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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

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Logo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Logo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal-rights organization in the world. Founded in 1980 as a non-profit organization, it has its headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, and a claimed 800,000 members and over 100 employees worldwide. Outside the U.S., there are branch offices in the UK, India, Germany, Asia, and the Netherlands. Ingrid Newkirk is PETA's international president.

PETA focuses its attention on four core issues: factory farming, vivisection, fur, and animals in entertainment. It also works on other animal-rights issues, such as fishing, the killing of animals regarded as pests, abuse of backyard dogs, and cock fighting.

The organization has been criticized for its links to groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, both of which are decribed by the United States Department of Homeland Security as "terrorist threats."

PETA's philosophy

PETA's motto is: "Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." Its website states:

PETA believes that animals deserve the most basic rights—consideration of their own best interests regardless of whether they are useful to humans. Like you, they are capable of suffering and have interests in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use—for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation, or for any other reason."

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk once stated, "When it comes to feelings such as pain, fear, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." In the long term, PETA advocates the abolition of animal exploitation, and espouses the philosophical position of animal rights, but in the short term, it is willing to advocate animal-welfare reforms of animal-using industries, and it has negotiated with those industries to achieve improvements in welfare standards. PETA strongly supports the vegan lifestyle.

History

PETA was founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, who were inspired by Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. The group first rose to national prominence when it became involved in the Silver Springs monkey case. Pacheco conducted an undercover investigation of a primate laboratory, documenting numerous cases of abuse and neglect. The investigation resulted in the first-ever conviction of an animal experimenter on charges of animal abuse.

In 1983, PETA successfully campaigned against a United States Department of Defense "wound lab" which had planned to test projectile weapons on dogs and goats.

In 2000, PETA successfully campaigned against McDonalds to implement more stringent welfare standards. The campaign took 11 months.

In 2001, PETA launched a successful campaign against Burger King. After months of vocal public pressure, the fast-food giant agreed to implement the welfare standards demanded by PETA. These standards increased the amount of cage space given to laying hens and promised unannounced inspections of slaughterhouses, among other things.

Campaigns and reactions

PETA is well known for its aggressive media campaigns, public demonstrations, and attacks on large corporations for their alleged mistreatment of animals. In 2003, PETA received media attention for its boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken. PETCO and Procter & Gamble are other examples of companies PETA says are exploiting animals for profit. According to PETA, PETCO confines animals in filthy enclosures, where they are commonly left to die, and Proctor & Gamble tests its products on animals. On April 12, 2005, PETA announced it had ended its boycott against PETCO, in part because of PETCO's decision to end sales of large birds in its stores.

Campaigns for a vegan diet

Jesus was a Vegetarian

PETA has created advertisements claiming that Jesus was a vegetarian, and other Christian-themed ads such as one showing a photograph of a pig with the caption, "He Died for Your Sins". JesusVeg.com While some religious leaders and theologians, such as the Reverend Andrew Linzey, support at least some of PETA's ideas about Christianity and vegetarianism, other Christian leaders have condemned the campaign.

Lettuce Ladies

PETA's 'Lettuce Ladies' are women, some of them Playboy models, who appear publicly in scanty costumes made to look like lettuce leaves, and distribute information about the vegan diet. There is also lesser known male counterpart to the Lettuce Ladies, called the Broccoli Boys.

Holocaust on Your Plate

One of the most controversial PETA campaigns has been their "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign which draws parallels between the treatment of farm animals confined and slaughtered for food production and the treatment of Jews and other victims of the Holocaust.

The Anti-Defamation League strongly criticized the implication of moral equivalency between the killing of animals and the Holocaust. A press release from the ADL stated:

PETA's effort to seek approval for their Holocaust on Your Plate campaign is outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights. Rather than deepen our revulsion against what the Nazis did to the Jews, the project will undermine the struggle to understand the Holocaust and to find ways to make sure such catastrophes never happen again.

PETA defends this comparison on the grounds that it is not equating the two horrors, but illustrating the strikingly similar indifference that people showed toward both the Holocaust and now the mass slaughter of animals. The side-by-side imagery of slaughtered animals and Holocaust victims, PETA argues, attempts to implicate the mechanical ways in which humans and animals are killed as creating this distance from moral responsibility.

Name changes of cities

PETA regularly asks towns and cities whose names are suggestive of animal exploitation to change their names. For example, a campaign was launched in the late 1990s to have the cities of Hamburg and Frankfurt, Germany change their names, since the names are associated with hamburgers and hot dogs. The cities were offered free veggieburgers for all of their residents for life if they agreed to the change. Both cities refused. However, these campaigns have been effective in generating media coverage of animal-rights issues.

Anti-fur campaigns

PETA may be best known for its long-running campaign, "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur", in which activists and celebrities appear partially nude to express their opposition to fur-wearing. This tactic has resulted in widespread media coverage.

PETA also has a campaign "Your mommy kills animals," targeted at children, using graphic images of a woman killing a rabbit.

Criticism of PETA

Opinions about PETA vary greatly. Its supporters say that the organization has brought greater attention to animal-rights issues, and has encouraged many people to become vegan. It is credited with closing the largest horse slaughterhouse in the United States, and stopping the use of cats and dogs in vivisection laboratories. Supporters believe the group's actions to be justified to combat what they see as avoidable cruelty. They also claim that critics fail to address their fundamental belief that animals deserve moral consideration.

Some critics allege that PETA is deceptive, and that it uses immoral means to achieve its ends. PETA distributed a video that the Animal Liberation Front shot in the laboratory of Adrian R. Morrison of the University of Pennsylvania, which showed experimenters smashing the heads of conscious monkeys and laughing about it. Morrison claims that PETA "cleverly edited" 60 hours of video tape into a damning 30-minute segment, that it cooperated with radical groups, and that it used questionable tactics to silence, discredit, and smear its opponents.

Another cause of concern is the degree of financial support given by PETA to eco-terrorist organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF), both associated with firebombings and other destruction of property, and described by the United States Department of Homeland Security as terrorist threats.

In the United States, opponents have sardonically formed a group also known as "PETA," except that the letters stand for "People Eating Tasty Animals."

Targeting of vulnerable groups

PETA has also been accused of targeting vulnerable or emotionally sensitive groups, particularly teenage girls, and was widely criticized in the United Kingdom for its anti-milk campaign, in which it targeted school children with ‘game cards’ claiming that dairy products caused obesity, acne, belching and flatulence, and excessive nasal mucus build up.

PETA has also been accused of promoting vegetarian and vegan lifestyles without providing sufficient information on the health risks involved in excluding meat and dairy from a typical Western diet without providing an alternative source of nutrition. It has also linked both lifestyles to weight loss, prompting concerns over groups targeting of groups that are vulnerable to eating disorders.

Extremism and support of industrial sabotage

  • "We're here to hold the radical line." (Ingrid Newkirk, founder and director of PETA, 1991)
  • "Arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are acceptable crimes when used for the animal cause." (Alex Pacheco, director of PETA at the time, and its co-founder, in 1989)
  • "We cannot condemn the Animal Liberation Front ... they act courageously ... comprise an important part of today's animal protection movement." (PETA statement concerning ALF's activities, 1991)
  • Paid $45,200 in support of convicted ALF arsonist Rodney Coronado (1995).
  • Donations to ELF. The United States FBI considers ELF to be the "most active domestic terrorism group in the country" (2000/01).
  • Paid $2,000 to the ALF spokesman after the ALF claimed responsibility for fire bombing the Utah Fur Breeders Agricultural Co-op in 1997.
  • Paid $2,000 to David Wilson, a member of ALF in 1999.
  • Paid $5,000 to the "Josh Harper Support Committee" in 2000.
  • Paid $1,500 to ELF in 2001.
  • Paid $7,500 to Fran Stephanie Trutt, who attempted to kill a medical research executive.

PETA's response to a suicide bombing

In response to a news report in January of 2003 that a donkey was laden with explosives and intentionally blown up in a failed attack on a busload of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk sent then Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat a request that he "appeal to all those who listen to to leave the animals out of this conflict." However, Newkirk deliberately did not ask Arafat to try to stop suicide bombings that killed people but did not harm animals. She later explained what many saw as a morally untenable stance, to the Washington Post: "It is not my business to inject myself into human wars."

Use of nudity and accusations of sexism

Feminists for Animal Rights have published articles criticizing PETA for its use of female nudity in campaigns such as "I'd rather go naked than wear fur," and for using Playboy models in some campaigns. Animal-rights lawyer Gary L. Francione has also been outspoken in his condemnation of what he sees as PETA's sexism. Many also feel that PETA's use of gimmicks such as nudity trivializes the seriousness of animal-rights issues. PETA's defenders respond that they are not sexist (both men and women appear in the campaigns) and they use arresting images to gain publicity for their campaigns against animal abuse.

Famous members and supporters

PETA has many celebrity members and supporters, including Pamela Anderson, Bea Arthur, Ed Asner, Alec Baldwin, Lavender Brown, James Cromwell, Dick Gregory, Dalai Lama, Emmylou Harris, Tippi Hedren, Karla Homolka, Elton John, Benji Madden, Bill Maher, Ricky Martin, Paul McCartney, Rue McClanahan, Grant Morrison, Robert Mugabe, Martina Navratilova, Conor Oberst, Richard Pryor, John Tyndall, Alicia Silverstone, Salisbury Steak, John Tesh, Charlize Theron, Claude Vorilhon, and Betty White.

Related articles

References

External links

Official PETA sites

Sites critical of PETA

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