are slaughtered without prior stunning than would be
necessary to supply the demand for this type of meat.
Britain’sFarmAnimalWelfareCouncilhasestimatedthat“a
highproportion”ofthemeatslaughteredbyritualmethodsis
distributed to the open markets.^141
Theslogan“religiousfreedom”andthechargethatthosewho
attackritual slaughteraremotivatedbyanti-Semitism have
sufficedtopreventlegislativeinterferencewiththispractice
intheUnitedStates,Britain,andmanyothercountries.But
obviously one does not have to be anti-Semitic or anti-
Moslemto opposewhatisdone toanimalsin thename of
religion. It istime for adherentsof boththese religionsto
consider again whether the current interpretations of laws
relatingtoslaughterarereally inkeepingwiththespiritof
religiousteachingoncompassion.Meanwhile,thosewhodo
not wish to eat meat slaughtered contrary to the current
teachingsoftheirreligionhaveasimplealternative:nottoeat
meat at all. In making this suggestion, I am
notaskingmoreofreligiousbelieversthanIaskofmyself;it
isonlythatthereasonsforthemtodoitarestrongerbecause
of theadditional suffering involvedin producing themeat
they eat.
Welive in a time of conflicting currents.While there are
those who insist on continuing to kill animals by biblical
methods of slaughter, our scientists are busy developing
revolutionarytechniquesbywhichtheyhopeto changethe
very nature of theanimals themselves. Amomentous step
toward aworld ofanimals designedbyhumanbeings was
takenin 1988 whentheUnitedStatesPatentandTrademark
OfficegrantedresearchersatHarvardUniversityapatentfor
ageneticallyengineeredmouse,speciallymadetobe more