Mind what you eat

What is the justification for this appalling trade, which an overwhelming majority of the public believes should end? There is no moral justification, only an appeal to self-interest. It is in the financial interests of a relatively small number of farmers, transport contractors, shipping companies, workers etc. for the industry to continue, at the lowest possible cost for the maximum profit.

To really take care of these animals would be completely uneconomic, so every effort is made to keep regulation to a minimum. Hence the political lobbying and publicity campaigns to reassure the public. Meanwhile the suffering continues unabated.

So here we face the moral issue squarely. What matters more to us: our moral values or financial interests? Do we believe people are entitled to profit from such cruelty? Is it acceptable to build our lifestyle and economy on such suffering?

In his Encyclical, Pope Francis makes a passionate appeal to us to do the right thing and "care for the animals", following the example of his famous namesake St Francis of Assizi: "Every act of cruelty towards any creature is contrary to human dignity...All creation has an intrinsic value that is independent of its usefulness...Other creatures are not merely resources to be exploited."

Even if you are sceptical about precisely what dignity animals might share, there can be no doubts about their capacity to suffer. Chickens, pigs, cows, sheep all have consciousness, all feel pain and they all have natural lives to enjoy. This arguably is the case for all vertebrates, including fish.

The total number of animals involved is enormous: it has been estimated that some 60 billion farmed animals and somewhere between 1 -3 trillion fish are killed annually to satisfy our appetites. So the scale of suffering is immense and is exceeded only by the scale of our wilful moral blindness or mindless indifference.

The extent and scale of the suffering, according to ethicist Peter Singer, must surely be a matter of deep moral concern to any right-minded, thinking person.

As former High Court Justice Hon. Michael Kirby says:

In our shared sentience, human beings are intimately connected with other animals... Exploited animals cannot protest about their treatment or demand a better life. They are entirely at our mercy. So every decision of animal welfare, whether in Parliament or the supermarket, presents us with a profound test of moral character.

The above example of the live animal export trade provides the clearest opportunity for political action to end one form of unnecessary harm to animals with minimal impact on our lives, as happened in New Zealand.

Political activism to reduce the suffering of animals that we eat ourselves has the more modest - but still important - goal of dramatically improving animal welfare standards, through more stringent regulation of the industry.

At the political level, this might involve little more than contacting our elected representatives to let them know our views, supporting organisations like Animals Australia in their advocacy for change by donating and/or signing petitions, pressuring our local food suppliers to provide more ethically produced products and so on.