Slaughtering and Executing Human vs. Nonhuman Animals

Over the last few years, I’ve thought often about the issue of killing animals “humanely” from the perspective of someone who has opposed the death penalty for humans since she was a grade-school kid, about the disconnect that’s required for us to make certain arguments in opposition to the death penalty while still supporting the “humane” slaughter of animals. And I spend a lot of time thinking too about the language we use when we talk about our fellow animals in general versus the language we use when we talk about our specifically human fellow animals — and the word “slaughter,” for example, is one of these interesting issues for me.

Many in our society talk about the notion of “humane slaughter” of nonhuman animals with sincerity, fully believing this to be possible. But whereas we use “slaughter” nonchalantly to refer to killing nonhuman animals all the time, the word takes on a whole other connotation when applied to humans. “Slaughter” is the word we use to describe the horrifying, brutal killing of multiple people at once: “God, it was awful — he just slaughtered them.” So for human animals, slaughter is a massacre, a grotesque concept and sight, but for nonhuman animals, who feel, fear, and avoid their deaths and pain just as we do, slaughter is humane, painless, and ethical? Riiight.

So with these sorts of thoughts regularly swimming around in my head, I was glad to see — and I vigorously nodded along as I read — Mary’s post over at Animal Person a couple weeks ago in response to a New York Times editorial titled “There Is No ‘Humane’ Execution,” a piece that outlines, obviously, the arguments in support of the title statement. The editorial is talking about human executions of course, about the use of — and inherent problems with and immorality of — the death penalty. But as Mary argues, this clearly raises questions about executions of nonhuman animals as well:

What’s the difference between a cow and someone on death row? For one thing, the cow has not been convicted of some heinous crime. The cow will be executed simply because she is a cow. And isn’t it odd that we would have such a difficult time, for decades, trying to figure out if it’s okay to kill someone who is a demonstrated threat to the community, yet not only do we not think twice about killing a cow, who is no threat whatsoever, but we actually create cows for the sole purpose of killing them?

Those of us who oppose the death penalty oppose it for many reasons, but one argument that comes up often is the inhumane nature of taking someone’s life, not just because that person may be innocent or because our criminal justice system is so deeply flawed, unjust, and biased, but also because taking that life, even if the person is guilty, is morally wrong. Opponents of the death penalty argue that even lethal injection, supposedly the most humane form of killing someone, is still cruel. Electrocution, hanging, shooting, and chopping off heads (all of which are done to nonhuman animals, for the record) may be worse, some argue, but lethal injection too is inhumane, and there’s no way for those of us who aren’t the ones being killed to know what the experience is like, to know what kind of suffering may be involved. Yet — holy progressive disconnect, Batgirl! — we use the word “humane” to describe ways of killing nonhuman animals, who are certainly innocent of crime and whom we’re killing for pleasure, that are even more barbaric. Sigh.

Stay tuned for another related post on “humane” slaughter later this week or next.

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Photo by Flickr user Steve Rhodes