Opinion: California Proposition Fights for Animals

Because we are a nation comprised of conflicting political persuasions and values, Election Day is always full of both national and localized triumphs and tragedies. And while the state of California has been in the national spotlight for the disastrous outcome of proposition eight, another statewide proposition represents an enormous victory for the most disenfranchised and often overlooked residents of this nation—animals.

The California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, known as Proposition two is a modest yet monumental measure, ensuring that farm animals have the ability to turn around, stand up, lie down and extend their limbs while caged. The initiative specifically applies to egg laying hens, pregnant sows and veal calves.

Currently, many factory farms cram hens 3-6 to a battery cage, keep pregnant sows confined to claustrophobic gestation crates for nearly the entire duration of their pregnancies and keep veal calves tethered from their necks in narrow crates.

Under the measure, which passed by approximately 63% to 37%, farms are expected to phase out pens that do not comply with the new standards by 2015.
Similar, yet less comprehensive measures have been passed in Florida, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona and throughout the European Union.

With an historic election and a controversial marriage bill on the ballot, it seems like Prop. 2 didn’t get nearly as much media attention as the top of the ticket. This says a lot about the growing practicality of animal rights. Perhaps, when voters looked at the initiative in plain language, stripped of all the pretense of high dollar propaganda, it just seemed like a common sense decision.

Animals pay the ultimate sacrifice for humans, especially those raised on factory farms; they spend their entire lives in cages and march to their deaths in slaughterhouses, only to be butchered and unpacked on grocery store shelves. And throughout all of this, they obviously never have a choice about whether they would prefer to live or die.

According to a 2003 Harris poll, less than 3 percent of the people in the United States are consistent vegetarians. Clearly, while humans no longer need meat to survive, its popularity and perceived integral position in the American diet is not waning. Therefore, we all have a responsibility to make sure these animals are treated fairly for the short amount of time they are permitted to spend on this planet.

See this viewpoint in print in this week's issue of the Hilltop Views.