Letter to the editor: North Dakota should not welcome horse slaughter

I am a member of the North Dakota Anti Horse Slaughter Coalition based out of Mandan, N.D. It provides fact-based information to people who would like to learn more about the inhumanities of horse slaughter and the negative social aspects of it.

Recently I was asked if I thought animals had rights. I really had to think for a minute. I am not an animal-rights activist. I am a horse-welfare advocate. After thinking about this question, I came to the conclusion that animals do not have rights so much as people have laws regarding animals. Every state has animal laws. People have a legal obligation to animals including horses as well as a moral duty and responsibility to animals.

Unless you own a million-dollar race horse, show horse or rodeo horse, horses are not assets. They are liabilities and liabilities cost money.

When the day comes that you can no longer take care of your horse, try to find it another home. If it becomes old, sick or lame, it should be humanely euthanized and yes it will cost money. That was what you signed up for when you bought this horse, brought it home and made it dependent on you. The horse is now your responsibility, not society’s.

We do have options. I have not even begun with the toxic meat, the way the horses are slaughtered and how they are not a human food source here in the U.S. There is an easy answer to this “unhomed” horse situation but for rich investors who want to become richer, slaughtering horses and selling the unfit, carcinogenic meat to Europe, there appears to be only answer and that is horse slaughter.

Society does not realize what could be possibly coming to town. I feel sorry for all of them. Once the filth, disease, blood dumping, wails of dying horses and crime comes to town, it is hard to get rid of it.

Be so careful what you wish for, you may just get it!

Alison Smith

Mandan, N.D.

Tags: opinion, letters, horses