In addition to farm animal well-being issues, intensive confinement systems will be increasingly challenged on the grounds of public health, protecting the environment, feeding the starving millions and leaving some quality of life for future generations. If, as Mahatma Gandhi states, 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated', the United States is being left behind by much of Western Europe. So says David Wolfson in a soon to be published study documenting the fact that present laws are of no help to the cruel realities suffered by seven billion farm animals. Wolfson, an attorney in a major international law firm, suggests that while farm animals have no real legal protection, society perceives that they do. As outlined by Wolfson, laws give the perception of protecting farm animals but, in reality, provide little or no protection.
Federal law fails to provide any protection to farm animals on the farm.
Moreover, while many state cruelty laws still cover farm animals in theory, they are rarely if ever applied. And most disconcerting is the trend of farm animals being increasingly excluded from the reach of state cruelty laws. Nineteen states amended their statutes in the last twelve years. Eleven of these amended their statutes in the last six years and in just the past year, two states amended their state cruelty statutes to exclude accepted animal agricultural practices. Obviously, there would be no need to amend state cruelty laws were there not the fear that accepted practices would be judged cruel.