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Quotes From Animal Rights Activists
General Philosophy
"We feel that animals have the same rights as retarded children."
-Alex Pacheco, Director, PETA, New York Times, January 14, 1989.
"The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration."
-Michael W. Fox, Vice President, The Human Society of the United States, The Inhumane Society, New York, 1990.
Regan when asked which he would save, a dog or a baby, if a boat capsized in the ocean: "If it were a retarded baby and a bright dog, I'd save the dog."
-Tom Regan, Q&A session following a speech, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 27, 1989.
Animal Experimentation
"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
"If the death of one rat cured all diseases, it wouldn't make any difference to me."
-Chris De Rose, Director, Last Chance for Animals
"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, Animal Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of Animals, 2nd. edition, 1990.
"If abandoning animal research means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it ... We have no basic right ... not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to."
-Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 1983
Meat
"Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses."
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, The Washington Post, November 13, 1983.
Pets
"In a perfect world, animals would be free to live their lives to the fullest: raising their young, enjoying their native environments, and following their natural instincts. However, domesticated dogs and cats cannot survive "free" in our concrete jungles, so we must take as good care of them as possible. People with the time, money, love, and patience to make a lifetime commitment to an animal can make an enormous difference by adopting from shelters or rescuing animals from a perilous life on the street. But it is also important to stop manufacturing "pets," thereby perpetuating a class of animals forced to rely on humans to survive."
-PETA pamphlet, Companion Animals: Pets or Prisoners?
"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 vice-president, quoted in The Harper's Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223.
"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
"Let us allow the dog to disappear from our brick and concrete jungles -- from our firesides, from the leather nooses and chains by which we enslave it."
-John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of A Changing Ethic, PETA, 1982, p.15.
"The cat, like the dog, must disappear..... We should cut the domestic cat free from our dominance by neutering, neutering, and more neutering, until our pathetic version of the cat ceases to exist."
-John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of a Changing Ethic, PETA 1982, p.15.
"As John Bryant has written in his book Fettered Kingdoms, they [pets] are like slaves, even if well-kept slaves."
-PETA's Statement on Companion Animals
"The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship they should seek it with their own kind."
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, "Animals," May/June 1993
"You don't have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them ... One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV."
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, Chicago Daily Herald, March 1, 1990.
"Pet ownership is an abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation."
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, Washingtonian, August 1986
"One day we would like an end to pet shops and breeding animals [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild."
-Ingrid Newkirk, Chicago Daily Herald, March 1, 1990
Terrorism
"Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are 'acceptable crimes' when used for the animal cause."
-Alex Pacheco, Director, PETA
"Andrew Cunanan, because he got Versace to stop doing fur."
-PETA's David Mathews reply when to Genre request for "Men We Love"
"I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down."
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, National Animal Rights Convention '97, June 27, 1997
"Get arrested. Destroy the property of those who torture animals. Liberate those animals interned in the hellholes our society tolerates."
Jerry Vlasak, Animal Defense League, Internet post to AR Views list, June 21, 1996
"We have found that civil disobedience and direction action has been powerful in generating massive attention in our communities ... and has been very effective in traumatizing our targets."
-J.P. Goodwin, Committee to Abolish the Fur Trade, National Animal Rights Convention '97, June 27, 1997.
"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
"If a girl gets sexual pleasure from riding a horse, does the horse suffer? If not, who cares? If you French kiss your dog and he or she thinks it's great, is it wrong? We believe all exploitation and abuse is wrong. If it isn't exploitation and abuse, it may not be wrong."
-Ingrid Newkirk, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
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