Are cameras in slaughterhouses a good idea for animal ‘welfare’? Seems so at first but not really. There is no way to humanely slaughter anyone, while many animals remain tortured before meeting the knife at the kill floor. Abstaining from animal products is still the way to lessen in/direct demand for suffering.
For showing both sides of the coin, cameras should be at the entire process of the breeding as well as the kill floor. Cameras at the kill floor only ironically might increase demand for meat due to reasons above. It can lead to the attitude of ‘Phew! I’m eating “less cruel” meat in France (though killing is always cruel). Thank goodness! I can now eat more meat “more morally”. (Never mind that this demands more breeding and killing.)’ That’s the problem, making welfarism in this instance a step backwards, not forward at all. It’s an illusion of moral progress. Real progress for real ‘welfare’ must contribute to real advancement towards veganism; instead of ‘preventing’ it, by making it seem less pressing.
In the same news link is this recent extension:
‘Update: A statement by L214 was released today, January 13, decrying the limits imposed on viewership of footage from video surveillance in slaughterhouses. The organization states on its FaceBook page that “animals will continue to suffer” and that only members of government veterinary services and management of slaughterhouses will have access to important evidence of the cruelty animals must endure in slaughterhouses. Several more French animal rights organizations, including 269Life Liberation Animale, have echoed this deep disappointment, reacting with disgust at the fact that hundreds of lawmakers did not even show up at the National Assembly to participate in the debate on the floor.’