Supreme Court Upholds Key Provision of Prop 12; PETA Celebrates but Warns Severe Cruelty Persists
For Immediate Release:
May 11, 2023
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the meat lobby in its case against California’s ban on selling meat from pork producers that fail to meet Proposition 12’s meager improvements in factory farm conditions, upholding a key provision of the law. Please see the following statement from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, who is outside the Supreme Court right now, in response to the ruling:
PETA commends the Supreme Court for blocking the meat industry’s greedy attempt to deny mother pigs, hens, and calves a miserly few inches more space in enclosures that still prevent them from taking barely a single step—but we also stress that this ruling does nothing to end the extreme cruelty inherent in today’s factory-farming and slaughter industry. Feel-good labels like “crate-free” and “cage-free” are meaningless to the animals who are suffering for their whole lives, condemned to dark and crowded sheds, raised on concrete, and sent to slaughter without ever touching grass or experiencing a natural life. PETA was attacked for lamenting the immense time and energy that went into campaigning for Prop 12 when the real push should have been for people to simply stop eating animals, as the only truly humane meal is a vegan one, and we offer a free downloadable vegan starter kit to keep the ball rolling in that direction at PETA.org.
To alert passersby to the ruling and remind everyone that “humane meat” doesn’t exist, Newkirk and other PETA members, including one in a pig mask holding a sign proclaiming, “Humane Meat Doesn’t Exist,” are outside the courthouse. Please let me know if you have any questions.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
