Also tangential to this entire conversation is the merit/morality of animal consumption whatsoever, and whether it can be morally defended in the modern context, but I think that’s also best left for another day.
And, as you touch upon, religious rites do not (solely) search for the solution that is most humane for the animal; they also take into consideration the religious value of the experience for third parties. But that means that, all else being equal, secular slaughtering processes, as they do not seek ritual values, should be more free to converge to the most humane solution.
The point was that most people see torture plus murder worse than a quick murder, and that should be clearly analogous to your ironic cite, that I read as pointing out the supposed hypocrisy of making a slauthering “ethical”. Different ways to kill, be it human or animal, even if we agree they are unethical, are not unethical in the same degree.
> secular slaughtering processes, as they do not seek ritual values, should be more free to converge to the most humane solution.
Ok, but is there any reason it would converge to a humane solution at all? How strong is the market pressure in that direction? Jewish people are willing to pay a price premium to get a specific type of slaughter. Are secular people willing to pay a similarly-large price premium to get humane slaughter?
I agree, but politically shortcutting through religious blocs tends to be impossible. If it wasn't we would have been rid of those roadblocks when we killed god. 240 years later, those roadblocks are still in place, what tools of reason can we use to circumvent them as well as possible?