It's reported that horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption --  because Congress has lifted a ban on funding horse meat inspections.

Activists say horse slaughter houses that closed a few years ago could be up and running again very soon, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says it approves.

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Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006, after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years.  Unable to get federal inspections, all American horse slaughter houses were forced to close.

Congress has quietly lifted the funding ban in a spending bill President Barack Obama signed this month to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

This means horse slaughter houses that closed five years ago are now free to reopen, and several could be operating again by the end of the year.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has emerged as a surprising supporter of reopening American horse slaughter houses, under strictly controlled human conditions, and if it's accompanied by a ban on exporting horses to other countries.

PETA says in the five years since the slaughter was stopped, hundreds of thousands of horses have been sold to slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada, where the slaughter process is nowhere near as humane as it was in the United States.

In addition, thousands of horses have been abandoned by their owners and allowed to starve to death.

A statement from PETA says the amount of suffering the ban created far exceeded the amount of suffering it was designed to stop.

 

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