PETA's Hypocritical Work
Tim VanCamp, '12 | Staff Reporter
Issue date: 10/30/09 Section: Opinion
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), with over two million members and supporters worldwide, is the largest animal rights activist organization in the world. They focus mainly on cruelty to animals within factory farms, laboratories, the clothing trade and the entertainment industry.
In their attempts to save animals from cruel deaths, PETA uses billboard advertisements that pounce on peoples' self-esteem and personal images. In Jacksonville, Fla., a new PETA billboard depicts obese women in bathing suits, standing on a beach with the phrase, "Save the Whales, Lose the Blubber - Go Vegetarian!" The billboard is now raising eyebrows.
Another billboard in Oklahoma showed an attractive woman in a bathing suit with whiskers drawn on her face, stuck to a sticky pad mouse trap, with the phrase "Live Traps Hurt" written above the photo.
At what point does PETA's advertising go too far? PETA argues that they are simply standing up for animals that cannot speak for themselves.
PETA members say things that degrade people. For example, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said, "Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses."
Six months after PETA started that campaign, they went on record apologizing for the advertisement. Once they apologize for one advertisement, they start a new campaign that goes after another person's gender, religious belief, or physical or mental disability.
PETA's 2008 Animal Record Report, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, showed that the animal rights group killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year. During the same year, PETA found adoptive homes for just seven of their 2,216 dogs and cats.
Activists against PETA claim the organization cares less about saving animals than they do about gaining notoriety from offensive advertisements.
The Center for Consumer Freedom in Washington, DC, states "PETA has a $32 million annual budget. Instead of investing in the lives of the thousands of creatures in its care, the group spends millions on media campaigns telling Americans that eating meat, drinking milk, fishing, hunting, wearing leather shoes and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats are all unethical."
PETA officials go out of their way to make people uncomfortable. They spend millions on advertising aimed at disgracing women in an attempt to make them uncomfortable when buying fur or consuming animal meat.
Consumers should turn a blind eye to PETA's billboards. If consumers pay little or no attention to their marketing, then PETA will have no reason to dump mass amounts of money into disgusting the public. By continuing to protest PETA the general public gives them exactly what they want: PR.
In their attempts to save animals from cruel deaths, PETA uses billboard advertisements that pounce on peoples' self-esteem and personal images. In Jacksonville, Fla., a new PETA billboard depicts obese women in bathing suits, standing on a beach with the phrase, "Save the Whales, Lose the Blubber - Go Vegetarian!" The billboard is now raising eyebrows.
Another billboard in Oklahoma showed an attractive woman in a bathing suit with whiskers drawn on her face, stuck to a sticky pad mouse trap, with the phrase "Live Traps Hurt" written above the photo.
At what point does PETA's advertising go too far? PETA argues that they are simply standing up for animals that cannot speak for themselves.
PETA members say things that degrade people. For example, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said, "Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses."
Six months after PETA started that campaign, they went on record apologizing for the advertisement. Once they apologize for one advertisement, they start a new campaign that goes after another person's gender, religious belief, or physical or mental disability.
PETA's 2008 Animal Record Report, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, showed that the animal rights group killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year. During the same year, PETA found adoptive homes for just seven of their 2,216 dogs and cats.
Activists against PETA claim the organization cares less about saving animals than they do about gaining notoriety from offensive advertisements.
The Center for Consumer Freedom in Washington, DC, states "PETA has a $32 million annual budget. Instead of investing in the lives of the thousands of creatures in its care, the group spends millions on media campaigns telling Americans that eating meat, drinking milk, fishing, hunting, wearing leather shoes and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats are all unethical."
PETA officials go out of their way to make people uncomfortable. They spend millions on advertising aimed at disgracing women in an attempt to make them uncomfortable when buying fur or consuming animal meat.
Consumers should turn a blind eye to PETA's billboards. If consumers pay little or no attention to their marketing, then PETA will have no reason to dump mass amounts of money into disgusting the public. By continuing to protest PETA the general public gives them exactly what they want: PR.