Horse Slaughter Must be Banned From America

Horse are these majestic creatures that have reached this peak of mystical legends throughout our American Culture, from the historic moments of the "Wild West", to movies and shows that would involve cowboys. Horses have been seen as taboo to eat ever since the pilgrims came to the new world along with their European prohibition on consuming horse meat. However, that changed once the first automobile came to be in America. Horses were no longer needed as a means of transportation and were then being killed and sold for their meat. Even though acts and laws have been passed to stop horse slaughter and horse meat trade, the industry still continues to exist here in America. Horse slaughter must be banned from America.
The first reason why horse slaughter should be banned is because of how horse meat from America is not safe for our consumption. The different types of meat that we may consume throughout our life are assumed to be safe for us to eat. However, what can we say about horse meat? In their article "The facts about horse slaughter" by the Humane Society of the United States, they point how the vast majority of horses sent to slaughter will have been exposed to chemicals that have either been tested to be dangerous for human consumption, or untested if safe to digest. The horses that have been exposed to these dangerous chemicals are still being slaughtered and shipped out for human consumption.The real question in hand then is, how much of these harmful chemicals are they being introduced to? In "Toxicity of Horse Meat" by The Humane Society of the United States, they state that "Over fifty known drugs are expressly prohibited by current federal regulations for use in food animals ...any use of those drugs should block their use as food, yet almost every horse who would be slaughtered for meat has been exposed to many of these prohibited drugs." Just from eating horse meat alone we are exposing ourselves to dangers that are both known and unknown for our health.

Another reason why horse slaughter should be banned from the United States is because of how horses are seen as pets. Similar to dogs and cats, we see horses on an equal level as them, which in turn creates the idea of consuming a pet for food as taboo. In the article "Why don't we eat horses" Brian Montopoli, an Emmy Award Winner for outstanding News Discussion and Analysis, goes over how our perception of horses in the United States causes them to fall under or near the category of pets with distinct personality. This perception we have of horses as an American culture was even reinforced through TV shows or movies movies, such as "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" and Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" where the horses in these films would have human-like personalities. In the article "Why Americans Don't Eat Horse Meat" by Adam Taylor and Megan Willett, they reached out to Marion Nestle, an expert in Public Health at NYU, who suggests the idea that "We are American, we don't eat horses. We consider them pets and inappropriate as food." If in our culture we consider horses to be on the same level as dogs and cats, then we shouldn't have the horse slaughter industry in the United States at all.

Horse slaughter must be banned from the United States because horse meat is very unhealthy for us to eat as horses who were sent to slaughter have been exposed to a large amount of chemicals that have been proven to be harmful to our health. Another reason why horse slaughter should be banned from the United States is because of our cultural perception of viewing horses as pets. It would be wrong and immoral to eat meat that belonged to a once living horse. The horse slaughter industry doesn't belong here in America and shouldn't continue to operate on our soil.

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