Animal rights party renews bill to ban cruel slaughter methods

The animals rights party PvdD is making a renewed effort to pass a bill that would ban a number of common and cruel livestock slaughter methods, such as electric waterbathing, gassing via CO2, and all non-stun methods.

The bill, sent to MPs today, was first submitted in 2025, and would also ban selling cows, pigs and horses for slaughter while they’re in the last third of a pregnancy. Tipping poultry out of crates while they’re still conscious (a common practice) would also be outlawed.

According to agriculture ministry figures for 2024, 25,895 animals – cattle, calves, sheep and goats – were slaughtered without stunning under religious rites.

In the same figures, some 10.5 million pigs were slaughtered at abattoirs that use CO2 gassing, while more than 62.7 million broiler chickens, 4.6 million ducks and nearly 4,000 turkeys were killed at slaughterhouses that use electric waterbaths.

PvdD MP Esther Ouwehand, who drafted the bill, told broadcaster NOS: “the aim of the law is to limit the suffering of animals during slaughter as much as possible.”

The party first began trying to outlaw non-stun slaughter in 2008 but was voted down in the Senate over freedom of religion concerns. But the Council of State said last year a ban would not necessarily breach freedom religion following European court rulings on bans in Belgium.