Quotes From The Animal Rights Movement

The animal rights movement portrays itself simply as a group of people who are concerned with the mistreatment of animals. That’s an easy position to sell in America where a large portion of population has pets. However, there is an undercurrent of violence, extremist positions, and even anti-human views that runs through the animal rights movement. People who are giving their money to these groups need to understand that it may be used for a lot more than simply protecting “fuzzy bunnies” and “puppies.” Read these quotes and you’ll learn a little more about the animal rights movement than what some of these groups tell you in their commercials…..

The Agenda

My goal is the abolition of all animal agriculture. — J.P. Goodwin while executive director of the Coalition Against the Fur Trade (As quoted on AR-Views, an animal rights Internet discussion group).

It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept of animal ownership. The first step on this long, but just, road would be ending the concept of pet ownership. — Elliot Katz, President, In Defense of Animals, “In Defense of Animals,” Spring 1997.

Liberating our language by eliminating the word ‘pet’ is the first step … In an ideal society where all exploitation and oppression has been eliminated, it will be NJARA’s policy to oppose the keeping of animals as ‘pets.’ — New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, “Should Dogs Be Kept As Pets? NO!” Good Dog! February 1991, p.20.

I don’t use the word “pet.” I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer “companion animal.” For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship ‘ enjoyment at a distance — Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s President, quoted in The Harper’s Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223.

We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. …One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding — Wayne Pacelle – Former National Director of Fund for Animals.

Animal Experimentation

Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it. — Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA (Vogue, September, 1989).

To those people who say, `My father is alive because of animal experimentation,’ I say `Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.’ Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade off. — Bill Maher, PETA celebrity spokesman.

On the consequences of stopping animal research: “Don’t get the diseases in the first place, schmo.” — PETA’s David Mathews (USA Today, July 27, 1994).

An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable. — Peter Singer, godfather of the animal rights movement, Animal Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of Animals, 2nd. edition, 1990.

Human Worth Vs. Animal Worth

The life of an ant and the life of my child should be accorded equal respect. — Michael W. Fox, Vice President, The Humane Society (The Associated Press, Jan. 15, 1989).

We are not superior. There are no clear distinctions between us and animals. — Michael W. Fox, Vice President, The Humane Society (Washingtonian Magazine, February 1990).

Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses. — Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s President, The Washington Post, November 13, 1983.

If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women are pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we’d all think he’d gone ’round the bend. We don’t need to do that sort of thing anymore, we’d say. We have better, kinder ways. — Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s President (in The Washington Times August 29, 1999).

There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all mammals. — Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s President (in The Washington Times August 29, 1999).

We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child — Alex Pacheco, Director, PETA, (New York Times, January 14, 1989).

Surely there will be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans. — Peter Singer, godfather of the animal rights movement, Animal Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of Animals, 2nd edition, 1990.

There are some circumstances, for example, where the newborn baby is severely disabled and where the parents think that it’s better that child should not live, when killing the newborn baby is not at all wrong … not like killing the chimpanzee would be. Maybe it’s not wrong at all. — Peter Singer, godfather of the animal rights movement.

Your dog can show you when he or she wants to go for a walk and equally for nonviolent sexual contact, your dog or whatever else it is can show you whether he or she wants to engage in a certain kind of contact — Peter Singer, godfather of the animal rights movement.

We need a drastic decrease in human population if we ever hope to create a just and equitable world for animals — Freeman Wickland, Animal Liberation League, and editor of “No Compromise” in “No Compromise”, September 1996.

Murder And Mayhem

In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps. It’s a war, and there’s no other way you can stop vivisectors. — Tim Daley, British Animal Liberation Front Leader (BBC interview, 1987).

Fire is a tool. Nothing does the amount of damage that fire can. Arson works. Make sure that all buildings or vehicles are free of creatures before lighting one single match. Arson should only be used when it can be guaranteed that the fire will not spread to the sheds the animals are in. — (In the ALF publication “The Final Nail”, under section entitled “Smashing the Furriers”).

It would be really great if all these fast-food outlets, slaughter houses, these laboratories and the banks who fund them exploded tomorrow — Peta Spokesperson Bruce Friedrich.

If the feed barn, and processing barns are away from the animals, and downwind, then they could be burned down. Otherwise mink releases are the only way to go. — J.P. Goodwin while executive director of the Coalition Against the Fur Trade (As quoted on AR-Views, an animal rights Internet discussion group).

We are capable of dealing with anyone. No one has died yet but that time will come. — Keith Mann of ALF, as quoted in the Evening Standard [London, Dec. 8, 1998). Mann was sentenced in 1994 to 14 years in prison for leading a gang which, in 1991, attacked almost 700 businesses in Manchester, UK.

Andrew Cunanan, because he got Versace to stop doing fur. — PETA’s David Mathews reply to Genre magazine’s request for “Men We Love”.

Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animal cause. — Alex Pacheco, Director, PETA.

I would be overjoyed when the first scientist is killed by a liberation activist. — Vivien Smith of ALF (USA Today, September 3, 1991).