Re: “The humane slaughterhouse,” February 9: Is humane slaughter the highest benchmark to which humans should aspire in our definition of what it means to behave humanely? Barring dire circumstances of survival, slaughter is murder, plain and simple. Let’s not pretend that it can ever be made right.

Regarding Temple Grandin, she has Asperger’s Syndrome—an autistic condition of which one characteristic is limited or no empathy. Any attempt to present her as an animal empath is a combination of her own delusion, her PR people to sell her books, and the animal slavery industry’s strategy to protect and increase their profits by hoodwinking the public with the notion of guiltless happy meat. To give her accolades is to keep the bar as low as it always has been, except with a more insane twist.

Know that her “expertise” is chillingly reminiscent of Nazi extermination practices. She calls the ramp she designed to funnel cattle to their deaths the “Stairway to Heaven.” Do you think it’s just a coincidence that the SS at Treblinka and Sobibor similarly called the tube to the gas chambers the “Road to Heaven?” Think again.

If full transparency were possible about the lives and deaths of all animals at the hand of humans, and people would take off their blinders and allow their eyes, hearts and minds to bear witness to how low we actually sink—whether we are the executioner, or pay the executioner with our purchasing power—maybe, just maybe, our world would have a chance for the love and peace to which we give lip service.

Time is running out on the environment and our collective health and soul. We must aspire to a higher standard of what it means to be human. And that standard is a vegan consciousness.

Paula Frank

Queens, NY