These Extremists Embrace Terrorism
A coalition of animal rights groups opens a five-day convention in Washington on June 26, to promote their view that animals should have at least as many rights as humans and that using them in scientific experiments to find cures for human diseases is cruel and must be outlawed.
If that was all there was to it, then People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) and their fellow neighers and cluckers could be dismissed as just one more interest group trying to win attention from Congress and the press. But these people have condoned violence to advance their cause.
In testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee on March 12, FBI Director Louis Freeh noted the extent of special interest terrorist activity. He cited as one example a Feb. 2, 1992, arson of the mink research facility at Michigan State University. Rodney Coronado, a member of the Animal Liberation Front, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. PETA sent $45,200 to Coronado’s “support committee,” which was a sum 15 times greater than what PETA spent on animal shelters nationwide in all of that year.
The attack on the lab interfered with toxicology research designed, among other things, to help not only humans but to improve the quality of marine life in Lake Huron.
The Department of Justice says there have been more than 313 instances of animal rights violence in the United States. This has led to a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in research costs, much of it funded by taxpayers.
While PETA and the other groups loudly condemn scientific research involving animals (90 percent of which are rodents, according to Americans for Medical Progress, a pro-research foundation), they spend a pittance on animal shelters. Eleven million animals are destroyed annually for lack of facilities. Yet PETA spent less than $3,955 of its $12 million in fiscal year 1995 and $6,100 of its $10.9 million in fiscal 1996 for shelter programs, according to its nonprofit tax forms filed with the IRS. The HSUS does not operate a single shelter, despite a $40 million budget.
Animal rights groups want us to believe that all research involving any animal is cruel and unnecessary. Some have the attitude of actor Alec Baldwin, who told KCAL-TV during PETA’s Los Angeles gala last Dec. 14 that we don’t need animal research because there are “a lot of human subjects … who would be more than willing to become live experiments.”
Just how absurd are some animal rights people about their cause? Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney is leading a campaign against the March of Dimes because it works with animals in research. But McCartney’s wife, Linda, who has breast cancer, is taking chemotherapy treatments developed through research involving fruit flies, mice and rats.
The language is far more extreme than anything said by Operation Rescue in its attempts to stop human abortions. Many politicians and the media viewed that organization as dangerous.
Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, once told The Washington Post, “Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses.”
Alex Pacheco, chairman of PETA, told The New York Times, “We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child because they are equal mentally in terms of dependence on others.” Pacheco added: “Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animal cause.”
Political scientist Kevin Beedy, writing in the March 1990 issue of Animals’ Agenda, said: “Terrorism carries no moral or ethical connotations. It is simply the definition of a particular type of coercion …. It is up to the animal rights spokespersons either to dismiss the terrorist label as propaganda or make it a badge to be proud of wearing.”
This is the crowd that is coming to Washington. Group yoga sessions lead off each day. Meals will be strictly vegetarian. Will radicals rule? Will research aimed at saving human life suffer far more than the animals?
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