Are Humans And Animals Separate But Equal?
In a recent OpEd Animal Rights Activist Gayle Dean provocatively asks: "Did Epstein even view the video that cries out for explanation?" before attacking him and his article for defending Covance, a company that employs animal tests, and which stands accused by PeTA of abusing animals. (PeTA has submitted documentation, including a video, which alleges some of Covance's technicians abused animals, that their supervisors knew this and that they turned a blind eye towards it.)
One could easily ask of Ms Dean: "Did Dean even bother to read the article Epstein wrote?"
The question arises because Mr. Epstein didn't defend Covance — he used the Covance case only as a starting point to talk about the more general topic of Animal Rights opposition to research. Ms Dean's piece is a standard Animal Rights polemic, and in it the subject morphs seamlessly in an ocean of righteous outrage from defender of her own virtue, assertions that animal abuse is rampant in the research enterprise, the validity of PeTA's specific accusations against Covance, and the immorality of research in general.
But she seems most concerned — one could almost say consumed — by Mr. Epstein's characterization of Animal Rights activists as: "vicious, deceptive and antihuman."
At face value, Ms Dean might seem to have a point, or at least to have caught Mr. Epstein being hyperbolic. But not if you really know what Animal Rights is, what its proponents stand for, and where the AR logic leads you, should you accept the premise underlying Animal Rights.
Animal Rights is not Animal Welfare on steroids, though that's the face a naive public often mistakes it for.
Animal Rights activists believe that the life of an animal and that of a human are equal value, and that if it is immoral to discriminate on the basis of race, sex or age, it is equally immoral to discriminate on the bases of species, the sin of "speciesism."
That is the core AR value, the premise underlying the AR ideology, the starting point for understanding both the prohibitions AR ideology demands of the world, and the affirmative obligations AR ideology demands of its disciples.
If you accept the assumption that the life of an animal and that of a human are of equal value, then lots of things fall into place. You understand why Professor Steven Best, a self-appointed Press Officer for the terrorist Animal Liberation Front, would save his dog from a burning house before he would save a human stranger. Both lives are of equal value, and his dog is more important TO HIM than the stranger is TO HIM. If the human stranger happens to be your child, parent, spouse, sib, friend or cousin — that's not Professor Best's problem.
You also understand why Dr. Jerry Vlasak, likewise a self-appointed Press Officer of the Animal Liberation Front, has publicly proclaimed the assassination of scientists to be morally acceptable and, after that publicly advocated that scientists be assassinated. Dr. Vlasak also believes that the life of a human and that of a lab rat are of equal value, and if by assassinating "N" scientists you can save the lives of "N + 1" animals, it is a bargain. Dr. Vlasak has reduced morality to a matter of simple arithmetic, and he is obligated by the core "anti-speciesism" value to act, or encourage others to act, affirmatively in behalf of animals, in this case by assassinating scientists.
You will understand why PeTA — the flagship Animal Rights organization — developed its Holocaust on Your Plate campaign, in which chicken farming is likened to the Nazi death camps that claimed the lives of more than 6,000,000 human beings, and you will understand what motivated PeTA's more recent "Are Animals the New Slaves?" campaign which was forced to cut its tour short from public outrage: to Animal Rights activists, the life of an animal is as valuable as the life of a human being.
And this is why Animal Rights extremists (that's redundant — there is no such thing as a "moderate" Animal Rights activist) oppose animal based research: if it is immoral or unethical to do something to a human, it is likewise immoral or unethical to do it to an animal (PeTA President Ingrid Newkirk has said that even if animal tests resulted in a cure for aids, she'd be against them).
In short, it is why Animal Rights activists are opposed to any use of animals by humans: you wouldn't eat humans, so you shouldn't eat animals; you don't hunt humans, so you shouldn't hunt animals; you don't breed humans selectively, so you shouldn't breed animals selectively; you don't keep humans in zoos, so you shouldn't keep animals zoos; you don't keep humans as pets, so you shouldn't keep animals as pets.
You might also understand why PeTA kicked in upwards of $45,000 to defend Rodney Coronado the ALF operative who served about 4 years in the slammer after having torched labs at Michigan State University, and why Mr. Coronado felt comfortable sending PeTA's Ms Newkirk and a colleague of hers 2 packages, one immediately prior to the MSU conflagration the other just afterwards. Mr. Coronado, after all, was simply trying to coerce and intimidate scientists into abandoning the use of animals in their research. (PeTA has a long history of contributing money to unsavory people: according to ActivistCash.com, Peta has contributed $1,500 to the terrorist Earth Liberation Front; $2000 to David Wilson, then an ALF spokesperson; $7,500 to Fran Stephanie Trutt who tried to kill the director of a medical lab; and $5,000 to anarchist Josh Harper, who attacked Native Americans during a whale hunt. Link — scroll to Blackeye.)
This all makes perfect sense, if you agree with the AR premise that the life of an animal and that of a human are of equal value.
But just as you begin to get a clear vision of what Animal Rights is, they throw you a curve ball or two.
Or more disturbingly, perhaps not . . .
For example, you learn that over the last 5.5 years, PeTA killed upwards of 75% (~12,500) of the animals they have taken into their shelter — a percentage and an absolute number which exceeds by 2 — 3 times the number of animals killed by most impoverished shelters in their vicinity — even though PeTA president Newkirk claims that PeTA could become a "no-kill" shelter virtually over night (PeTA boasts an annual budget of from $25 — $29 million). PeTA justifies the killing with the ideologically incoherent claim that animals
don't have a right to life and they (PeTA) are simply doing what necessity dictates (a disingenuous claim, given that poorer shelters have a far better track record than PeTA does). Of course, PeTA claims they kill the animals that aren't adoptable, many because they've been abused by humans (or so PeTA argues). But those are precisely the animals who would be most deserving, one would think, of the protection of Animal Rights activists, rather than quick death.
PeTA kills animals easily and in great numbers because they don't want to spend the money not to. It's that simple.
And then, Animal Rights groups, including PeTA, are strong proponents of spaying and neutering pets, which is clearly a violation of their natural right to reproduce, to enjoy the pleasures of sexual behavior and to enjoy rearing offspring.
So what are we to think? How can the Animal Rights advocates, like PeTA, reconcile cavalierly killing large numbers of animals in shelters and mounting huge campaigns to spay and neuter animals, with the notion that the life of an animal and that of a human are of equal value?
Unless, of course, they would treat humans as they would animals . . . kill them for convenience, and forcibly sterilize them for virtuous reasons.
When Mr. Epstein calls the Animal Rights advocates "vicious, deceptive and antihuman," he may not be so far off base as Ms Dean would have you believe. Whatever their intentions, the effects of the AR campaigns aren't very human-friendly.
Dr. O'Connor is Professor Emeritus of the Indiana Univ. School of Medicine, Grants Pass, OR.
17 Comments:
Having just finished reading an excellent biography on the life of celebrated abolitionist John Brown, I am struck by the degree of immoral certitude by Brian O'Connor, who denies the possibility of non-human animals having equivalent value to humans. It was this same belief in their moral superiority over black humans that allowed whites in the US south to own, abuse, and exploit their slaves barely 150 years ago in this country.
Some humans just never learn.
Jerry Vlasak, MD
Just another bullsh*t arguement. How can you compare the treatment of animals to the horros of slavery? Animals were put here on this earth for the express purpose of feeding and clothing. The one problem that I have with the videos the PETA had made, and there is can be no arguement to the fact that PETA had one of it's members go to work at Covence for the express purpose of making this video, is that they will NOT release any of the videos in an uneditted form. If they are not willing to do that, how can you take everything that they claim is on the tapes seriously?
Jerry,
I saw you and your wife on the Penn & Teller BS episode. Hence I am calling BS on you. Given the fact that you look to be a very fragile man I would hope your enemies would not adopt your tactics-you would lose quickly.
Please do not construe that as a threat just an opinion. I am above threatening people no matter how veil it may appear.
Frankly put, you appear to be just another extremist fighting some psychological demons in your own little labryth.
May I suggest you euthanize yourself in the spirit of animal libersation to prevent yourself from suffering. After all, I feel it is humane.
Hey Quack Vlasik,
First, slaves were not only in the American South.
Second, given your correlation to slavery, Brown, and the results of his endeavours magnified by a real army not just a bunch of old acid heads, the former were freed not because of one individual such as Brown , but a majority of Americans.
Third, in summation of the two previous mentioned points, do you not think we should learn from history? Then, we should free all the slaves then fire on Ft. Sumter assuming you actually have an Army and the will of the majority of the people.
Jerry, if it makes you feel better I do not know a thing about medicine , but I do know war, and the history thereof. If that is what you are calling for then I would be very leary of the end results. Granted, you work in trauma medicine and I respect that, but you have never seen the horror of war where all animals, man inclusive, get torn to shreds.
Give peaceful demonstrations and democracy a chance. I do think it is in you and your causes best interest.
1860
The results of the 1860 census show a total population of 31,183,582 including 3,950,528 slaves or 13% of the population. Slaves equal 2% of the population in what would be Northern Aligned States and 39% in Southern Aligned States. The total population for Northern Aligned States was 22,080,250 and for Southern Aligned States was 9,103,332. In the Northern Aligned States 8% of the families owned slaves and 31% in the Southern Aligned States. 57% of the population in South Carolina were slaves and 49% of the families in Mississippi owned slaves. Click for full 1860 Census detail.
General Longstreet: We should have freed the slaves, then fired on Fort Sumter.
Stick to medicine. You can save lives rather than lose lives.
The Vlasik pickle is an idiot. Hey "scary" Jerry how was the trip to the UK? MI5 was so impressed by the file on you that they would not let you in would they?
And what other countries have files on you? LOL
The recent videos of abused primates at Covance Labs make it all too clear that they experience emotions: terror at their captors and love for their fellows.
This is the kind of mind that matters, ethically, and makes all such experimentation morally problematic. Anyone who thinks abstract thought is required for moral rights is, logically, committed to vivisecting babies, which most would rightly condemn as unethical.
Scientists and ethicists should be urged to only support ethical and effective means of research and improving lives.
As a veterinarian, I have witnessed animal cruelty in biomedical research. The pain and anxiety experienced by the non-human primates at Covance is unspeakable. The fact that our society justifies such cruelty as a normal constituent of the research process is a disgraceful lie. The fact is that pharmaceutical giants “farm out” the most “sensitive” experiments to places like Covance in order to avoid bad publicity such as this. This means that the more painful and terrifying experiments are performed off campus for these companies. As a result of the harsh treatment and lack of psychological enrichment these non-human primates exhibit self-injurious behavior. In essence they have anxiety that manifests as repetitive motion (circling in their cages) and self-injury or mutilation behavior.
Despite all the laws that are said to protect animals while they undergo animal research, they prove difficult to enforce at the cage level, with each individual animal. The responsibility of such mistreatment falls not only at the level of the employee that mistreats an animal, but with Covance itself and all the biomedical giants that pay such a company to conduct research for them.
C.D., DVM
Much of our society blindly accepts anything scientists choose to do, but this shocking mistreatment of animals (Covance) shows that we must take a much closer look at what is done in the name of science. In addition to these very important ethical considerations, a growing number of scientists are realizing that animals are extremely flawed systems for studying human disease. In one recent, tragic example, the heart drug Vioxx proved to be dangerous to people and was withdrawn from the market; animal studies had shown it to be safe.
The future of medical research is clearly pointed toward human-relevant research methods. We must stop wasting resources and animal lives, and endangering people, with outdated animal studies.
S. Dhruvakumar (molecular biologist)
We all have the same capacity for suffering and pain, that's the bottom line.
Let me first off start by telling you that I am what the writer of this article would consider an animal rights fanatic. I do not eat animal products of any kind, and I do not support the testing of animals.
However, I work in the non-profit sector, and I dedicate my life to helping animals AND people. Helping one species does not exclude my capacity for helping another, in fact, my work with animals has made me more compassionate towards human beings.
If human beings are the 'apex' of creation, as such we need to treat animals or "God's creatures" in a humane manner.
Organizations like Covenance, continue to abuse defenseless animals for what they call medical 'research' or 'testing'.
Are we really that 'enlightened', if we still have to rely on such rudimentary methods of testing for cosmetics and for other research?
Do we need to take a mother's love from a baby chimp to prove that human babies don't grow as quickly if they are not held by their mother during the first few weeks of life? Isn't much of this already common sense knowledge?
To me, ethically, there is no difference between the rights of women or men, white or black, or human or non-human animals. It's not a matter of which is the 'superior' being, but rather the fact that we all have the same capacity to feel pain and suffering.
At one point women and children had no rights, does that mean that we were inherently 'less than' men back then? Had people not fought for OUR rights, we would still have none. This struggle for rights rings true even more so for non-human animals, because they are completely at our mercy. They cannot stand up for themselves.
Even when the Beagle in a medical testing facility tries to bark, she cannot, because her voice box has been removed to make it easier on the vivisectors ears. They don't want to listen to her barks and cries as they induce pain and suffering on her, so they simply remove her voice box.
'Man's best friend' did nothing to deserve such a fate, and these vivisectors should be ashamed of themselves.
If the human race is so far above other species, why do we go around murdering each other senselessly?
Why are rape and violent crime so prevalent in today's society?
Have we become so desensitised to violence that we think it's ok to treat each other, as well as non-human animals like such garbage?
Billions and billions of dollars have been spent on vivisection in the last 100 or so years, yet do we have cures for HIV, Cancer, and many other serious illneses?
Pharmaceutical companies are out to make money. Period.
People can think I am crazy because I don't support cruel testing on animals.
But who is crazier, a 'fanatical' animal rights activist who recycles, loves her dogs and her family and trys her best to live a peaceful life?
Or an animal tester wearing a white coat in a lab and shoving toxic chemicals up an innocent animals nose, to prove that a chemical which has already proven a million times to be a known toxic substance is actually toxic?
You tell me. Sounds like I'm not so crazy after all.
I totally agree. And I was not always an Ar activist, either. In fact, I used to kill animals for a living. For over a decade. For Tyson. You get so desensitized so gradually that you don't even realize that it is happening. then one day it crosses over onto cruelty and violence to other humans. And it is anything but rare. It is all part of your job.
Here are juast a few quotes for you. I left lnger answerrs to this question on the articles referenced in this one.
"We need a boundless ethic, one which will include the animals, too. Until he extends the circle of his compassions to all living things, man will not himself find peace." - Dr. Albert Schweitzer
"During my medical education... I found vivisection horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary." - Carl Jung, MD
"I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil." - Charles Mayo, MD, founder of the Mayo Clinic
"Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research." - George Bernard Shaw
"We cannot solve the problems we have created with the same thinking that created them." - Albert Einstein
"The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse... We have cured mice of cancer for decades -- and it simply didn't work in humans." - Dr. Richard Klausner, Director of the National Cancer Institute
"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is Because the animals are like us.´ Ask the experimenters why it is morally O.K. to experiment on animals, and the answer is: `Because the animals are not like us.´ Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction." - Professor
Charles R. Magel (1980)
"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it." - Albert Sabin, MD (1986), developer of the live-virus polio vaccine Sabin (1906 - 1993) was a physician and microbiologist who developed a live-virus polio vaccine that helped curb the spread of the then deadly disease.
"We suffer from different diseases and we respond in different ways to drugs. Using animals to `try out´ products intended for humans is at best useless and at worst ... dangerously isleading." - Vernon Coleman, MD, to the
International Scientific Conference, Paris, (1989)
"At present it is a rare person that emerges from medical training with his or her humanity intact." - Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 261, p. 2011, (1989)
"It [referring to dog labs] did more to damage my identity as a physician than anything else. I learned nothing physiological. I learned that life is cheap, and that misery can be ignored." - Murry Cohen, MD, (1990s) Cohen is founding co-chair of the Medical Research Modernization Committee.
He has authored numerous books, articles, chapters and letters on animal experimentation, including "Of Pigs, Primates, and Plagues," a scientific critique
of xenotransplantation.
"By and large students are taught that it is ethically acceptable to
perpetrate, in the name of science, what from the point of view of the animals would
certainly qualify as torture. By the time [the students] arrive in the labs they have been programmed to accept the suffering around them." - Jane Goodall, PhD, Through a Window - My 30 Years With the Chimpanzees in Gombe (1990)
People like to attack PETA because it gives them an excuse to ignore the content of PETA’s simple message: humans should stop doing horrible things to animals.
On a visceral level, we all know what crimes against animals look like. We recoil from graphic images of animal suffering as if we had touched a hot stove. PETA forces us to confront the hideous suffering we inflict on animals. Brian O’ Connor would rather shoot the messenger than confront the truth - that the scale and sorrow of animal suffering today defies description. We kill 1 million animals every hour in this country for food. The notion that animal rights activists are “vicious” would be laughable if the magnitude and ubiquity of animal suffering today was not so heartbreaking.
Any person who is honest with themselves, when confronted with such wanton, needless suffering has to examine their own complicity in animal cruelty. Most people would rather focus on the two PETA employees who were arrested for dumping dead dogs and cats in a dumpster than confront the painful reality those arrests brought to light. Every single day in shelters across the United States 15,000 homeless dogs and cats are euthanized.
As a former animal control employee I can tell you that if euthanizing dogs and cats and disposing of their bodies was a crime, I, along with almost every animal control officer and animal shelter employee in this country would be guilty of it. PETA, like all organizations dealing with the problem of companion animal overpopulation, euthanizes animals. It is a tragedy and an outrage and animal rights activists will be the first to admit it.
Nobody wishes euthanasia were not necessary more than we do, but a painless death is better than what life has in store for homeless animals who are born into a world that does not want them, that does not care for them and that does not deserve them. PETA employees who euthanize animals are only doing the grim work that our throw away society has delegated to them.
People who are outraged by the fact that the bodies of dead dogs and cats find their way to landfills and rendering facilities by the millions every year should wake up and do something about it. The blood of those animals is on the hands of those who continue to patronize breeders, puppy mills, pet stores and people who fail to spay and neuter their animals. The only thing more tragic than the fate of homeless animals is the fact that their deaths are entirely avoidable. A humane society would prevent them from being born in the first place.
On a separate note, animal rights opponents often suggest that the concept of animal rights is ridiculous because animals and humans should not have the same rights. They claim that it would be preposterous to let cats drive cars or to allow zebras to vote. They are right. Cats shouldn’t drive cars. I’ll let you decide whether zebras might have done a better job than this country did in the last presidential election.
Any dialogue about animal rights must immediately dispense with the notion that animal rights activists believe animals and humans are equal and that animals and humans should have equal rights. The guiding principle of equality that permeates American jurisprudence requires only this: that we treat like beings alike.
When African Americans and women engaged in their respective movements for suffrage, they were not suggesting that two year olds should have access to ballot boxes. Their struggle was about likes being treated alike; if adult African-Americans and women were similar in relevant respects to white men, they deserved equal consideration. Access to elections, they argued, should not be decided on arbitrary characterizations like race, gender or whether one owned property.
Discussions about human rights do not suggest that every human being should have every human right. Minors do not have the right to vote, marry or enter into contracts, yet no one would suggest that minors should not have any rights simply because they do not have every right. Such is the case for animal rights.
I have been an animal rights activist for some time now and I don’t know a single person who resembles O’Connor’s caricature. His polemic rhetoric is inaccurate.
I would like to demystify this movement for O’Connor and anyone else who is still reading this. All animal rights activists want if for people to stop doing horrible things to animals. What’s so radical about that?
Re: Animals were put here for our use. No, anaimals preceded us. We were put here as their loving stewards, not their tormentors.
Re: PETA employee worked at Covance just to make video. Correct. That's just about the only way to get a true view of what goes on inside these places.
Re: Obvious that PETA is hiding something by not releasing unedited film. If the film misrepresents Covance, Covance should sue. They won't, and neither will Ringling or Tyson or any of the video targets. The evidence of gratuitious abuse in animal labs et al has been accumulating from a wide variety of sources for decades.
At some point, no matter how reluctant you may be to agree with PETA, you have to come out of denial and face the facts: we torment animals severely, on a massive scale.
Rather than fight the whistleblowers, we need to examine WHY we treat those weaker than us so brutally. Then we won't be having these arguments, and the undercover videos, and the need for the indercover videos, will disappear.
PETA’s latest exhibit shows past atrocities of humans to similar current atrocities to animals. The ads are meant to get people to realize their oppressive mindsets. In our history, as we fought for the rights and welfare for each group of people (women, blacks, etc.), the general population was upset at those claiming these groups had any rights just as some are upset now at the thought that animals should not suffer either. In suffering, all species are the same. The point of the ads is to get people to open their eyes to the way we treat humans and other species. For poor circus elephants, for instance, the slave trade still exists. Elephants are ripped away from their families and way of live in Africa and Asia. They are forced to constantly confinement as they travel from town to town in severe weather extremes. They are trained by beatings and sharp bullhooks.
Dick Gregory, longtime social activist, supports PETA’s campaign. Gandhi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
In his August 24 commentary, Are Humans and Animals Separate But Equal, Dr. Brian O’Connor’s takes the position that “Whatever their intentions, the effects of the AR campaigns aren't very human-friendly.” If human-friendly means that it is acceptable to exploit animals for the benefit of humans, then I would agree with him. The unifying principle of the animal rights movement is, as PETA’s founder Ingrid Newkirk, states, “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.” However, my belief is that those who are active in animal rights are not against humans, they are just for animals.
Within any movement established for change, there are participants spanning the entire spectrum of concurrence. I would cite the anti-abortion movement as a prime example. While adherents believe that human life begins at conception and as such should be protected at all costs, some activists believe in protest, some in lobbying, and some who believe it is acceptable to bomb abortion clinics and kill those who perform abortions. In that context, the same argument Dr. O’Conner makes against animal rights activists could also be made against anti-abortion activists. In fact, almost all movements start with a simple request for change. When the simple request is ignored, some individuals believe that any end justifies the means.
As “the flagship Animal Rights organization,” PETA itself has never participated in any form of terrorist activity. While some may point to their campaigns as being outrageous, each one is architected to educate and inform the public—removing the shroud of validity often protecting the most heinous aspects of animal abuse and mistreatment. This shroud takes many forms that insulate the consumer from the horrific lives animals lead in medical and cosmetic research, the painful existence a factory farm, and the horrors of inhumane death at slaughterhouses.
In their Holocaust on your Plate and Animal Liberation campaigns, PETA draws upon our knowledge of atrocities committed against humans. When these atrocities were committed, the perpetrators and onlookers saw nothing wrong with what was going on. Because of race or nationality, the children of a lesser God were subjected to things that, in retrospect, were contemptible and today we ashamedly avert our eyes from the mere images of the suffering captured on film. The comparison of human suffering and animal suffering is not only valid, but also worthy of consideration by people today. Regardless of Dr. O’Connor’s attempts to the contrary, there are no mitigating circumstances to change the fact that, regardless of species, suffering is suffering. Hyperlinks in his article point back to his weblog, the central purpose of which appears to be attacking PETA and animal rights advocates in general. It is little wonder that many of the hyperlinks on his weblog and in his article point back to Center for Consumer Freedom related websites and their ongoing campaigns against PETA.
This center for "freedom" is PETA’s sharpest critic. It is a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and others. It is funded by Tyson Foods, Armour-Swift, Purdue Farms, and a host of other food companies, many of which have been the target of investigation because of their questionable treatment of animals. According to wikipedia.org, “…Richard Berman runs the Center for Consumer Freedom; the key to Berman’s aggressive strategy is, in his own words”, “to shoot the messenger ... we’ve got to attack their credibility as spokespersons.” Dr. O’Connor appears to be an apt pupil of Mr. Berman’s teachings.
When news first broke about PETA’s involvement in euthanizing animals at the North Carolina shelters, The Center for Consumer Freedom was the standard-bearer for PETA critics. Unfortunately, neither Dr. O’Connor nor the CCF researched the circumstances surrounding the situation at those shelters in North Carolina. PETA was contacted by a resident of Bertie County because of the inhumane way unwanted animals were housed and killed at the shelter there. In addition to the $240,000 they spent to improve the conditions for those unwanted animals, PETA provided a humane alternative to the county’s standard practice of killing animals with a .22 caliber firearm or by a slow, painful death in a makeshift gas chamber.
In keeping with the theme of his indictment against PETA, Dr. O’Conner cites statistics from yet another Center for Consumer Freedom site about PETA’s euthanasia records as well as their annual budget. While it would be wonderful if every dog and cat had a loving and responsible owner, it is simply not the case. Beaten, burned, crippled, and abused in ways that would sicken the stomach of even the most fervent PETA critic, the majority of animals PETA euthanized were not adoptable, nor was there room in shelters to place them.
One might ask, with a budget of upwards of $29 million, why couldn’t PETA become a shelter? While most shelters concentrate on household pets, PETA’s mission is the alleviation and prevention of suffering for all animals. Their tax records, available on guidestar.org, list 13 pages of donations made to animal hospitals, animal sanctuaries, and a host of other groups around the world who work on the animals' behalf. The salaries of the officers, management, and staff are significantly below industry and commercial standards, and the monies they have and the monies they collect are used on behalf of all animals.
With a glut of unwanted animals in this country, it is irresponsible to even suggest, as did Dr. O’Connor, that spaying and neutering is “clearly a violation of their natural right to reproduce, to enjoy the pleasures of sexual behavior and to enjoy rearing offspring.” It is unfortunate that a man as learned as Dr. O’Connor would invest his energies in attacking animal rights activists and organizations when his intellect could be used to champion the cause of ensuring the ethical and humane treatment of animals. I find it ironic for him to agree with statements that “Animal Rights advocates (are) vicious (and) deceptive,” when he and his compatriots at the Center for Consumer Freedom are attempting to mislead others and obfuscate the truth at the expense of suffering animals.
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