Slaughterhouses: The Hypocrisy Death Penalty Abolitionists Must Face at the Dinner Table

On the morning of an execution, two rooms are running.

In one, a condemned man is strapped to a table while witnesses watch through glass. In the other—somewhere across the country, on the same morning—a line of animals moves toward a room they can smell. Both rooms have been designed so that those who benefit from them need not be present. Both depend, for their continuation, on the willingness of society to look away.

Drawing on philosophy, theology, neuroscience, and the documented psychol...