Yves here. This issue may not matter to most, but I believe in the humane treatment of farm animals, since I am not enlightened enough to be a Jain. And there are so few wins these days for laws and regulations that inconvenience capitalists that we should celebrate victories when they do come.
Perhaps I missed it, but MAHA seems to be completely absent from this issue. I know a lot of health/diet fetishists who make an effort not just to eat organic food but also animal products only where the critters were not abused (admittedly, a lot of the certifications are questionable and few have the time and energy to visit the farms that produce their food to asses their practices). Some of this may come from compassion, but it may also come from a belief that better treated animals taste better or are somehow healthier. Those Kobe cows get beer, massages, and even nice music!
By Brian Bienkowski, the managing editor of The New Lede. Before that, he was senior editor of Environmental Health News for nearly a decade and was was also the founder, producer and host of the Agents of Change in EJ podcast from 2020 to 2024. Originally published at The New Lede
Amid a flurry of high-profile US Supreme Court rulings, a case that the high court refused to take up has animal welfare advocates claiming a big win.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a petition to review the case of Triumph Foods, LLC v. Campbell, which sought to override a Massachusetts’ animal welfare law known as Question 3. Petitioners wanted the high court to find that the federal law preempts the rules imposed by Massachusetts. The law — which is similar to California’s Proposition 12 law — requires that hogs, calves and chickens that are on confined farms or sold in the state are raised with adequate room to turn around, lie down and extend their limbs.
A brief submitted to the Supreme Court by 24 states in support of Triumph Foods said Question 3 “appears only to regulate sales of pork that occur in Massachusetts. But its reach is much broader.” The state law “denies market access to out-of-state pork farmers and processors unless their practices comply with Massachusetts’s mandates,” the brief said, adding that Question 3 would raise the estimated cost to raise a sow from between $1,600 and $2,500 up to $3,400.
Triumph Foods cited the court’s June 25 ruling in favor of the former Monsanto pesticide company as a precedent that should apply in its case, arguing that state laws cannot preempt federal regulation. In the Monsanto case, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal law regulating pesticides bars states from enforcing claims related to labeling.
In an opposition brief, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, the named defendant in the case, argued that “petitioners have provided no evidence to support the dire predictions within their complaint of ‘enormous costs on pork farmers.’”
The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the case comes after the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued an opinion in 2025 that upheld Question 3.
“We are pleased that the Supreme Court declined to review one more tedious pork industry challenge to a voter-approved state farm animal welfare law,” said Rebecca Cary, managing attorney at Humane World for Animals. “The law has now been upheld at every level of the federal judiciary, confirming that Question 3 is constitutional and not preempted by federal law.”
Triumph Foods did not return a request for comment on the petition denial.
The petition comes as challenges to California’s and Massachusetts’ laws are also playing out in federal policy discussions, as industry groups have pushed Congress to include a provision — often referred to as the “Save Our Bacon Act” — in the upcoming Farm Bill. The House draft included such a provision, while the Senate version, released last week, did not.
Rob Brenneman, president of the National Pork Producers Council, which has led Save Our Bacon Act advocacy and spearheaded the Proposition 12 legal challenge that landed at the Supreme Court, said in a statement that “America’s pork producers will continue to advocate for a Prop. 12 fix in the formal farm bill like our livelihood depends on it — because it does.”
However, the Save Our Bacon Act faces an uphill battle. Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, tweeted his opposition to any form of a Save Our Bacon Act making it into the Senate Farm Bill and vowed he “will fight to keep it out.”
“Leader Schumer’s opposition to the Save Our Bacon Act is a major blow to Big Pork’s campaign to erase animal welfare laws and override the will of voters,” said
Matthew Dominguez, executive director of the farmed animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming. “ The Senate Farm Bill’s exclusion of this dangerous provision shows that Congress is hearing the growing opposition to this industry power grab.”
Had to look up Jain (thanks Yves), found their doctrine of anekāntavāda:
“The doctrine states that truth and reality are complex and always have multiple aspects. It further states that reality can be experienced, but cannot be fully expressed with language. It suggests that human attempts to communicate are Naya, “partial expression of the truth”. According to it, one can experience the taste of truth, but cannot fully express that taste through language. It holds that attempts to express experience are syāt, or valid “in some respect”, but remain “perhaps, just one perspective, incomplete”.
Best…H
I agree these are important – after all, we are also animals and flesh. How we treat non-human animals leads to how we treat humans.
That measures like Question 3 or Prop 12 are even on the ballot speaks to how completely Capital has captured every facet of modern American life. I don’t believe that I’ve ever met a person who would argue against a bare minimum standard of animal welfare for livestock. One doesn’t need to be a veg*n to wonder how a lobbyist advocating for cages too-small-to-even-turn-around-in manages to sleep at night; do they count veal crates instead of sheep?
This is something that many of us care very much about, and the MSM chooses to ignore completely. I was aware of it because I subscribe to a few animal welfare organizations, but haven’t seen anything about the challenge to the legislation in any other sources prior to this. Thank you for bringing this issue to a wider audience.
Ill add my 2 cents, Dont believe one has to adopt the Jain religion, just simply choose to not unneccessarily eat or consume or exploit other sentient beings. Me thinks a majority of people that thought similarly might also be less likely to cause harm to their fellow species. As long as its acceptable and profitable to exploit the other beings we share this beautiful planet with, well we humans will just reduce our enemys or unfavorables to that supposedly inferior class- animal. Honestly, its not hard to abstain. Maybe culturally its difficult, people hate being different, dont like disapointing their tribe. But in my mind veganism is the most sensible thing any one of us can do if nature, the environment, obviously the animals we torture, are at all important. There is more than enough nutritional science to support plant based diets as healthy , they are usually cheeper, require musch less arable land to produce since we dont have to feed all the animals we are eating , whom then need far more crop production for a poor conversion of resources. Think of the main reason Amazon destruction occurs, grazing and crops for those animals we eat. So a simple personal choice decreases bio diversity destruction, is probably healthier for most people, can be cheeper, and is certainly kinder to the animals we breed into existence , whom sadly live short shitty lives, and then are consumed. Im sorry adding the word humane, or free range, or grass fed, doesnt quite alter the facts, just think of yourself. We arent euthanizing these animals peacefully, they are well aware of their impending doom and die violently. BigAg would like you to think they are not aware of whats about to happen , its stress free, and often as painless and swift as possible, All baloney. Go visit a slaughterhouse and watch lambs , goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and of course cattle wide eyed and very excited as they inhale the scent of death everywhere and are forceably removed from their trucks , swiftly coerced up the ramps to their demise. Same as the unfortunate people the nazis eliminated. I live in central florida and frequently drive past livestock trucks, i can see the discomfort and fear in the animals eyes, and all i can think is boy do i wish i had the courage to impede that trucks journey and save those poor souls. I know all of you have heard this shit before, it gets tiresome and old, too easy to just go with the flow, and of course not stand out. Honestly though, I cant think of anything we as individuals can so easily do that boils down to just a healthier kinder choice, that packs as big a punch as simply trying our best to not unnecessarily consume and exploit other sentient beings. I aint no saint, I ate animals like everyone else for most of my life, the first 40 years, then i simply thought harder about my claim to love animals and the cognitive disonance that came from chomping on a lamb chop while i kissed my dogs cats and horses. I also had a couple of pigs that i saved and realized how awesome they were as well. So 20 some odd years ago i chucked that chop and pledged to never eat another sentient being again. Sure i was laughed at, and yes i made others uncomfortable, so it was difficult to gather at traditional celebrations where people were gorging on carcases, unfortunately for me i wasnt able to just keep my mouth shut and let others do as they did. Staying away was easier for me because once you realize the cruelty and indifference along with the insanity of overweight unhealthy middle aged hedonists stuffing their faces with body parts, in celebration of some other misunderstood holiday, well just easier to not go. No I dont think i have ever convinced anyone else to change their eating habits either, but I do keep trying. I know its hard and ingrained to eat meat in all of us since childhood, but that doesnt mean we should keep doing it. Also just abstaining from meat isnt quite enough, dairy industry is even crueler if you investigate, and even more unhealthy. Fish, well industrial fishing is the leading cause of pollution on the seas, and go check out the latest study that shows cleaner wrasse pass the mirror test. Quite amazing, these little important fish that feast on parrasites other fish and marinelife present at cleaner stations on reefs, well they seem to have first person perspective, and from that are deduced to have a subjective experience similar to what we feel. Anyways, please think about how your diet effects others.
Love this, thank you for your thoughts!
It’s always good to remember that inhumane treatment of farm animals is a corporate thing. Farmers invariably treat their animals well because it increases their market value.
Not saying “family” farms are the best but corporations should be directly forbidden from owning farmland or setting/controlling in any manner the means of production. A ban on corporate farming would improve food quality, decrease soil/water pollution, help restabilize rural communities and restore balance to our food chain. I’m also confident it would eliminate a lot of cancer but so would a Jain lifestyle.
Big Pork will eventually have to come to terms with the fact that they will have to invest in humane ways to raise pigs/hogs. They cram thousands into small areas because profit.
Will the price of pork go up because of this? Absolutely! Will the cost of bacon egg and cheese McBiscuit go up? You betcha!
Will the American consumer pay more? YES! Will pigs/hogs have some more breathing room before their allegedly painless death? YES!
The end of the day is nothing will stop Big Pork – they just don’t want to have to pay the capital expenses to upgrade their facilities – the consumer price is just a red herring!!!
About 30 year ago, when “corporate” hog farms were beginning to get real traction, a local hog farmer was interviewed about why he was going away from hog barns and shifting to “Pigloos”. He said his inputs were lower, his maintenance costs were lower, and the pigs liked it. Each sow chose a Pigloo for farrowing. The sow and piglets had their own space. All he had to do was use is tractor to haul feed and water troughs to the field a couple of times a day. There excrement disposal was natural, not a process of liquifying and treating massive amounts at one time. He sold his meat through natural food butcher shops. I can tell you that the meat tastes like I remembered growing up in the 50s.
Thanks, Yves. Great news. Big Pork is relentless. We animal advocates in NY are thrilled that Sen Schumer is working to keep the “Save our Bacon” act out of the farm bill. “Save our Bacon” would overturn everything we’ve achieved at the state level to protect animals.
From another Jain wannabe.
Sheila
From a former farm kid who raised chickens for eggs and meat.
Disagree with Yves’ characterization of those paying attention as “fetishists”. Yes, the inspections and certifications may not be reliable, but it’s all we got (us meat eaters). They wouldn’t be on the labels if industry thought they didn’t matter. My presumption is that consumers, ever increasingly, do check labels.
Humans would not be humans if they did not kill other creatures and eat them for the density of protein. Species brain growth. (The ability to make fire to cook meat–easier to digest–is concurrent with this theory. See the excellent 1981 movie, “Quest for Fire”).
Whether or not the evolution of the human race is a “good thing” is another question entirely. Too soon to tell.
Another Jain adjacent might be here. When I walk I view the ground so as to not extinguish even the smallest life. Yet I eat the meat of our earthly co-inhabitants though little; when I do, I think in remorse. Alas, I am far from their enlightenment: Dharma.
On a farm, I could not entertain any imposition that yielded unhappy animals. Silly me?
Fundamentally the industrialization which made meat into a staple food people in the global north can expect for cheap… necessitates animal cruelty, prisoner/undocumented immigrant slavery, dirty conditions. In spite of a topsy-turvy system of subsidies and grants, the margins are still terrible. Great way to create pandemics though, what has and will go wrong when we confine a bunch of animals in a shed?
Anyhow, I think a lot of the fantasies some other people here have about ethics in this lack pragmatism. This is perhaps the most ouvert case of how an economic system focused on accumulation to no end, terrible death drive, treats those who are sub-