CONSIDER THE TURKEY

The noted animal-rights ethicist and activist delivers a plea to leave Meleagris gallopavo off the holiday table.

For decades, in league with Francis Moore Lappé and other advocates of plant-based diets, Singer has been writing on the moral standing of animals and their right to live free of pain and terror. That would certainly not apply to the “46 million turkeys killed annually for Thanksgiving dinners,” which, by his account, are raised under appalling industrial conditions until they are “spent,” no longer capable of reproduction, at which point they’re marched off to slaughter. In that killing process, he adds, the indignity continues: sometimes, hung upside down so roughly that their legs are broken, their throats are slit; increasingly, and perhaps even more horrifically, they’re killed by having their holding chambers heated until they succumb to heatstroke. Singer notes that these methods are pretty well uniquely American, since most developed countries, and certainly those in Europe, require that animals be humanely killed, while American producers are subject to no such scruples. “I take the utilitarian view that the right action is the one that does the most to reduce pain and suffering, and increase pleasure and happiness, for all beings capable of having those experiences—in other words, for all sentient beings,” Singer explains. The reader may be shocked enough by his descriptions to adopt the same view, but if not, Singer counsels that the least one can do, if bent on eating turkey at the holidays, is to buy a bird that has been humanely farm-raised and killed—adding, “expect to pay much more for it.” For those willing to go further, he offers recipes for vegetable and tofu dishes that are both appealing and not especially challenging to prepare.

A well-considered exhortation to give a thought to a badly treated bird.