Toward a More Humane Slaughterhouse
ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, by Temple Grandin is not an easy read. And her website is even more difficult, but it’s all necessary.
Dr. Grandin is a specialist in "Livestock Behaviour, Design of Facilities and Humane Slaughter" (the subtitle of the homepage of her website). And before you get all EWWW, and Humane slaughter? Isn’t that like military intelligence?, just realize that the killing of animals for human consumption is not going to stop in your lifetime.
And because it isn’t going to stop, there is some wisdom in campaigning for making the current system less cruel and painful for its victims (while personally aligning your actions with your beliefs by being a vegan).
Dr. Grandin’s love for animals–combined with her autism–make her the perfect person to do what she does: work for animal abusers to help them make more money while decreasing suffering. She is able to understand what animals are thinking and feeling, and help humans design systems that decrease the terror animals experience at the hands of the humans. And she does it so well because she has autism. She wonders why humans treat animals the way we do, yet she isn’t plagued with the emotional component of animal rights activists, who often become so distraught from the reality of it all, that they become less effective. She also isn’t plagued with a moral compass that says that using animals is wrong, so her occupation provides no cognitive dissonance for her.
Buy it. Read it. Check out her website. It’s disturbing, but you need to decide whether you believe that there is such a thing as a humane slaughterhouse. I think she’ll help you with that, and I think your answer will be a resounding NO!
Taking my wife to hospital early this morning, and now home awaiting her further tests, I got to thinking about hospital design, which then reminded me of that woman I'd heard about who designed humane animal handling facilities, which led me to your site, which led me to Temple Grandin's site. I put a link to your page in my blog because it's got her link as well. I don't equate my hospital with a slaughterhouse, far from it, but from the moment you park (remember to buy that ticket, even though the last thing you're thinking about is the car) and enter the emergency waiting room, you are in a coldly efficient process which has little to comfort the frightened, the sick, the injured: those that are ambulatory and conscious, that is. It is not an inviting place. Maybe that's not important, but I feel that hospitals can and should be made to comfort us: they want you to get well, don't they?