Is there legislation in place to protect pregnant animals and unborn babies?
Animals are not supposed to be transported if they are likely to give birth during transport. However, Viva! campaigners have filmed animals giving birth at market when they were about to be loaded up for the slaughterhouse. The BCVA paper also shows that pregnant cows are frequently slaughtered in the third trimester of their pregnancy. There is no legislation to protect unborn animals in abattoirs – even if they are days away from being born. Christopher Day MRCVS says, The routine slaughter of known pregnant animals in the UK should be made illegal forthwith, on humane grounds. In this country we make pretensions to be compassionate to animals. This practice is wholly inconsistent with such pretensions. What happens to the foetus? DEFRA says that, The uterus and dead foetus is sent with the green offal from the slaughterhouse for disposal by rendering from any pregnant animals which are under thirty months when slaughtered. All material from animals over thirty months (which is the
