Rep. Jacobs Introduces H.R. 264
Humane Methods of Poultry Slaughter Act of 1995

The more than 7.5 billion birds currently being slaughtered in the United States each year (1993 figure) are excluded from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958. H.R. 264 seeks to ensure that "Poultry are rendered permanently unconscious by an electrical, chemical, or other method that is rapid and effective before or immediately after the poultry are shackled or otherwise prepared for slaughter."

Although United Poultry Concerns does not support poultry slaughter or the use of birds and other animals as food sources, we also believe that the interests of these birds are not well served by their continued exclusion from the federal humane slaughter law. Presently, poultry are in a state of complete legal and moral abandonment in the United States. One cannot even initiate prosecution on their behalf, while the absence of a law to cover poultry at slaughter conveys the false notion to the general public, and to those who work directly with poultry, that these birds do not suffer, or that their suffering does not matter, and that humans have no moral obligation to them at all.

Every day, more than 30 million birds endure a surpassingly brutal death experience in U.S. slaughterhouses. As we work to speed the poultry industry into the oblivion where it belongs with other rejected barbarisms, we must also work to pass this law, using the campaign both to secure some modicum of industry, government, and societal accountability and to urge our fellow citizens about the absolute need to go vegan.

What Can I Do?
  • Urge your U.S. House Representative to cosponsor H.R. 264, the
    Humane Methods of Poultry Slaughter Act of 1995: Honorable _____,
    U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515.

  • Urge your two U.S. Senators to introduce a Senate Companion Bill
    to H.R. 264: Honorable _____, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510.