Reply #38: Also, editorial in the New York Times today on this subject.

[shockra]

Face to Face With the Foie Gras Problem

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

Published: June 26, 2005

The web of life can be a trap for the conscience. Try twisting your mind around the human relationship with animals and it may quickly snarl in crisscrossing strands of compassion and guilt. Contortions may ensue.

Consider, for example, the strange role reversals behind an effort in Albany to outlaw the force-feeding of waterfowl to engorge their livers into foie gras, the fatty restaurant delicacy. One Senate sponsor, John Bonacic, is an upstate Republican who says he has no special sympathy for ducks or geese, despite what his bill says. He says he wants only to help a Sullivan County constituent - Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the nation's leading producer of fresh foie gras, which has not only lobbied for the bill, but also helped to write it.

Why? Michael Ginor, an owner of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, says he feels an anti-foie-gras mood building and is willing to be put out of business in New York if he can land on his feet somewhere else. The Bonacic bill, unlike others lurking in the legislative wings, does not take effect until 2016, giving Mr. Ginor ample time to make other plans - moving to Canada, maybe, or an Indian reservation - without worrying about losing his market dominance or facing prosecution for cruelty.

Animal welfare advocates have thus found themselves opposing a foie-gras ban, which in this case they say cynically gives a duck torturer a decade of indulgence.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/opinion/26sun2.html?