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A Brief Comment on the “Euthanasia”

of Farm Animals as a Result of Covid-19
Gary L. Francione Following
May 10 · 5 min read

“Thanks for feeling bad because you have to ‘euthanize’ us; how about not killing us for food in the rst
place?” (photo: Kenneth Schipper-Vera/Unspalsh)

For the past several weeks, news outlets have been telling us repeatedly
that, as a result of meat processing plants closing because large numbers of
employees have contracted Covid-19, and as a result of supply-chain
disruptions for meat, milk, and eggs caused by the virus, many millions of
farm animals are having to be “euthanized.” Farmers and industry
executives are appearing as daily guests on news shows talking about how
heartbroken they are that they have to “euthanize” these animals. The news
anchors doing the interviews often treat their guests with a level of
sympathy similar to what they show to people who have lost family
members as a result of the virus. I saw one report where an anchor
interviewed a woman who had just lost her mother to Covid-19 and then
talked to a pig farmer who was moaning about having to “depopulate” his
farm by “euthanizing” his pigs. The anchor treated both as suffering a
similar sort of personal tragedy.

The fact that we are lamenting the killing of these animals shows how
deeply committed we are to our horribly confused thinking about animals.

First, let’s deal with the use of “euthanasia” to describe what is going on
here. Euthanasia is a death that is in the interest of the being who is killed. If
someone were to say, “I decided to euthanize my dog because he had
cancer, was in great pain, and had stopped eating or exhibiting any
behavior consistent with his having any quality of life,” I would regard that
as a proper use of “euthanize.” If someone were to say, “I decided to
euthanize my dog because I just didn’t want to live with a dog anymore
even though my dog was healthy, happy, and had a great quality of life,” I
would regard that as an improper use of “euthanize.” The proper word in
the second example is kill. Death was not in the interest of the dog in the
second example. Death is not ever in the interest of a healthy sentient being
— human or nonhuman.

The deaths of these farm animals is not as a result of euthanasia; it is the

result of killing; it is the result of slaughter.

“Euthanasia” is being used in

the context of animals being
killed in the wake of the Covid-
19 virus precisely because it
evokes the sort of emotional
reactions we experience when
we think about ending the life
of a beloved nonhuman family
member. It promotes the notion
that we care morally and
emotionally about the farm
“You see, whether we are ‘euthanized’ or slaughtered, we end up dead.” (photo: animals being killed. Although I
Annie Spratt/Unspalsh)
do not defend the institution of
pet ownership, it is clear that
the context in which we decide to euthanize a nonhuman family member
when the animal is ill and no longer has any quality of life is completely
different from the context in which we kill farm animals because workers
are sick and not showing up for work or because demand for meat is
decreasing as a result of the pandemic.

Moreover, “euthanasia,” when used properly, involves a method of causing

death that is as painless as possible, and is without distress or fear. I can
assure you that the the farm animals being killed as a result of the virus are
suffering considerable pain, fear, and distress — just as they do during the
conventional slaughtering process.

Second, why is anyone lamenting the killing of farm animals who were
going to be killed and eaten anyway? It’s not as if these animals were going
to have a nice life if they weren’t “euthanized.” They were going to be killed;
indeed, if it were not for the virus disrupting things, most of these animals
would have been slaughtered already. The reason why they are being
“euthanized” is because the workers are not there to kill them and the
demand is such that their butchered bodies won’t sell for the time being and
no one wants to waste any more money on these animals because there are
others coming up through the supply chain.

These animals have no inherent or intrinsic vale. They are property; they are
things that have only an extrinsic, external, and economic value. They exist
to be used by humans exclusively as replaceable resources. They exist to be
part of an institutional use where producers and consumers engage in
selling and buying them and their body parts and products. The only
difference between a pig who has been “euthanized” and one who has been
slaughtered, butchered, and sold in the supermarket is that no humans
benefited from the death of the animal in the former case. No one made a
profit; no one got to eat the animal. The animal property was wasted. That
may occasion feeling sorry for us. It is absurd for us to lament the deaths of Top highlight

these animals as though they were a tragedy for them. They were going to
be killed no matter what. We “euthanize” them because it is in our
economic interest to do so.

Our lamenting the deaths of these animals, and our use of “euthanasia” to
describe what is just plain and simple killing, provide yet another example
of our confused thinking about our use of nonhuman animals. We claim to
regard animals as having moral value. Most of us believe that it is wrong to
inflict “unnecessary” suffering on animals. But it is not necessary to eat
animals for reasons of health; indeed, there is a growing consensus that
animal products are detrimental to human health. We eat animals because
we like the taste or because it’s convenient or because we’ve been doing it
for a long time and it’s a habit. None of those reasons makes the practice of
eating animals and animal products necessary. All of the harm that we
inflict on these animals is gratuitous. And that means that, despite our
claim that we take animals seriously as a moral matter, we don’t.

So we try to make ourselves feel better by lamenting the deaths of these

animals and talking about their “euthanasia.” Like many fantasies, it may
make us feel better, but it is nothing more than an attempt to make it seem
as though we care about animals when, if we did, we would not be using
them for food (or for clothing, entertainment, etc.) in the first place.

And as we contemplate the dystopian nightmare that we are all living as a

result of this pandemic, and contemplate that it, like almost all pandemics,
is the result of humans exploiting nonhumans, and consider the ecological
devastation of animal agriculture, maybe veganism will seem less
“extreme.” For more information about a vegan diet and veganism as a
general matter, including all sorts of easy, cheap, and nutritious recipes,
visit here.

Vegan Pandemic Covid 19 Animals Veganism

362 claps 5 responses

WRITTEN BY
Gary L. Francione Following

Gary L. Francione is Board of Governors Distinguished

Professor of Law at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Lincoln.

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