Since our founding in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and combat the abuses of animal agriculture. We’ve rescued thousands of animals from egregious cruelty and encouraged people to see them as friends, not food. The public is listening: This month, two important cases, propelled by our 36 years of advocacy, made national news — a hearing on California’s Proposition 12 and Smithfield Foods vs. DxE.

On October 11, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a case brought by agribusiness to invalidate a California law that prohibits the extreme confinement of pregnant pigs. Pregnant mothers spend much of their gestation in extreme discomfort — confined in cages and crates where they are unable to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, or stretch their limbs.

The law was enacted by a 2018 voter initiative, Proposition 12, which passed with nearly two-thirds of voter support. It bans the use of veal crates (for calves), gestation crates (for pregnant pigs used for breeding), and battery cages (for hens used for egg production). The law also prohibits the sale of products from such inhumane systems in the state of California.

Farm Sanctuary is an official intervenor in this case, as part of a coalition of nonprofit organizations — led by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) — urging SCOTUS to uphold the law. As an intervenor, Farm Sanctuary is a party to the Supreme Court case, working to make sure farmed animals have a voice in a legal system that all too often ignores them.

Factory farm interests from agricultural states have been fighting voters from the beginning. They want to continue using methods that Proposition 12 bans, despite voters’ clear rejections of these immense harms.

This is part of a long history of industry pushback against any law that serves farm animals. For more than three decades, Farm Sanctuary and our allies have been supporting and defending laws that fight animal cruelty. Following years of unsuccessful legislative attempts, we joined forces with HSUS to strengthen our call against inhumane confinement. In 2002, we co-led a successful ballot initiative — Florida’s Amendment 10 — to ban the use of gestation crates for pigs.

This was the first initiative in the country to outlaw a factory farm confinement practice. In addition to lessening cruelty, Amendment 10 enshrined language in the Florida Constitution that refers to a female pig as a “she,” not an “it.” It is part of our ongoing effort to have farm animals recognized as living, feeling animals, not units of production.

A week before SCOTUS began hearings on Prop 12, jurors in St. George, Utah announced a landmark win for animals in Smithfield Foods vs. DxE. Wayne Hsuing and Paul Pickelsimer, animal advocates from Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), had been prosecuted for removing two sick and dying piglets from a Smithfield factory farm and bringing them to a sanctuary.

The activists had performed an “open rescue,” a form of civil disobedience where people visibly remove animals from harm and are willing to face legal consequences. The first documented open rescue in the U.S. occurred in 1986 when Farm Sanctuary rescued Hilda, a downed sheep discarded on a pile of dead animals behind Lancaster Stockyards in Pennsylvania.

Every year, millions of piglets in the pig industry die before they’re of weaning age — nearly 16 to 20 percent of individuals born on factory farms. The two individuals rescued by DxE, Lily and Lizzie, would have been part of that statistic had rescuers not intervened.

While these small, ailing pigs had little to no economic value, prosecutors from the state of Utah and the federal government spent a disproportionate amount of time and resources to track them down and prosecute their rescuers. In one instance, FBI agents raided an animal sanctuary and took a piece of a pig’s ear to get their DNA — aiming to prove that the animals were “owned” by Smithfield. In court, the state argued that DxE activists stole valuable property and should be convicted of felony burglary. If convicted, Hsuing and Pickelsimer each faced up to 10 years in prison.

The case centered around whether farm animals are products or living beings who deserve compassion. The state argued that this matter was about theft, not animal cruelty, and denied evidence of wanton animal abuse at Smithfield. The prosecutor even derided the idea of rescuing these suffering animals, comparing the kind action to rescuing a dented, damaged can from the grocery store. Meanwhile, the defendants asserted that they had an ethical duty to take action and intervene to prevent unnecessary suffering.

In his closing argument, defendant Hsuing addressed the jury directly, saying, “We all have a duty to be kind. And your decision today, if you make a good one, will make the world a little bit of a kinder place even for a baby pig in a factory farm.” After deliberation, the jury came back with their unanimous verdict, finding Hsuing and Pickelsimer not guilty on all counts — a critical victory not just for the DxE defendants, but for farm animals and advocates across the country.

We are proud of Farm Sanctuary’s legacy as a champion for open rescue, and we are grateful to the lawyers, allies, activists, and conscientious consumers across the country who are helping change how our society views and treats farm animals.