My earlier post on People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was perhaps not clear enough.
PETA is not for “the ethical treatment of animals”. They are for treating animals as if they were furry humans. In fact, they are for treating animals better than we treat humans. This is a dangerous philosophy.
To equate human rights with animal rights is to diminish the value of human beings. First, which animals do we apply these rights to? The cute ones? Bunnies? Drosophilia?
And in their battle for equal rights for all animals, humans included, do they work for the rights of people?
One sick post on their website (to which I will not link) has a “Final Four” of scientists who work with animals. This page posts the locations and photos of the researchers, with inflammatory language, such as “remov[es] cats’ eyes while they’re still alive”, but of course doesn’t mention the goals or accomplishments of the research.
Do you think their propaganda is harmless? Here’s some comments from the site:
they should have to suffer just like those animals had to do for their unright (sic) and cruel experiments.
Someone should put steel rods in their heads
I say they experiment on them, how about that:)
So, I guess we need to be nice to non-human animals, but it’s open season on humans.
I’d venture a guess that most people feel we should be nice to animals. There are exceptions of course, but in general, people are against undue cruelty to animals. PETA argues than any harm to animals is “undue”.
The problem with this stance is that it devalues human lives. For example, a recent news item from Europe previews an ad campaign by PETA. They will run ads during the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
I’m really not sure how to state this any more clearly—the slaughtering of human beings is not morally the same as the slaughtering of animals.
Those who believe that it is create a dangerous devaluation of human life.