Animal Rights

I opened the paper and there it was again, PETA VS. Cindy Crawford. Apparently she's committed the worst sin ever by donning furs when she said so specifically she wouldn't. She can't possibly be allowed to change her mind after all that earlier publicity - so...let's have some more publicity!

Quite by coincidence yesterday I had come across an article titled 'One Day We’ll put an End To The Breeding Of Dogs & Cats!' by Paul Root of the California Federation of Dog Clubs Alliance of Responsible Pet Owners, Inc. This article is an outraged vent against the following statement made by Ingrid Newkirk, the co-founder of PETA along with Alex Pacheco - "The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or breed dogs or cats. If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind. One day, we will put an end to the breeding of dogs and cats."

Well, as someone who's lived with dogs most of my life, this statement kind of outrages me too. My dogs aren't toys, they are companions, and we have mutually enjoyable relationships - and anyway I just don't see who Ingrid Newkirk is to decide where and with whom I seek my company. As for putting an end to breeding, if she can stop the puppy mills, well and good, if she's talking of putting an end to ALL breeding, please!!! It's a wide, wide world and there are just too many dogs out there and just how is PETA going to keep an eye on the morals of every single one of them? Besides, how can you talk of Animal Rights with a straight face when you want to take away the most basic one from them?

In his article, Paul Root gives the following agenda of PETA :

1. Abolish all animal research.
2. Abolish all product testing, dissection, or demonstrations on animals.
3. Encourage "vegetarianism" for ethical, ecological, and healing reasons
4. Phase out all forms of "animal agriculture" i.e. the growing of animals for food.
5. Abolish all pesticides and any form of predator control.
6. Transfer the enforcement of animal welfare legislation from the Department of Agriculture to a new agency created for the protection of animals and the environment.
7. Abolish all trapping and fur ranching.
8. Abolish all "hunting and fishing" for sport!
9. Save the rain forests and ban all international trade in wildlife or goods produced from exotic animals.
10. Abolish all breeding of companion animals- including pedigreed or purebred dogs and cats!!!!
11. Abolish the use or association of animals in sports, entertainment, zoos, rodeos, coursing, or aquariums.
12. Prohibit the production of genetically manipulated transgenic animals.

1. Abolish all animal research - I don't have any problem with this one. I saw a film about a Research Lab Chimpanzee, where they graphically described all the experiments that had been conducted on him - and I thought, whoa, you do that to a human being and you end up at the Nuremburg Trials. Anyone who thinks I'm being over-dramatic and insensitive here should take a look at their favorite pet and imagine such research being done on him/her. It's easy to say, go ahead, and shut your eyes to the torment and pain involved when you personally don't know the animal concerned. Surely, with all the modern technological developments, we can come up with some better and humane ways to treat and extend our own lives?

2. Abolish all product testing, dissection, or demonstrations on animals - more or less same opinion.

3. Encourage "vegetarianism" for ethical, ecological, and healing reasons - encourage, yes, but don't force. Otherwise you're being unethical and unhealing.

4. Phase out all forms of "animal agriculture" i.e. the growing of animals for food - I go with this too - I like cows and pigs and goats and sheep and rabbits and chickens and turkeys (I always wonder how anyone can have a thankful day after having just dispatched someone to their death) and geese and ducks and so on.

5. Abolish all pesticides and any form of predator control - to some extent, yes, as a gardener I try to use natural pesticides. I'm not sure what 'abolish any form of predator control' means - is it 'word overkill' or 'word malfunctioning'? - The Forest Department here just caught a leopard that had sneaked into the neighborhood - if the meaning here is doing nothing and letting that leopard have a go at me, nope, I'm not that altruistic - I highly recommend catching the predator, as they did, and releasing it back into the wild, again as they did.

6. Transfer the enforcement of animal welfare legislation from the Department of Agriculture to a new agency created for the protection of animals and the environment - more bureaucracy? - or an effort to create more jobs?

7. Abolish all trapping and fur ranching - I personally can't imagine raising furry goofballs and skinning them so people like Ms. Crawford don't have to wear sweaters (I don't have anything against shaving the sheep, by the way).

8. Abolish all "hunting and fishing" for sport! - for food I can understand, for fun, no, I can't and don't want to either. And people who think it's 'brave' to go hunting are sick and have a screw missing. Stop reading Hemingway for inspiration. He was a good writer, but an idiot otherwise - and we know what happened to all his manly bravado in the end.

9.Save the rain forests and ban all international trade in wildlife or goods produced from exotic animals - OH YES!

10. Abolish all breeding of companion animals- including pedigreed or purebred dogs and cats - OH NO!

11. Abolish the use or association of animals in sports, entertainment, zoos, rodeos, coursing, or aquariums - as Dick Francis, one of my favorite authors said, horses like to run; since he was a jockey himself and spent a major portion of his time around horses probably he knew what he was talking about. As for entertainment and the zoo, if I were a tiger, I would rather be jumping through hoops in different cities than growing listless in one same old cage. Of course, if I had the choice, I wouldn't have left the jungle in the first place, but you know how these humans are, they think they can decide and manage things for other species.

12. Prohibit the production of genetically manipulated transgenic animals - don't toy around too much with Mother Nature, I say. Why do you want genetically manipulated transgenic animals anyway, when you can't behave well enough with the existing genetically unmanipulated, non-transgenic creatures of both the four-legged and two-legged variety?

I don't think the PETA people are totally off their rocker, but they ought to make a serious attempt to stop behaving like an intolerant cult and expecting people to toe the line - whatever the cause most people like to or should be allowed to make up their own minds. It just won't do to forget about people's rights in all the furore over animal rights.