What's the score with PETA

June 14, 2009 7:30 AM

I've been supporting PETA for about a year now, but I've come across quite a few people dissing them and suggesting that they're not a very good choice of animal rights charity to support. Google searches turn up a whole lot of ranty things, but not much in the way of genuine critique. So, can anybody tell me why I shouldn't be supporting PETA, or direct me to some reasoned arguments against them?
posted by m4nju to pets & animals (45 comments total)

Why do you support them? What are you hoping they'll do with your donations? In order to determine whether they're the best organization to receive your support, we need to know what your goals are.
posted by decathecting at 7:37 AM on June 14

I don't think anyone's going to be able to tell you you shouldn't... maybe sum up your beliefs in that area and people can tell you if PETA is something you would want to support?
posted by moxiedoll at 7:39 AM on June 14

Reasoned? Maybe not. But the Bullshit: PETA show does raise a few valid points, and, if I recall correctly, suggests that ASPCA and other organizations are better bets.
posted by mhz at 7:40 AM on June 14

The three areas of critique of which I'm aware are:

1. Their lack of vocal objection to, and perhaps even support of, the tactics of groups like the Animal Liberation Front, which many people argue constitutes terrorism;

2. Expressed beliefs about the equivalence of human and animal life that strike many people as abhorrent (eg. the slaughter of broiler chickens being similar to the Holocaust);

3. Their policy of euthanizing a large proportion of the animals that come into their care.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 7:41 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

PETA has a tendency to use over-the-top tactics to get points across which some people think is somewhat pandering and/or sensationalist. PETA operates somewhat similarly to Greenpeace in that they really feel that they are on a battlefield fighting for animal rights and so it's okay to pull out the stops and/or be ridiculous (such as asking the town of Hamburg NY to change its name, clearly more of a stunt/visbility move than something that helps animals) or provocative.

My general issue is mostly just that I think they employ the tactics of standard advertising (i.e. using a lot of half naked women, etc) to advance their goals and I'd prefer to support smaller organizations close to home that basically don't spend so much money on ads and more on direct service. PETA is effective in that they are very high profile, very well-funded and do manage to get a lot of things done (they claim responsibility for getting a lot of vegetarian options on fast food menus, for example) but they're also combative with other animal rights organizations which isn't surprising but can be problematic. If you have money to give to animals, I'd support a local shlter or rescue organization.

Their wikipedia page is far from neutral but it does have links to many news articles about PETA that might be worth a read.
posted by jessamyn at 7:41 AM on June 14 [4 favorites]

I quit PETA ages ago out of disgust at the unpleasant tactics they use a lot of the time. The thing that really sent me packing was when they were handing gruesome illustrated leaflets to children who were with fur coat wearing moms - "here's the rest of your mom's coat". Make the kids feel badly about the parents poor choices - nice.
posted by fish tick at 7:42 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

I generally avoid hypocrites, so "PETA’s “Animal Record” report for 2008, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, shows that the animal rights group killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year. During all of 2008, PETA found adoptive homes for just seven pets. Just seven animals -- out of the 2,216 it took in." from www.petakillsanimals.com rings many, many bells for me.

And then I'll just let them speak for themselves:

Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.
- Ingrid Newkirk, Vogue (September 1, 1989)

Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.
- Ingrid Newkirk, Harper's (August 1, 1988)

There’s 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 animals.
- Ingrid Newkirk, Washingtonian magazine (August 1, 1986)

My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals.
- Gary Yourofsky, Associated Press (December 7, 1998)

Damaging the enemy financially is fair game.
- Alex Pacheco, Washington City Paper (December 18, 1987)

I'm still trying to source a fabulous quote where they wished that they could eventually have a world where lions didn't eat meat.
posted by adipocere at 7:44 AM on June 14 [23 favorites]

PETA does not take animals into its care.
posted by joeclark at 7:47 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

A fairly measured report on the euthanizing issue.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 7:48 AM on June 14

(which directly contradicts joeclark's comment, though, so who the hell knows what's going on.)
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 7:49 AM on June 14

When I donate to the local SPCA I'm fairly confident the money is going to spent helping animals. With PETA, I think they have a tendency to waste resources on efforts designed to generate publicity and garner more donations. Criticizing tossing dead fish at a fish market, for example, seems like a poorly chosen battle.
posted by IanMorr at 7:49 AM on June 14

Oh, and Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation is well worth a read if you want to understand the philosophical underpinnings of PETA. I'm not a PETA supporter, and I don't think the group is 100% faithful to his position. But Singer's arguments can be troublingly convincing, and have certainly pushed me towards a more rights-based understanding of this cause. From that perspective, apolitical, non-campaigning animal-care groups that just seem to proceed on the basis that it's nice to be nice to animals do seem inadequate.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 8:01 AM on June 14

When I donate to the local SPCA I'm fairly confident the money is going to spent helping animals. With PETA, I think they have a tendency to waste resources on efforts designed to generate publicity and garner more donations.

IanMorr's comment is a more eloquent and reasoned statement of exactly what I was going to say.

If I donate to aid animals (which I do, to my local spca, from whence came the dog currently sitting under my desk while I type), I want it to actually help animals, not for the primary purposes of the purchase of ad space and dramatic but irrelevant events like throwing blood at Jennifer Lopez for wearing fur (I am avidly against fur, BUT...). CharityNavigator.org gives the ASPCA a higher rating than PETA.
posted by bunnycup at 8:04 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

Still looking for that quote. Found some other fairly choice ones:

"I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything." - Ingrid again, cheering us all up

"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 selective breeding." - Wayne Pacelle, Animal People News 1993

"We are not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us [Peter Singer and Ingrid Newkirk] had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn't 'love' animals." - Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of Animals, 2nd ed

"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 (PeTA, 1982) p15

"Every woman ensconced in fur should endure a rape so vicious that it scars them forever. While every man entrenched in fur should suffer an anal raping so horrific that they become disemboweled." - Gary Yourofsky, PeTA Humane Education Lecturer, quoted in the University of Southern Indiana Student Newspaper, The Shield, January 24, 2008

They certainly are passionate, but if you care about bang for your charity buck, they also seem to be incredibly inefficient, as they are generally their own worst enemy. Even were your stance as extreme as theirs might be, you'd still be better served by purchasing materials for pipe bombs for ALF (or just buying Disney stock; really, they're responsible for more vegetarians than anyone else) than bankrolling people who, as far as I can tell, do their best to find the nugget of oppositional defiance in everyone within earshot.
posted by adipocere at 8:28 AM on June 14 [8 favorites]

My main beef with PeTA is their stance on animal research and their support of ALF, which bombs research labs.
posted by kldickson at 8:28 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

In my opinion PETA does more harm than good to the cause of animal rights. Their silly, over-the-top, "fuck you" approach to getting their message out is no doubt fun for them, but a big turnoff for everyone else.

From what I can tell, PETA's primary goal is to influence public opinion. Ask some of your politically moderate or politically agnostic acquaintances how they feel about PETA and you're likely to hear indifference, ridicule, or hostility. I have never met anyone who has been persuaded by PETA's tactics; on the contrary, I have known many people who consider vegetarianism to be some sort of attack on their values, and they always, always name PETA as the reason.

On the other hand, I know quite a few people who have been persuaded by the ASPCA's tactics, which seem to involve much less marketing than PETA and much more actual helpful activity.

One thing to note is that not all SPCAs are equal. I believe anyone can cobble together a letterhead and create the (fill in the blank)SPCA; some of those will be effective, some will be crazy cat ladies. The ASPCA is the one you want.
posted by The Loch Ness Monster at 8:43 AM on June 14 [3 favorites]

I may stand out here as someone not only sympathetic with radical animal rights activism, but also with "extreme" propaganda tactics such as splattering fake blood on fur-draped celebs. But I still find PETA embarrassing at best - and often unforgivably offensive.

For me the concern is their completely single-issue focus. Animals issues are not equal to human issues; animal rights are elevated above all other environmental, social and polital concerns.

While I get the point that all beings have equal value, and that factory farming is unacceptably inhumane, I would never, never, never compare battery-caged hens, or suffering circus animals to humans in concentration camps or to human slaves as PETA has, because I think human rights issues are ALSO important, and I know that to draw such a comparison would degrade human rights struggles in the eyes of those who do NOT see animal rights as important, and would cause tremendous pain to people (holocaust survivors for example) who have actually experienced such conditions.

A simplistic animals-first agenda will never prevail because there are other concerns in our world too. Our current animal raising practices are certainly cruel and environmentally unsustainable, but even as a vegetarian I can see that avoiding eating animals is not the panacea to our world's problems. Every traditional culture on the planet at least included people who ate meat, and many other animals also eat meat. I think its unrealistic to remove meat eating from human experience, and I'd rather support a sustainable, harm-reduction approach that focuses on improving conditions for animals and the planet instead of on an agenda that makes vegetarians (in this country at least, often people with educational and financial privilege) morally superior to the vast majority.

Finally, PETA representatives sound like utter morons when they create issues out of non-issues like the dead fish toss mentioned above or their effort to change the name of Fishkill, NY to Fishsave (kill actually means 'creek' here). This and not their radicalism is what undermines their cause in the public view - or at least in mine.
posted by serazin at 8:44 AM on June 14 [8 favorites]

I did quite a bit of research a few months ago when HR 669 was being considered and found a great site for info on PETA (HSUS, too). Follow the first or last link for a thorough description of what this organization is all about.

Here's a brief overview:

"People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been described as "by far the most successful radical organization in America." The key word is radical. PETA seeks "total animal liberation," according to its president and co-founder, Ingrid Newkirk. That means no meat or dairy, of course; but it also means no aquariums, no circuses, no hunting or fishing, no fur or leather, and no medical research using animals. PETA is even opposed to the use of seeing-eye dogs.

SOURCE LIBRARY AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
» Click here to learn what motivates PETA.
» Click here to read about PETA's "black eyes."
» Click here to find out where PETA's millions come from.
» Click here for audio and video of PETA officers and other animal rights extremists.
» Click here to discover how PETA is connected to other activist groups.
» Click here to see PETA's cash donation to the terrorist Earth Liberation Front.
» Click here to see $70,000 in PETA grants to a convicted animal-rights arsonist.
» Click here to see the money trail between PETA and its phony "physicians committee" front group.
» Click here to learn about PETA's hypocritical practice of killing thousands of animals.

Amidst the dozens of animal rights organizations, PETA occupies the niche of -- in Newkirk's own words -- "complete press sluts." Endlessly seeking media exposure, PETA sends out dozens of press releases every week."

Much, much more here.
posted by torquemaniac at 8:45 AM on June 14 [6 favorites]

I personally don't support PETA because I don't think shocking/horrifying people is really the way to get them to change their mind. It doesn't start a dialogue. At best, it may make a few people go along with the ideas temporarily until they get bored. At worst, it makes people mad and makes them stop listening to the message.

I think groups like Farm Animal Rights Movement and Compassion Over Killing do more good (they're vegan-focused and I don't know if that's what you're after) while still being on the "activism" side of things and so that's who I give my money to. Both are level-headed in their approach without shying away from the issues. (And COK works with restaurants to help them develop vegetarian/vegan dishes for their menus, at least in the DC area, and I think that's really cool.) You could argue they're not directly helping animals, but I think they're doing more good than PETA.
posted by darksong at 8:48 AM on June 14

This video changed my impression of PETA from a sort of a misdirected bleeding heart organization to something that was pretty sinister. And it made me laugh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exLa6saV9o&feature=PlayList&p=C0ED17767B8158D8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14
posted by No New Diamonds Please at 8:49 AM on June 14

My problem with them is their problem with ME over my pet ownership. According to them, my pets are slaves and should be liberated by being freed into the streets (where they would be promptly run over or starve to death, but PETA would be okay with that, because it's the natural order of things).

My animal charities are Best Friends, Noah's Wish and the SPCA.
posted by OolooKitty at 8:55 AM on June 14

For me, the biggest argument against PETA is wasted resources. Instead of spending millions of dollars on bad publicity, smear campaigns and defense lawyers, they could be educating the public and providing actual support to animals in need.
posted by kattyann at 9:01 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

They send threatening letters to people working AT animal research organizations (Including just administrative workers) and have published addresses of these workers. This happened specifically to a close friend of mine. If I can find the letter they sent her, I put it up.
posted by OrangeDrink at 9:11 AM on June 14

I actually know several researchers at my university who have been threatened - either their life or their property - by PeTA. They're about as bad as the right-wing nutjobs who want to drag us back to the Dark Ages in their quest for technological and societal impairment.
posted by kldickson at 9:21 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

Their tactics are disingenuous and often downright tacky.
When I was in high school and considering becoming vegetarian, I ordered a kit from them. It had information about veganism vs. eating animal products that was factually and scientifically incorrect.
They also believe that pets are "slaves" (as someone pointed out above).
PETA lies all the time. If you want to help animals, the ASCPA, your local Humane Society (who often oversee animal welfare and abuse cases and always need more monetary resources) or any of the charities suggested above are great.
I personally also don't like PETA because I believe that killing animals humanely for food is not immoral, rather giving them painful horrible lives in factory farm settings is. PETA would therefore think that I'm a monster.

PETA's hateful messages are what spawns such things as people saying they're going to eat more meat to make up for the vegans.
posted by ishotjr at 9:25 AM on June 14

p.s. I was vegetarian from that point on for 4 years. I quit being vegetarian after doing more research from reliable sources.
posted by ishotjr at 9:26 AM on June 14

You say you don't want anything "ranty," but that misses the point. PETA's purpose should be to change minds. To get the public to decide that taking care of animals, that giving them some basic rights to be treated with decency, is something worth doing. In the long run, that would make some meaningful difference in the way animals are treated in this country.

Instead, they say many of the sensationalist, over-the-top things noted above, painting eating meat as the equivalent of the holocaust. While this might play well to the choir, it does not do so well in convincing moderates to listen, or consider their position on animal rights. In other words, the rants are all you need to know. The fact that they leave so many people in a sputtering rage is exactly the problem.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 9:35 AM on June 14

In addition of all of the responses above, I also object to PETA's use of naked or scantily clad women in their ads and in their live protests. But I am a bit of a prude.

HBO aired a fairly even-handed documentary on Ingrid Newkirk a few years ago. I felt sorry for her as her entire life seems to be consumed with PETA, but it also convinced me that my money is better donated elsewhere.
posted by betsybetsy at 10:12 AM on June 14

I personally dislike the way PETA uses and objectifies women in their ads and campaigns.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:43 AM on June 14

If at all possible, donate your money locally to a shelter in your area.
posted by Sailormom at 10:54 AM on June 14

(Darn, just typed a response then killed it by favouriting one of the answers above. Ne'ermind.)

Thanks so much to all who've responded.

Should maybe have said more about my starting position. I've been vegetarian 25 years, and vegan for a few months. My motivation in both of these decisions has been concern for animal suffering. From that point of view, PETA seems a good organisation to follow — as some have said here, few organisations have a wider reach.

But I don't want to support violence, and I don't want to support campaigns that cause human suffering. I have also been troubled by the number of mailouts I have received as a member of PETA — a very big proportion of my donations have gone to convincing me to give more donations.

I support other charities, including Compassion in World Farming and Mercy for Animals, and I'm starting to feel that their approaches are more in line with my personal sense of ethics.

Thanks again for all your responses.
posted by m4nju at 10:54 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

I've been a vegetarian for 20 years. I cannot stand PeTA. They are hypocrites and for that reason alone you shouldn't support them.

You probably know that PeTA is against the use of animal products in medicine and against drugs that are tested on animals. But did you know that VP Mary-Beth Sweetland is diabetic and uses insulin every day and that when brought to task for this contradiction, PeTA responded that the circumstances were different: "I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals." If you can stomach that kind of hypocrisy and arrogance, by all means support them. I don't know how anybody can, however.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:10 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

Extreme political groups make less extreme political groups seem reasonable. PeTA seems reasonable in comparison to ALF, and the ASPCA seems reasonable in comparison to PeTA (though I think there are a few steps in between) -- especially for people not prone to agreeing with the ASPCA to begin with. So from a tactical perspective, you want a group to be out there who is more extreme than you feel comfortable with, because it will end up making your own position more viable.

That said, you might not feel comfortable giving the more extreme groups money, and you might still want to critique their methods. But it's probably still quite good for you that they're there!
posted by Casuistry at 11:45 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

a very big proportion of my donations have gone to convincing me to give more donations.
Very much so, and good luck getting off their mailing list. Ever. I can't seem to. Someone's well-intentioned donations are spent on sending me reams of personalized address labels every few months that I toss in the garbage.
posted by fish tick at 11:55 AM on June 14

I am a vegetarian feminist and agree with most of this blog post.

Highlights include putting pregnant women in cages for shock value, the aforementioned comparisons of animal conditions with the holocaust and human slavery, and more! As the blogpost I just linked says, "why tell women that veganism is the way for them to become a 'skinny bitch' rather than a 'healthy woman'?" We, regardless of gender, do not need more degrading advertising -- it would be easier and at least as accurate to portray vegetarianism/veganism as a healthy diet, rather than a weight-loss program, and there would be less validation of body issues in the process.
posted by mismatched at 12:09 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

You find plenty of ranty critisisms against PETA for reasons that torquemaniac illustrates well - every single link he points to was set up by The Center for Consumer Freedom - a PR front group for companies who have a vested interest in people not thinking about where their food comes from. They do a good job at getting people to discredit the organization.

If you want to donate to a mainstream, US group that works to protect animals without the misogyny and ridiculous overhead of PETA, In Defense of Animals is what you're looking for. If you want a local group, find a no-kill shelter in your town and give them the money.
posted by cmonkey at 12:09 PM on June 14

PETA are an animal RIGHTS organization not an animal WELFARE organization.

I support animal welfare but not animal rights because I think that is just a weird semantic argument and what does it really accomplish giving a non human animal "rights" anyway? Are mice going to bring wrongful death lawsuits against cats? As far as their other goals go- I do not support getting rid of all domestic animals and limiting human contact with nature so therefore I do not support PETA. People are part of nature.

As far as what they actually accomplish people in the animal husbandry industry think they are utter whack-a-doodles and so they have zero clout there. If you want to give money to groups that are working to improve animal welfare and improve husbandry methods you need to give it to a group that is capable of working with the industry or pet owners and who can actually carry out a dialogue and offer resources and is a presence in the community. Local shelters or organizations that work directly with animal owners are the best. Groups like Pony Club, 4H or FFA target kids and do a ton to educate people who don't know anything about stock but decide to buy their kid a pony or raise chickens and sheep in the backyard.

If you do support banning slaughter or whatever policy actions then that is a political movement and has nothing to do with animal owners and your money is best sent to a group like the Humane Society or the national ASPCA (which does not give ANY money to your local shelter, fyi). Personally I think we'd be better off giving money to Animal Control to enforce the laws we have now than thinking up new ones but all the vegan poli sci grads have to make a living too I guess.
posted by fshgrl at 12:23 PM on June 14 [3 favorites]

I support animal welfare but not animal rights because I think that is just a weird semantic argument and what does it really accomplish giving a non human animal "rights" anyway?

It's not a "weird sematic argument" if you're even remotely intelligent - even a chimpanzee, the very same one who has been enduring pointless research into SIV, incidentally, knows that "animal welfare" means "lets lock these animals up but give them arbitrararily limited amounts of space and a certain number of toys and so on and so forth in the name of being ever so gracious human beings who care" whereas "animal rights" means "lets not lock these animals up at all because it's pretty fucking stupid to be testing cosmetics on animals in the year 2009".
posted by cmonkey at 12:40 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

I'm still trying to source a fabulous quote where they wished that they could eventually have a world where lions didn't eat meat.

I'm looking for it, too. My former father-in-law once debated Ingrid Newkirk in Chicago (before his retirement, he was a vet med researcher -- meaning he did research on animals to develop medical treatments for animals, such as hip replacement surgery for dogs; for his trouble, he regularly got bomb threats from ALF. etc.) and he said the entire thing was an exercise in Bizarro World, quasi-schizophrenic logic (e.g. lions only eat meat because of the corrupting influence of human beings).
posted by scody at 1:12 PM on June 14

cmonkey- no it doesn't. Animal rights means giving animals rights- which is a legal term and makes no sense in that context. What rights do the various species have and what recourse does an animal have legally if its rights are violated? Can a frog sue you if you run it over mowing your lawn? Do only cute animals get right? Big ones? Smart ones? Can they vote? What if one non-human animal violates another's rights?

Animal welfare revolves around the idea that we humans have a lot of power but should have respect for all life and that we are part of the cycle of life and the natural world but that we respect all other parts too and do as little harm as possible as we take what we need. And it includes things like "not testing cosmetics on animals in the year 2009" because that is a decision humans make and impose on themselves.

Besides, anyone who thinks that living a vegan lifestyle does not involve animals being killed to support them is delusional. It's all in what you knowingly allow to be done in your name in the end.
posted by fshgrl at 1:57 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

They have people drive trucks around for extended periods of time carrying billboards that tell Al Gore to stop eating meat. Their point is that meat contributes to global warming. I've been a vegetarian since I was 10, and I think the global warming argument against meat is a good one. But unnecessarily driving a truck to make the point is like the parent who catches their kid smoking and then forces the kid to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to teach them a lesson.

Also, tone matters. No matter what you can say about PETA does such-and-such good thing that other animal charities don't, PETA's tone is too far off the mark for me to give money to them. They legitimize the perception of vegetarians as strident, semi-crazed activists who are trying to cram their views down people's throats. They seem solely concerned with coming up with the most attention-getting campaigns possible, and not at all concerned with appearing reasonable. For instance, they had a campaign of telling people to eat whale meat on the grounds that eating a larger animal is more ethical. I agree with that ethical point in the abstract, but in the real world, the campaign is obviously not going to succeed and is just going to make people think vegetarians = kooks.

When I was researching which charity to give to, I settled on the Humane Society of the United States.
posted by Jaltcoh at 2:45 PM on June 14

one animal-related charity i support is 'remote area medical', which provides medical care for humans and animals.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:33 PM on June 14

The whole "no animals can suffer ever even to make insulin except for our CEO who is diabetic but it's different for her" stance, that and the whole "you should turn out your dogs and cats to the wild, livestock and all other animals too" thing...those kinda turn me off.
posted by TomMelee at 7:43 PM on June 14

This sort of thing, for example. I doubt very much they care about flies' rights but they know a good press op when they see one.
posted by jessamyn at 8:25 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]

Another one: PETA asks Phish to change name. “We were hoping that if Phish would become Sea Kitten, the band’s legions of fans would start using the word Sea Kitten to describe Phish, and fewer of these sea animals would be violently used for food”
posted by smackfu at 8:25 AM on June 25