A recent column (“A horse is a horse…,” Nov. 29) does a disservice to horses by suggesting that slaughtering them for their meat will safeguard them from cruelty.

The fact is, horse slaughter is cruelty.

Writer Phil Brown does an otherwise admirable job of recounting public opposition to slaughter and gives necessary mention to the fact that skittish, sensitive horses are particularly unsuited to the torment of slaughter plants.

But Brown inexplicably veers off track in saying that reopening domestic slaughter plants is the answer to an increase in horse neglect and abandonment. He would have us believe that government regulation in the United States would protect against “less-than-humane” techniques in this grisly process. Unfortunately, that’s not so. When slaughter plants operated here, the treatment of horses was appalling. The U.S. Department of Agriculture documented horses suffering during transport to slaughter, often arriving with horrific, bloody injuries. And the slaughter process itself is abusive and painful for horses, due to the misguided and often repeated attempts to render them unconscious.

The problems of horse abuse and neglect can be solved only with a blend of wise policy solutions, rescue and sanctuary work, and a large dose of personal responsibility. Horse slaughter should not exist as a grisly crutch for irresponsible owners and breeders while the majority finds decent and humane outcomes for horses.

Opinion polls from 2012 are clear — 80 percent of Americans oppose the slaughter of horses and the majority do not want their tax dollars spent so that foreigners can consume our horses. Americans do not raise horses for human consumption, so horse meat contains toxic drugs that are potentially dangerous to humans.