The legal aspects of ritual slaughter include the regulation of slaughterhouses, butchers, and religious personnel involved with traditional shechita (Judaism) and dhabiha (Islam). Regulations also may extend to butchery products sold in accordance with kashrut and halal religious law. Governments regulate ritual slaughter, primarily through legislation and administrative law. In addition, compliance with oversight of ritual slaughter is monitored by governmental agencies and, on occasion, contested in litigation.
The most controversial aspect of ritual slaughter is the legality of unstunned slaughter, where animal welfare concerns regularly clash with religious concerns, and split public opinion.
Scope of regulations In Western countries, law reaches into every stage of ritual slaughter, from the slaughtering of livestock to the sale of kosher or halal meat.The Economist: The debate surrounding religious rules for slaughtering animals In the United States, for example, courts have ruled that kosher butchers may be excluded from collective bargaining units,Aurora Packing Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 904 F. 2d 73 (D.C. Cir. 1990) as cited by Jlaw.com a Jewish beit din (court) may forbid trade with disapproved butchers,S.S. & B. Live Poultry Corp. v. Kashrut Ass'n of Greater NY, 158 Misc. 358, 285 N.Y.S. 879 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. City, 1936) as cited by Jlaw.com retail sellers implicitly stipulate their compliance with rabbinic courts,Cohen v. Silver, 277 Mass 230, 178 NE 508 (Supreme Judicial Court, 1931) as cited by Jlaw.com a state law (NY) may incorporate a rabbinical ruling on kosher labelling,People v. Gordon, 14 NYS2d 333, 172 Misc 543 (Sp. Sess. 1939) as cited by Jlaw.com and kashrut symbols may be subject to trade infringement laws.Levy v. Kosher Overseers Association of America, Inc., 104 F. 3d 38 (2d Cir. 1997) as cited by Jlaw.com
In Jones v. Butz, the action involved "a challenge, under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, to the Humane Slaughter Act and in particular to the provisions relating to ritual slaughter as defined in the Act and which plaintiffs suggested involved the Government in the dietary preferences of a particular religious (e.g., Orthodox Jews) group. The court held that there is no violation of Establishment Clause because no excessive governmental entanglement and by making it possible for those who wish to eat ritually acceptable meat to slaughter the animal in accordance with the tenets of their faith, Congress neither established the tenets of that faith nor interfered with the exercise of any other."Michigan State University College of Law Animal Legal and Historical Center
In the United States religious slaughter is not practiced under any exemption, as is the case in several European legal codes.Nathan Lewin Dr. Isaac Lewin And The Fight For Kosher Slaughter Instead the Humane Slaughter Act defines religious slaughter by Jews and Muslims as one of two humane methods for killing animals for food:
(a) in the case of cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine, and other livestock, all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut; or
(b) by slaughtering in accordance with the ritual requirements of the Jewish faith or any other religious faith that prescribes a method of slaughter whereby the animal suffers loss of consciousness by anemia of the brain caused by the simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a sharp instrument and handling in connection with such slaughtering.
The kosher food industry has challenged regulations as an infringement on religious freedom."Kosher Food Regulation and the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment" by Gerald F. Masoudi, The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 60, No. 2. (Spring, 1993), pp. 667–696 JSTOR linkSam Jones Halal, Shechita and the politics of animal slaughter The Guardian
Secular governments also have sought to restrict ritual slaughter not intended for food consumption. In the US, the most prominent such case is Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unconstitutional a local Florida ban on Santería ritual animal sacrifice.Free Exercise Does Not Protect Animal Sacrifice: The Misconception of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah and Constitutional Solutions for Stopping Animal Sacrifice Shannon L. Doheny
The issue is complicated by allegations of antisemitism and xenophobia.Paul Sims Like it or not, the ritual slaughter debate is about much more than animal rightsScienceNordic Butchery law with anti-Semitic rootsRegulating slaughter: Animal Protection and Antisemitism in Scandinavia, 1880–1941 Michael Metcalf. Patterns of Prejudice, vol 23 no.3, 1989
Lastly, recent debate in Switzerland has been contentious, in part, because of comparisons by a prominent activist between kosher slaughter and the methods used by Nazis in concentration camps. The metaphor was borrowed from the vegetarian and Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer who said "I am not a vegetarian for my own health, but for the health of the chickens" and has one of his fictional characters say, "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."Quoted on this site in French: "En pensée, Herman fit l'oraison funèbre de la souris qui avait partagé une partie de sa vie et qui, à cause de lui, avait quitté cette terre. Tous ces érudits, tous ces philosophes, les dirigeants de la planète, que savent-ils de quelqu'un comme toi? Ils se sont persuadé que l'homme, espèce pécheresse entre toutes, domine la création. Toutes les autres créatures n'auraient été créées que pour lui procurer de la nourritures, des fourrures, pour être martyrisées, exterminées. Pour ces créatures, tous les humains sont nazis; pour les animaux, c'est un éternel Treblinka."
Religious slaughter practice
Islamic jurisprudence A 1935 fatwa by the Mufti of Delhi declared that stunning that does not kill the animal and thus is 'reversible' is allowed under Islamic law. Al-Azhar rector Muhammad el-Tayyeb el-Naggar confirmed in 1982 that stunning would not make the practice un-Islamic. Many Muslim authorities accept reversible stunning prior to the cut, such as electrostunning, or concussion with a roundheaded (mushroom-shaped) hammer. Supreme Leader of Iran ayatollah Ali Khamenei permitted pre-cut stunning. In 2014, about 85% of halal meat produced by the Muslim community in the United Kingdom was pre-stunned. The British Veterinary Association's head John Blackwell and vice-president Jonathan Arkush of the Board of Deputies of British Jews outline two sides of the public debate on the ritual slaughter of animals.
Jewish jurisprudence According to Jewish law, slaughter of cattle and poultry is carried out with a single cut to the throat.Shulhan Arukh Yorei De'ah According to ShechitaUK, '[a]ll forms of mechanical stunning, which may include asphyxiation by gas, electrocution by tongs or water or shooting with a captive bolt gun, cause pain on application and are thus prohibited by Jewish law.' According to rabbi Norman Solomon (2000), some Reform Jews regard ethics as more important than diet, and reject the very notion of kosher meat.Letter from the Lubavitcher rebbe z"l concerning Reform Judaism and Kashruth Within the North American Conservative denomination of Judaism, there is a broad consensus of accepting meat from animals stunned before slaughter as kosher. Without exception, Orthodox Jewish communities uphold the prohibition on stunning before slaughter.
In practice, a requirement for a shohet (Jewish ritual slaughterer) is that the shohet adheres to a high level of religiosity.A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza S. D. Goitein Any kind of prestunning for livestock to be slaughtered according to the Jewish Kosher method has not yet been accepted by orthodox Judaism. In practice, kosher slaughtering is carried out by orthodox shochtim (authorized slaughterers) because the meat produced by Conservative slaughters from the Conservative denomination would not be acceptable to orthodox practising Jews and the limited market that would accept such meat is not commercially viable.Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and Jewish Political ... Robin Judd
Historic bans (until 1945) Asia Some rulers banned all killing on their land for some period each year, including ritual slaughter. Beop of Baekje banned all kinds of killing.百濟第二十九主法王諱宣。或云孝順。開皇十年己未即位。是年冬。下詔禁殺生。放民家所養鷹鸇之類。焚漁獵之具。一切禁止。三國遺事 卷3 In 675, Emperor Tenmu, followed by Empress Genshō and Emperor Shōmu banned eating meat in Japan.2010 社會學研究生論文發表會2010 年3 月19 日 Tokugawa Tsunayoshi who was Fifth General Shōgun of Edo (Japan) made animal protection laws and when he died, about 8000 criminals (including 3800 in Edo) who had been convicted of violating the law, were released (see :ja:生類憐れみの令).[鳥銃濫発禁止令」「犬猫を繋ぐことの禁止令」「鳥魚貝等の憐れみ令」「犬猫憐れみ令」「馬匹憐れみ令」「猪鹿狼憐れ み令]生類憐みの令の真実 According to the Red Annals (Deb-ther Dmar-po), Möngke Khan prohibited meat eating and killing four days each month.
After conquering Bago in 1559, King Bayinnaung prohibited the practice of halal. Halal slaughter was also forbidden by King Alaungpaya in the 18th century.
According to the White History of the Tenfold Virtuous Dharma (Arban Buyantu Nom-un Caġan Teüke), Altan Khan ordered the religious code Arban Buyantu Nom-un Cagaja prohibited human and animal sacrifice.
Europe until 1945 In the 1880s, anti-Semites joined forces with Animal Protection Societies to campaign for anti-shechita legislation to be passed in Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia.Metcalf, "Regulating Slaughter: Animal Protection and Antisemitism in Scandinavia, 1880–1941", Patterns of Prejudice 23 (1989): pp. 32–48.
In Switzerland shechitah was forbidden throughout the whole country in 1893 after having been banned in the cantons of Aargau and St. Gallen in 1867 after plebiscites, and later a ban was introduced in the whole of Switzerland after a plebiscite at Federal level. The system of voting on individual policies using referendums (plebiscites) had only recently been introduced. and the first plebiscite in Swiss history was on the subject of banning shechita. The government and all the political parties were against the ban, but the popular sentiment prevailed.Dr. Simon Erlanger Muslims and Jews in Switzerland note 37
Sweden banned shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) of cattle in 1937, and of poultry in 1989. In June, 1937, a law, the effect of which was to abolish Shehitah, was presented to the Riksdag by Karl G. Westman (Bondeförbundet, today Centre Party (Sweden)) Minister of Justice. It was passed on June 4, 1937, and went into force July 1, 1938. The law made stunning mandatory before the drawing of blood in slaughtering, but made it apply only to cattle, not to fowl and rabbits, and not to reindeer "until the King shall so decide". For violation, provision was made for fines, the money to go to the crown. Slaughter of poultry without stunning was banned in 1989.
Norway banned religious slaughter without pre-stunning in 1929.Maduro, G.A., 2015. Ritual Slaughter and (in) equality. p.47