Published Letters and Op-Eds from
COK’s Writers Group

View on Foie Gras

Published in The San Francisco Chronicle on October 4, 2004.

Editor—Thank you to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for signing legislation terminating the sale and production of foie gras in California starting in 2012 ("Governor vetoes bills on offshoring jobs," Sept. 30).

Animal advocates, of course, will see this as a victory. We have long argued that the practice of making foie gras—which involves the forced feeding of ducks and geese to swell their livers up to 10 times their normal size—is nothing less than animal torture.

Certain gourmands, on the other hand, will condemn this legislation as infringing on their rights. Now, at last, the welfare of ducks and geese has been recognized.

This ban is long overdue. It demonstrates to the world that we in California put the well-being of animals over gustatory pleasures.

Mark Hawthorne
Rohnert Park, Calif.