Killing animals for food: how science, religion and technologies affect the public debate about religious slaughter

This paper discusses the ethics of killing animals for food by looking at current practices of conventional and halal slaughter in Egypt and in the UK. It addresses the role of animal science (with its recent advances on animal sentience), slaughterhouse technologies (with increased mechanization) and religion (with its multiple interpretations of religious rules in the case of halal slaughter) in affecting the public acceptability and the ethical questioning of these practices, as well as the controversy about the authenticity of halal meat in Europ