What's wrong with humane slaughter?

The objection

“I don’t support cruelty, I support humane slaughter. The animal feels nothing and dies quickly. So what’s the problem?”

The answer

Take “humane” at its word and check it against the standard method. In England and Wales, around 90% of pigs are stunned by being lowered into chambers of high-concentration carbon dioxide [1]. This is the dominant practice, not a fringe one, used because it is fast and cheap at scale.

The UK government’s own Animal Welfare Committee describes what happens inside those chambers. The CO₂ dissolves on the moist membranes of the eyes, nose, mouth and lungs to form carbonic acid, which is painful. Conscious pigs experience “air hunger”, an overwhelming urge to breathe, with anxiety and panic, and they vocalise, hyperventilate and attempt to escape before losing consciousness, a process that can take roughly 21 to 60 seconds [1]. A 2025 veterinary review reaches the same conclusion [2]. By the industry’s own scientific advisers, the most common stunning method causes pain, respiratory distress and fear.

The word “humane” is doing a lot of concealing.

But grant a genuinely painless death. A deeper problem stays put. Humane killing settles how an animal dies, not whether it should be killed at all. We don’t accept gently killing an unwilling person; the wrong is taking a life that had its own interest in continuing. The death isn’t necessary, since a plant-based diet is well established as adequate. Making it painless doesn’t make it justified. It only makes it quieter.