Massachusetts Begins Transition Away from Pork from Pigs Confined in Gestation Crates After Supreme Court Decision
BOSTON, Aug. 23, 2023 – The 2016 Massachusetts ballot question law, An Act to Prevent Cruelty to Farm Animals (Question 3), takes effect tomorrow, following a favorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May.
The ballot question, which passed with 78% support, prohibits the confinement of calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens, and gestating pigs, in a manner that prevents them from standing up, turning around, and spreading their limbs. It ensures the Massachusetts market does not contribute to demand for products that come from such confinement and that Massachusetts citizens are no longer complicit in this animal cruelty. It also helps protect the health and welfare of Massachusetts citizens, reducing the risk of food borne illnesses and zoonotic pandemics that result from intensive confinement.
While certain provisions of the measure — relating to the housing for hens and calves as well as the sale of eggs and veal — have already been implemented in the Commonwealth, the portion impacting the sale of pork that comes from the offspring of mother pigs kept in gestation crates was delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a case brought by pork producers against a similar law in California (National Pork Producers Council v. Ross).
With that case decided in favor of a state’s right to enact these types of measures, the use of gestation crates to confine mother pigs in the Commonwealth and the sale of pork products in Massachusetts derived from such confinement, regardless of where they were raised, is prohibited. The state will begin implementation tomorrow and will allow non-compliant pork products already on the shelves/in the supply chain as of today to be used up.
Female pigs used for breeding in the pork industry are often confined to gestation crates, which are concrete and metal cages so small the pregnant pigs cannot take more than one step in any direction. When used, mother pigs spend a majority of their lives pregnant in these crates until they are slaughtered. The ballot question was supported by the MSPCA and the Animal Rescue League of Boston, along with other animal protection, public health, and food safety advocates.
While some pork producers have filed yet another lawsuit seven years after the measure passed, organizations dismissed the effort as yet one more last-ditch effort to delay humane treatment of mother pigs by the pork industry that will fail.
Kara Holmquist, Director of Advocacy for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals states, “The ballot question process, and now the legal process, have resolved in favor of the ability to ensure animals can have space to move. The continuing efforts by the pork industry to deny Massachusetts voters of their decision is insulting and deceptive.”
Ally Blanck, Director of Advocacy for the Animal Rescue League of Boston, said “The voters who overwhelmingly supported the 2016 ballot question will finally see their protections for animals fully enforced tomorrow.”
The law is enforced by the Department of Agricultural Resources and the Attorney General’s office.
