As the calendar winds down on the Biden administration and as a certain spray-tanned barbarian looms large, President Biden is experiencing plenty of “lasts.” He gave his last UN address in September, he spoke at his last G20 summit this past Wednesday, and on Monday, he’ll pardon his last turkeys.

While the presidential turkey pardon doesn’t have quite the same geopolitical implications as the former milestones, it’s a long-standing tradition. Every year, two “lucky” turkeys are treated to a day of pampering, labeled with a food-related name (last year the pair was named “Peanut Butter” & “Jelly”), joined by the president in front of the White House for a photo-op, and then shipped off to spend the rest of their days in anonymity (typically at a petting zoo or a university for research).

The presidential turkey pardon is a long-standing tradition. And, not to mention, a complete farce.

Every year, children in this country will learn about the first thanksgiving (which didn’t include turkey on the menu). They’ll trace their hands and turn them into turkeys. They’ll wear turkey hats. They’ll go “gobble gobble,” and for about one week, turkeys will steal the hearts of millions of kids.

Concurrently, in the backdrop of all these turkey day festivities, 46 million turkeys are killed in the U.S. as a part of this sadistic, ritualistic slaughter for this one, single day.

The turkey pardon is nothing more than an empty gesture from the federal government to the American public: here’s a way to wipe your hands clean of the complicity that comes with Thanksgiving.

And yes—there is complicity in this holiday. The 46 million figure is only the beginning of the horror show that is the average life of a turkey in America.

A farmed turkey’s life begins in the hatchery. It’s a barren incubator, devoid of anything except a massive heat lamp intended to fabricate the sensation of their mother’s brooding.

Within a week of hatching, these young birds are subject to grotesque body modifications. Their snood is removed as it proves to be an easy pecking target for frustrated birds. They’re de-toed and de-beaked, using red hot blades, to further discourage the turkeys from injuring one another. The outer feathers along their wings are trimmed, too, to prevent flight.

It’s vital to note that pecking and scratching—the behaviors that these mutilations attempt to curb—only occur because of the lack of stimulation in these barren, overcrowded facilities.

In addition to bodily mutilations, turkeys are subject to genetic modifications, too. The main operative of turkey farmers is to abbreviate their life cycles as much as possible. They want to reduce the period between birth and slaughter to maximize productivity and profits. For this reason, most turkeys are brought to slaughter at just five months old.

This is obviously unnatural—wild turkeys can live up to 10 years. It’s also incredibly dangerous for turkeys to grow at such a rapid rate. A farmed turkey will transform from 0.2 lbs. to the target weight of 42 lbs. in a mere 19 weeks, and this target weight has more than doubled over the last few decades. What that means for turkeys is that they’re raised to be so large and misshapen that they’re regularly spelled with life-changing deformities—reproduction requires artificial insemination to be successful.

Adding insult to injury, turkeys are rendered immobile because they’re packed together so densely. Most are only granted a less-than-three-square-foot space to inhabit for the entirety of their lives. When they finally escape this extreme confinement (only to be sent to slaughter), and litter on the floor is revealed, up to 80% of it is comprised of their own feces. This causes ulcerated feet, and painful body burns.

This inhumane practice is the norm— approximately 99% of turkeys being sold in U.S. grocery stores were raised in intensive confinement, even the so-called “free-range” ones.

While you might think that you’re absolved from this complicity so long as you only consume “free-range” turkeys, I can assure you that is not the case. According to the USDA, the terms “free-range” and “free-roaming” are used to describe animals who are “allowed access to the outdoors for at least 51% of their lives.” In most cases, these free-range facilities are hardly distinguishable from non-free-range facilities—they’ll look more like sheds, but that’s about it.

Free-range turkeys are still genetically modified, debeaked, de-snooded and de-toed. They’re also kept in low light. Not to mention, all turkeys face the same horrors at the slaughterhouse.

The first savagery is the stun tank. It’s an electrified tank of water meant to quickly kill, which it frequently fails to do. This leaves turkeys hanging in pain as they pass on to the next step: the blade.

Turkeys are hung upside down, and their necks are meant to pass through a spinning blade. For the stun tank survivors, this means they’ll be conscious as they pass through the blade. These still-conscious birds will thrash and flail and miss the blade, passing them along to the final stage: the scalding water.

The tank of boiling hot water is supposed to remove feathers from the deceased birds. For those still standing (which, again, is many) they’ll face a nightmarish death in the scalding tank.

Turkeys experience stress, pain, and fear, just like humans, making this barbarous process especially sadistic.

They really are magnificent creatures, once you begin to understand them. In the natural world, a flock of wild turkeys’ home range can extend up to 60,000 acres—a bit bigger than the less-than-three-square-feet farmed turkeys get to experience. Wild turkeys roam prairies and woodlands for food in large groups, and they fly into the trees at night to roost. Mother turkeys will even team up to watch all their babies together as a group.

It’s unfathomable that such a social bird has even been condemned to this exploitative fate. Turkeys are vessels for life, not sources of food.

“Pardoning” and “free-range” are empty terms that offer nothing more than a means for people to wash their hands clean of complicity. Want to be absolved from guilt? Carve the tofu instead.

And when Biden grants amnesty to this year’s lucky couple, take a minute to consider the 46 million others living in hell.