Vote to end suffering of caged animals

To the editor:

Regarding “Billionaire funds fight against Question 3”: I am confident that Question 3 will succeed despite the spending of an Indiana oil baron’s efforts to sabotage animal protection efforts across the U.S. My reasons follow.

Initial polling is showing enormous statewide support for the ballot measure. In addition it is endorsed by the MSPCA, United Farm Workers, more than 500 Massachusetts veterinarians, and sustainable farmers across the commonwealth. As a policy of compassion to farm animals, it would require that farm animals be given enough space to stand up and fully extend their limbs, with sensible exceptions where veterinary care calls for them.

Also, trying to present this ballot measure as a case of pitting animal cruelty against economics is a baseless argument. Studies have shown that the rumors of huge price increases are fiction and amount to, for example, pennies per egg.

The way animals are treated by some large pork, veal and egg companies is unconscionable. Even on small farms, though the setting looks much nicer, the crowding and confinement from being locked in cages so small they can barely move (often concealed from the view of visitors), creates both psychological and physical suffering for the animals for their entire lives.

What should especially interest consumers who are on the fence about how to vote on this ballot measure is that these animals are routinely given many powerful antibiotics and other drugs to combat diseases and syndromes caused by their lifelong confinement and inactivity … many of which remain in their meat after slaughter and are ingested by you and your family when you eat them.

Ask yourself this … would you want to take a Sunday tour with your children of any farm utilizing these practices and tell them this is where their food comes from? Or that you are perfectly OK with it?

Be their example. Show them with your vote that you believe it’s time to end the cruelty and suffering of these animals.

Long overdue, Question 3 a good policy that deserves our support on Nov. 8.

Deb Silke

Newburyport