodox practising Jews and the limited market that would accept such meat is not commercially viable.

Historic bans (until 1945)

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