Twelve Letters

from the Illinois Leader
submitted by Amanda Karkula
06-04-2004

I speak on behalf of myself and many others in claiming that the behavior of our IL House of Representatives on Friday, May 28, 2004 was despicable! Judging from the debacle, which occurred when the Illinois House of Representatives was called to vote on a bill banning horse slaughter in IL, it was clear that our representatives were intent on turning what has taken years of struggle for many hard-working people into a joke!

Skirting around the issue was the Lame Duck Representative Charles Morrow, who ventured such claims that his people are starving and "eating cat food" because they are financially struggling to make ends meet. He proposed that his poor senior citizens and those struggling financially should consider adding horsemeat to their diets. Of course he is not speaking of the very horsemeat that costs around fifteen to twenty dollars a pound. That doesn't sound too financially prudent to me.

Perhaps he should focus on what's going on in his own community where he is the target of claims that he isn't "bringing home the bacon". I'm sure the voters in his district would rather have him bringing home the bacon instead of bringing home the horsemeat.

Or perhaps he'd rather have his cat food-eating citizens eat what I wouldn't even feed to my dogs. I am sure Mr. Morrow merely overlooked the fact that our horses contain a myriad of drugs and substances which have no published exit times from the horses' bodies to date. These drugs include but are not limited to: Ivermectin (active ingredient in de-wormers), henylbutazone (active ingredient in something similar to "horse aspirin"), Progestin (the hormone found in many drugs controlling estrus in mares...), and surprisingly, these are all components of the most basic horse care - drugs any person eating an American companion animal known as a horse could be in danger of consuming, and never knowing it.

If horses were regulated as food animals and monitored for these substances, who would end up paying the price? The horse owners of course; those who help the 4 billion dollar horse industry in Illinois to thrive. At their expense and the health of their horses, horse owners would be "hoofing" the bills to pay for the development of safer-for-humans and less-effective-for-horses pharmaceutical alternatives which will ultimately cost more money for horse owners and pose unnecessary health risks to their horses.

I for one will not support horse slaughter to continue in my state. And as a voter and citizen of Illinois who feels very strongly about this issue, I will not support those who voted no on this bill. I will also not support having to pay extra for healthcare products for my horses, nor alter my healthcare regimen for them just to calm the fears of those pleasing their palate with this so-called delicacy.

Not only that, but what about the sales tax issue? Will horse products such as feed continue to be taxed as companion animal products and not food animal products which would give horse-owners a bit of a break, especially after owners will now have to pay for a special ID program for their horses as they change faces from Mr. Ed to Mr. Edible?

So to Mr. Jim Sacia, who claims that a ban on horse slaughter would be a "slap in the face" to Illinois agriculture... think again. Anything less than a ban on horse slaughter in the state of Illinois would be a slap in the face to those who financially support your agricultural enterprise - or at least 4 billion dollars of it - the horse owners of Illinois.

"Animals do feel like us, also joy, love, fear and pain but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to take their part and continue to resist the people who profit by them, who slaughter them and who torture them." - Denis de Rougement

Amanda Karkula
President of RSO: Students Against the Slaughter of Horses (S.A.S.H.)
Homer Township

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