4,415
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
[[File:Noże do szechity.jpg|thumb|A set of knives for ritual slaughter, coming in various sizes: for poultry, for sheep and goats, and for cattle.<br>{{small|Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw}}]]
Ritual slaughter advocates respond that the requirement for the animal to be healthy and uninjured makes it necessary to treat it humanely on the farm, in transport and at the abattoir. They also claim that a creature slaughtered by an appropriately trained ritual butcher dies in a matter of seconds and practically without pain (keep in mind, though, that this said by people who subject their own newborn sons to genital mutilation without anaesthesia). Ritual slaughter, the argument goes, is at least as humane as slaughter with prior stunning (which may be painful in and of itself), to say nothing of such practices as hunting or carrying live carp in a plastic bag without water (which are legal and common in Poland). The debate is complicated by the fact that any attempts at limiting the practice of ritual slaughter are met with knee-jerk accusations of anti-Semitism (before World War 2, this was indeed done one of the ways to deliberately annoy the Jews).
The most recent rounds of the conflict around ritual slaughter in Poland took place within the 21st century. According to the Polish Animal Welfare Act of 1997, "a vertebrate animal may be slaughtered in an abattoir only after prior deprivation of consciousness".<ref>''Ustawa z dnia 21 sierpnia 1997 r. o ochronie zwierząt'' [Animal Welfare Act of 21 August 1997] ([https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU19971110724/U/D19970724Lj.pdf Dz.U. 1997 Nr 111 poz. 724]), article 34, point 1</ref> The same law originally contained a special provision, excepting those animals which were subjected to "specific methods of slaughter prescribed by religious rites".<ref>''Ustawa z dnia 21 sierpnia 1997 r. o ochronie zwierząt'' [Animal Welfare Act of 21 August 1997] ([https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU19971110724/O/D19970724.pdf Dz.U. 1997 Nr 111 poz. 724]), article 34, point 5 (nullified)</ref> This exemption, however, was cancelled by parliament in 2002,<ref>''Ustawa z dnia 6 czerwca 2002 r. o zmianie ustawy o ochronie zwierząt'' [Animal Welfare Amendment Act of 6 June 2002] ([https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU20021351141/O/D20021141.pdf Dz.U. 2002 nr 135 poz. 1141]), article 1, point 27 (b)</ref> ostensibly to bring Polish legislation in line with European Union law (even though the EU allows individual member states to make their own rules regarding ritual slaughter). Two years later, in an attempt to save lucrative Polish kosher and halal meat exports, the agriculture minister issued an ordinance which brought the exemption back,<ref>''Rozporządzenie Ministra Rolnictwa i Rozwoju Wsi z dnia 9 września 2004 r. w sprawie kwalifikacji osób uprawnionych do zawodowego uboju oraz warunków i metod uboju i uśmiercania zwierząt'' [Ordinance of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of 9 September 2004 on the qualifications of persons authorised to conduct professional animal slaughter and on conditions and methods of killing animals] ([https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU20042052102/O/D20042102.pdf Dz.U. 2004 nr 205 poz. 2102]), paragraph 8, point 2</ref> but in 2012, the Constitutional Tribunal struck it down. This prompted foreign Jewish press to raise an alarm: a Polish court has ruled ritual slaughter unconstitutional! Mr. Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, himself a vegetarian, expressed a more nuanced view, saying there's no point fighting over which way of killing is better.<ref>Michael Schudrich, quoted in: {{Cyt
