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Dear John,

The leaders at the National Pork Producers Council don’t have a clue about animal welfare.

This trade association of hog factory farms—including a huge factory-farming operation controlled by the Chinese Communist government—has been on the attack against California’s Prop 12, which limits the sale of pork that comes from operations that confine the sows so severely that the mother pigs cannot even turn around.

Time and again, voters, federal judges, and corporate retailers have said it’s time to move on from these crates because they are inhumane and they immobilize the mother pigs.

The controversy surrounds “gestation crates”—two-foot-by-seven-foot cages that are barely larger than the 400-pound mother pigs’ bodies. Over the years, before we took on the problem, these cages became a routine animal-housing method.

But in recent years, we’ve been winning in our campaign to end the Cage Age in agriculture. The very least a civil society can do is give animals raised for food some opportunity to stand up, move, and turn around.

In this battle between us and the NPPC, the factory farmers have been losing.

*
NPPC
got
routed
at
the
ballot
box
in
Massachusetts
when
Amendment
3
came
up
for
a
vote.
Nearly
80
percent
of
voters
said
they
want
to
stop
the
sale
of
pork
that
comes
from
sows
cruelly
confined
in
gestation
crates.
*
California
voters
made
a
similar
judgment
in
passing
Prop
12
in
a
landslide.
*
After
voters
approved
the
ballot
measures,
the
NPPC
and
its
allies
went
to
court,
claiming
Prop
12
and
Amendment
3
are
unconstitutional.
Eleven
federal
courts,
including
the
U.S.
Supreme
Court,
turned
back
their
challenges.
Remarkable
that
11
of
11
rulings
went
our
way!
*
While
all
of
that
was
going
on,
60
major
food
retailers—including
McDonald’s,
Costco,
and
Kroger—adopted
policies
against
gestation
crates.
Sixty
corporate
policies!
Just
about
every
major
food
retailer
in
the
nation.

Yes, after facing defeat and bucking an emerging consensus that gestation crates are inhumane, the NPPC still has the temerity and the gumption to go to Congress to try to overturn U.S. laws and the will of millions of Americans who engaged in the most direct form of democratic decision-making.

In recent days, the NPPC’s allies in Congress have introduced legislation, known as the EATS Act, that would nullify Prop 12, Amendment 3, and all other laws that seek to impose any kind of condition or standard in agricultural commerce.

Congress needs to tell the NPPC that this pig won’t fly. It’s demonstrably inhumane to confine breeding sows so severely that they cannot even turn around.

And that confinement isn’t limited to a few minutes or a few hours. Pigs are immobilized for up to three years!

Talk about torture.

The poor, trapped animals resort to biting on the metal bars as an expression of their physical and psychological torment.

Let’s face it, the NPPC’s political maneuvering is completely at odds with the principles of states’ rights. And also with notions of basic decency in the treatment of animals.

All animals deserve humane treatment, including animals raised for food. Perhaps especially animals raised for food, given that they are being sacrificed for human appetite.

The EATS Act is so broad that it could subvert not only Prop 12 and Amendment 3, but dozens of other state laws, including state laws limiting overuse of antibiotics and stopping the use of dangerous pesticides.

And for good measure, let’s remember that the NPPC is even dismissing the concerns of thousands of American pig farmers who think the EATS Act will hurt them. The California and Massachusetts laws provide critical markets for the pig farmers who have collectively invested billions in more extensive housing systems and are excited about the ability to sell their products in these states. This truth proves that the NPPC favors the factory farmers over the family farmers.

We need your help to stop Big Pork from nullifying the most important farm animal protection laws in the nation.

We need your help to defeat the NPPC’s EATS Act in Congress.

First, please consider donating to our Cage-Free Future campaign. We will again face the might of agribusiness giants profiting off the gross exploitation of animals. [[link removed]]

DONATE NOW [[link removed]]

And second, if you live in the United States, please write to your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative and urge them to reject the EATS Act and to defend states’ rights. We’ve made it easy for you. Take action now. [[link removed]]

TAKE ACTION [[link removed]]

We’ve fought so hard to win major ballot measures. To defend the laws in the federal courts. Now we must defeat them one more time—in the Congress.

It’s no time to let up. We need your help today! The animals need your help today!

For the animals,

Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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