Mom-to-be Kristen Bell cares about the welfare of other pregnant females — particularly pigs.
The Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Veronica Mars star wrote a letter to Neil Dierks, CEO of the National Pork Producers Council, condemning the use of gestation crates to confine breeding pigs so tightly that the animals can't even turn around.
"I love being pregnant, but I can only imagine how awful and unnatural it would be to be physically restrained for the entire process, and for these pigs, it's for life," Bell wrote to Dierks.
The gestation crates were thought of as an innovation when they were introduced in pork breeding facilities three decades ago. Pork producers say gestation crates keep sows from fighting with each other. Animal advocates say they're cruel.
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Breeding pigs are confined 24 hours a day during their four-month pregnancies in cages that are snug along the pigs' sides. When birthing time is near, the pregnant pig mommies are transferred to a different crate where they can lie on their sides while nursing.
After the nursing period is up, the baby pigs are whisked away, breeding pigs are impregnated again, and the cycle begins all over again as long as the pigs live.
The gestation cage system has been condemned by animal welfare expert Dr. Temple Grandin, who says, "Confining an animal for most of its life in a box in which it is not able to turn around does not provide a decent life."
Fast-food companies such as McDonald's, Burger King, Arby's and Wendy's have pledged not to use pork from "confinement farms," while grocery stores like Costco and Target are working to eliminate pork produced with gestation crates.
"The pork industry's defense of cramming pregnant pigs into small crates where they can't even turn around or stretch their limbs is just a house of lies," Bell wrote.
Say, isn't she in the Showtime series House of Lies? Weird that she would use that turn of phrase, huh?