Supreme Court’s Decision To Duck a Foie Gras Case – End of Food Freedom?

 

First they came for our toilets. Then our shower heads. Then our lightbulbs. Now they implement a foie gras ban. There really isn’t any limit to how much our newly minted legislators and generation Z’s now want to get their hands on our food supply. Oblivious to the cost of of their demands. Apparently the Supremes have little taste for the case as well.

foie gras definition is – the fatted liver of an animal and especially of a goose usually served as a pâté.

Setting aside the debate regarding the method used to develop the fatted liver, when and where will it stop in regulating raising livestock? Free range chickens only? Pork, Beef. How about farm raised fish?

 

 

 

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it would not (yet) hear an appeal in a case challenging California’s unconstitutional and much-reviled foie gras ban. The case will now head back to U.S. District Court.

The Supreme Court’s decision is a temporary setback for foie gras producers, chefs, and others fighting the law. They’ve vowed to continue their efforts.

Michael Tenenbaum, who represents the plaintiffs in the case, told me this week that he and his clients look forward to proceeding with the case and that they’re confident they will prevail.Meanwhile, though, restaurants and others in California that serve foie gras could face fines of $1,000 for any violation of the law.

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Culinary leaders—from California chefs to French foie gras producers—are aghast.

Those interested in learning more may do so by reading the April column on the amicus brief, the brief itself, and other earlier columns on foie gras over the years.)

“We noted in our brief that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed bans on various types of foods and liquors as ‘lunacy’ and ‘despotic,'” says Manny Klausner, a former editor of Reason, a Reason Foundation co-founder and board member, and attorney who joined me on the Reason/Cato amicus brief. “The Supreme Court’s denial of cert. is a sad occasion for those who support Free Minds and Free Markets.”

In the amicus brief and elsewhere—including this O.C. Register op-ed last year—It was argued that the implications and reverberations of the foie gras case extend well beyond foie gras and could ensnare almost any conceivable animal product, including beef, pork, and chicken.

The concerns expressed then are even more apparent today given that the Supreme Court—also this week—rejected challenges to two separate animal-rights laws in Massachusetts and California that, just like the foie gras ban, serve as unconstitutional impediments to interstate commerce in animal products. (The laws, while different from one another, restrict the ability of farmers to cage egg-laying hens and other livestock.)

Interfering with interstate commerce is exactly what these laws intend and what they do. Consider that a poll (much touted among animal-rights groups) last year found nearly half of respondents want to ban slaughterhouses and so-called “factory farming.” A full one-third of Americans, the poll claims, want to ban all livestock farming. Period. A ban on livestock farming would mean that nearly all animal-derived foods—from prime rib to pork chops, bacon, and chicken McNuggets—would disappear for good.

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But there’s more. With the foie gras ban and the Massachusetts and California animal-rights laws allowed to stand—for now, at least—there is little doubt that other U.S. states where livestock farming and exports of animal products play a leading economic role will find creative ways to retaliate against California and Massachusetts. Animal rights supports might not like these laws so much.

Lawmakers in a state impacted by California’s animal-rights laws, say, might pass a law that says all eggs sold in their state may come only from caged hens. (Any old justification would do, but let’s go with the food-safety argument that they’re more hygienic than eggs from free-roaming chickens.) Such a law would effectively spell the end of California egg exports to that state. More at Reason