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