What’s at stake in the Supreme Court animal protection case–for animals and your rights to protect them

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We’re excited to tell you about a lawsuit that Animal Outlook is part of ([link removed]) , alongside other animal protection organizations and the state of California, which will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on October 11, 2022. The case concerns California’s ability to ban the sale of pork from pigs that have been confined for nearly their entire lives in cages so small they can’t even turn around.

What is the case about?

Pork producers have challenged California’s Proposition 12 ([link removed](2018)) , which requires that all eggs, veal, and pork produced and/or sold in the state comply with basic minimal space requirements to enable animals – including pregnant pigs in the pork industry – to have enough room to spread their wings or limbs and turn around. The pork industry does not want to have to abide by Prop 12 and is seeking to nullify the law.
Click here to find out more about Prop 12 ([link removed])
What is this case really about?

The pork industry wants to be able to continue using gestation crates anywhere it sells its products. This is confinement of a 500 pound animal in a two-foot wide prison. Gestation crates are metal cages in which pigs are kept during their pregnancies. They are then moved to another similar type of cage for birthing and the nursing period, and then back to the gestation crates for another artificial insemination and pregnancy. This cycle continues for years, until the animal dies of illness or injury or is discarded because she is worthless to the industry.

Gestation crates deprive these smart and social animals–with intelligence comparable to a three-year-old human child–of their most basic natural behaviors and desires. They cause mental breakdown, with pigs chewing at the bars of their cages in frustration. Investigations ([link removed]) show bloody open wounds and untreated prolapses, which cause long and painful deaths.

Left: A row of sows trapped in gestation crates
Right: Sows in crates suffer physically and mentally.
How does the pork industry treat its animals?

Gestation crates are not the only commonplace, extremely cruel, practice of the pork industry. Investigations have shown piglets are castrated and have their tails cut off with no pain relief. Like our Iowa investigation that revealed piglets having their testicles ripped out, causing ruptures, which workers stuff back into the pigs with their fingers, amid the screams of the piglets and in full view of their mothers, and showed forced cannibalism, or feeding the intestines of dead piglets back to live pigs. Cruel practices like these – and others – are widespread across the industry.

Nursing pigs are also confined in farrowing crates, which are nearly identical to gestation crates but have a small opening in the side for the piglets to nurse from their mothers through the metal bars. This adds to the animal’s suffering by depriving the mother of interaction with her piglets, and piglets have been known to be crushed to death in these systems.

Investigations have shown time and again the cruelty of animal treatment in these facilities, with piglets killed by slamming their skulls on concrete, animals beaten, dragged, kicked, and otherwise brutalized.

Pig slaughter is also notoriously cruel, compounded by often long and stress- (and death-) filled truck transport ([link removed]) . The federal government and the industry are working to speed up and deregulate pig slaughter nationwide ([link removed]) , which would lead to faster slaughter and over 11 more million pigs killed each year. We’re fighting in federal court against high speed slaughter ([link removed]) and for the protection of “downer” pigs ([link removed]) who are too sick or injured to walk to their deaths at the slaughterhouse.

Cruelty is not the exception in the pork industry - it’s the way the system operates.

Left: Trapped in a tiny farrowing crate, a sow must nurse her piglets through metal bars
Right: A piglet has his testicles ripped out and tail clipped off without painkillers
Why is this case important?

The Supreme Court rarely hears issues that could ultimately have an impact on how animals are treated in huge corporate systems, and although Prop 12 only addresses gestation crates and not the other standard cruel practices, it is the strongest animal protection law taking a stand against a standard cruel practice in the industry.

More importantly, what the pork industry has done here is appeal to the highest court in the land in its effort to override a law enacted to stand up against one of the very worst widespread industry practices through a groundswell of voter support. This attempt at an end-run around legitimate democratic process says a lot about the power of the pork industry.

What the pork industry is attempting to do here through the Supreme Court may threaten not just the animals, but all of our rights as voters to refuse to be complicit in some of the worst cruelty in the industry.

What can you do?

Help fuel Animal Outlook’s legal advocacy by making a donation ([link removed]) today. Only with your help can we build a better tomorrow for farmed animals.

The only way to avoid supporting cruelty against farmed animals is to leave them off your plate. Visit TryVeg.com ([link removed]) for information, recipes, and tips for making the transition to a vegan diet.

Over 97% of Americans oppose animal cruelty and 80% would support Prop 12 in their state. Tell Congress to act – sign our petition ([link removed]) demanding federal legislation extending Prop 12’s animal cruelty protections nationwide.

With gratitude,

Cheryl Leahy
Executive Director

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