Animal Rights Movement: Negative Social Effects of PETA

Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.'(PETA, 1980). PETA is a very well known animal rights activist organization. Their movement sounds great, ending animal abuse, I think we can all agree about that. However, PETA is also very well known for their way of expressing these issues which are negatively impacting our society. By them demonstrating extreme radicalism, miseducating people by using their very weird science, and breaking the law They would rather use gore and shock value in their protests/campaigns and break the law to get the media’s attention just to stay relevant.

PETA believes that radicalism and shock value is a good way to protest their campaign , and on January 24th 2019 , in Sydney Australia , they thought it was a great idea to protest this by pretending to grill a fake dog in the middle of a shopping mall with a sign in front of it saying “if you wouldn’t eat a dog why eat a lamb?”.

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Naturally the public was horrified and extremely disturbed , reports say that there were “children that were enjoying summer vacation at the time and were distraught”. PETA later stated that they wanted that kind of reaction, because if the public was outraged by the dog being grilled than people would think twice before grilling any other animal. PETA called this kind of behavior “speciesism”. Unfortunately it doesn’t end there, on January 11, 2008, PETA vandalized colonel sanders gravestone and had “KFC Tortures birds” in big red letters engraved into his stone.

PETA posted photos with a caption that said “This headstone will remind visitors that KFC stands for cruelty and death. We’ll continue to pressure KFC executives to stop these grotesque abuses of billions of chickens— no matter how long it takes.”(Matt, Prescott. Colonel sanders graveyard companion. PETA.org ). PETA has shown to be very sexist during there protests as well , continuously showing almost naked to naked woman to be the victims in their campaigns and comparing woman’s bodies to the meat and bodies of animals. For example; On February 28th 2008, on Mother’s Day PETA activists decided to have a pregnant woman wearing nothing but her panties, lay on her hands and knees in a cage with a sign that stated “unhappy Mother’s Day for pigs” and a sign below saying “go vegan”. Another was a billboard that showed Pamela Anderson in a bikini with labels on her body and a quote above her that stated “all animals have the same parts, have a heart go vegetarian”. PETA thinks “sex sells” so they repeatedly dehumanize, over sexualize , and objectify woman in order to get a reaction from the public, even though it doesn’t promote or have any impact on animal cruelty.

PETA also has a bad habit of miseducating people the health risks of eating animal products. For instance, an advertisement that the organization created in 2010 stating that eating meat is linked to heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Which isn’t proven at all, and of course to top it all of they had a model in a provocative nurse outfit as the imagery in the advertisement. Another disturbing instance is when PETA put out another advertisement this time the imagery was of Santa clause looking down his pants and the statement above him saying “Santa’s not coming this Christmas.” Informing people that drinking cow milk will give men and erect all dysfunction and you should leave milk and cookies out for Santa, and again this is not proven fact, just pseudoscience. Speaking of milk, PETA made another false fact about the consumption of dairy products stating in a 2008 television commercial that milk worsens or even causes autism. “Anyone who wants to alleviate the effects of autism should try giving cow’s milk the boot and switch to healthy vegan alternatives instead.” (Learn about the link between dairy products and the disorder. PETA.org).

PETA does more bad than they do good.“In 2014, according to its own records, it took in 3,017 animals, about 1 percent of the total number brought to private Virginia shelters. Of those, PETA euthanized 2,455, or 81 percent. In some prior years, that rate has risen above 90 percent.” Harper Traje was a former employee of the PETA organization and came forward and backed up these facts. She stated that the volunteers would euthanize litters of puppies and kittens, and euthanize animals that were completely healthy. She said that president Ingrid Newkirk believed that it would be best if they were euthanized rather than be “imprisoned in homes” or adopted out. Harper then stated that they were instructed to take any pet they see wondering the streets , even to go as far as taking pets from homes that were outdoors. PETA believes that having an animal as a pet does more harm than good , whether it’s a service animal, or an emotional support animal or just the family dog or cat, PETA wants it taken away from you. Unfortunately this happened to 9 year old Cynthia zarate, her chihuahua named maya was taken from her home by PETA and euthanized hours after confiscating it. The family took PETA to court and sued for 7 million dollars. The family got $49,000 from the lawsuit and PETA paid a $500 fine.

PETA is now demonized from our society from all of their sexist remarks, their radicalism, and their failures to follow state laws. They are a toxicorganization that states they are all for animal rights but in reality its all for attention in the media. They’re behavior is intolerable and their statements, protests, and advertisements don’t accomplish anything for the animal world.