Animal Rights

Seeing as I’ve been in the topic of rights since the last post of mine, I figured I might as well focus on an organization and its advocacy of a certain right. Animal rights came to be somewhere in the early 70’s as a means of ensuring adequate and fair treatment to be given to animals. The necessary legislation has been put up and various organizations have cropped up as a means of campaigning against animal cruelty.

One such organization which has gained much fame and infamy is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or PETA. PETA is led by Ingrid Newkirk who founded the organization in the early 80’s as a means to create awareness amongst the public of animal cruelty and how it can be curbed. Ever since it’s establishment, PETA has had various successes, from the prevention of animal testing to the illegalization of animal slaughter for clothing. In short, PETA campaigns for complete animal liberation. They generally use the Holocaust as a means to juxtapose the same treatment given to animals.

It may for now seem like a beautiful cause but amongst the tenets of PETA, there can be no pets, no animal testing for medicinal purposes, no scientific researches using animals, no guide animals for blind people and certainly no rescuing of stray animals (to be put in cages). Members are to maintain a strict vegan diet and are to abstain from all animal byproducts.

Various investigations were done upon PETA and there is certainly more than meets the eye. PETA kills animals! Seem rather paradoxical? Indeed it is. PETA believes that when an animal cannot have a decent life, it is to be put to death. How contradictory that sounds indeed. PETA employs a huge freezing chamber where animals are put to sleep and are then thrown away into garbage bins across the city.

Furthermore, it was also recently exposed that PETA has been funding the Animal Liberation Front or ALF, an animal rights activist group that uses violence to get its point across; often times infiltrating research facilities that employ animal testing and desecrating it, burning it and ultimately destroying it. Early last decade, the research facility of Michigan State University was bombed and destroyed; thankfully the man behind the bombings was arrested however he seems to show no signs of remorse in fact he’s advocating his actions to others. It was found that the financial resources accredited to ALF came from PETA though for a cause unknown.

Now what is the reasoning behind the use of animals to test a certain product? My personal view is that it should not be stopped. The reasoning behind the test must be ascertained and a secondary alternative must be employed if possible. If the animal is being used to understand the side effects of a medicine, I think it is only befitting for an animal to be used. There have been various diseases from which animals were used as test subjects for vaccines to be attained, rubella, tetanus, small pox, etc. If it was say an experiment of blatant cruelty with no scientific reasoning, it must obviously then be outlawed and stopped. I cannot in any way abnegate anything that is done for the benefit and growth of society and humankind.

So should animal testing be abolished? Well, what should be inquired is if there is an alternate approach. Some labs developing safety helmets have used monkeys as a way to test it, obviously unethical and blatant cruelty; an alternate method can surely be devised to measure shock absorption and pressure of impact, thus animal testing in this field should certainly be outlawed. In cases where there is medicine to be given to humans, only an animal can be used to properly ascertain the effects that may be conjured up by that said medicine.

So a general inquiry should certainly be done by the government on laboratories to discover the uses of animals in the tests employed.

What of PETA then? I think it should be shut down. A group that euthanizes animals and hides under veil of ‘animal rights’ should be outlawed; I personally think Ingrid Newkirk is suffering from a severe mental issue. To juxtapose the Holocaust to any event relating to the animal kingdom shows nothing but ignorance and insolence to the Jews; there just seems to be no value placed upon human life. Furthermore it is wrong for an organization (no matter how good a cause it may be supporting) to support terror acts such as the bombings that were done on the university facility. And finally, an interesting point to note for pet lovers who support PETA, complete animal liberation as I have said above refers just as well to the keeping of pets. So, if you like the plight of PETA, feel free to send your pets off to PETA to be euthanized.