What is your definition of "humane slaughter"? I disagree with horse slaughter and am glad that it has been banned in the US. Am I a Petaphile?
"Humane slaughter" means the animal is not allowed to suffer during slaughter. It is ended quickly, they are treated respectfully and carefully during the time before slaughter while being transported and all.
"Inhumane slaughter" would be abusive treatment before slaughter, or slaughtering methods that caused prolonged suffering of the animal.
It's not as if the slaughtered horses are thrown into garbage dumps and wasted. The meat is sold to people in other countries that eat horse. Horse leather is much more durable than cow leather too.
Honestly, if an animal is going to be put down, it
is much better that it's done in a manner where suffering is minimalized rather than shipped to a foreign country where there is little to no regulation, and who knows what happens to those horses before they die.
On a personal note, I really like horses but I don't not see their lives as having any more intrinsic value than a cow. Having worked with both, I like cows much more than horses. This doesn't mean I don't eat beef, or that I don't think cows should be slaughtered...because they
are livestock, and that is what they are made for. I have had pet cows, and we didn't eat them..but at the same time we kept beef cows that we did eat. The same thing with our chickens, rabbits, etc. From my point of view, the government stepping in and saying I can't slaughter a horse is like the government making a law that I may feed mice to my snakes, but not gerbils because gerbils have more intrinsic value to the general public than mice..and that to me is complete meddling and invasion of privacy.
Please note that I never have or never intend to slaughter a horse. It's just that these laws do not make any sense to me at all.