Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990 TAG: 9006210229
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TRACY WIMMER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"For example, a dog in a hot car with all the windows up will suffer brain damage momentarily," Carol Burnett said. "We would certainly say that anyone who broke the window did a right act and shouldn't be charged. . . . That person helped the animal. He liberated the dog."
Burnett, media liaison for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, spoke by phone from the Washington, D.C., headquarters. PETA is often considered the granddaddy of the aggressive animal-rights movement. And if the group has its way, according to Burnett, Big Macs and Benji will soon be memories.
"We simply do not believe animals are ours to eat, to wear or to experiment on," Burnett continued. "And that translates into these campaigns: vegetarianism and the elimination of the fur industry, animal experimentation and entertainment."
Twenty years ago, Burnett would have surely been labeled a radical - maybe even a nut. Not necessarily today.
There are more than 400 animal welfare and animal-rights groups with a combined annual budget of more than $200 million in the United States alone, according to a 1989 American Medical Association paper. Their members, like their causes, differ greatly: from The Disabled and Incurably Ill for Alternatives to Animal Research to the Performing Animals Welfare Society.
Some fight to keep chimps out of laboratories. Others want to end frog dissection in high-school biology classes.
PETA, founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, claims 300,000 members and an annual budget of $7 million. What separates today's groups from yesteryear's conservative animal welfare organizations - like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States - is how they define cruelty and what they consider acceptable means to do away with it.
Animal welfarists condone factory farming and experimentation as long as it is done so "humanely." Animal-rights activists believe that no humans have the right to hurt animals at all - including factory farming and experimentation. And some animal-rights activists believe that arson, property destruction and theft are acceptable when they directly alleviate the pain and suffering of animals.
The most common motivator for those radical solutions is vivisection, operating on animals for scientific or medical research.
Some 70 million animals are killed in America's research labs each year, according to PETA. But while antivivisection movements date back at least to the mid-19th century, the revitalized animal-rights movement traces largely to the 1975 book "Animal Liberation" by Australian philosopher Peter Singer. He wrote that animals deserve rights because they have the capacity to feel pain and to suffer.
Groups like PETA cite Singer's book as their bible. In just a decade of activism, they claim striking results: Benetton, Avon and Revlon have pledged to stop animal testing. Mary Kay Cosmetics declared a moratorium on animal testing in May 1989. For their efforts, these companies have earned a right to be listed on PETA's "cruel-free company" mailer.
But animal-rights activists can't count themselves victorious yet.
The federal government is changing its attitude toward the animal-rights agenda as evidenced by top officials in the Bush Administration. Led by Secretary of Health & Human Services Louis Sullivan, who has come out strongly in support of animal testing, researchers are fighting back.
Days before the national March for the Animals, held in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, Sullivan labeled animal-rights activists "terrorists," arguing that "animal research has saved millions of lives."
Animal-rights activists countered by saying that biomedical and behavior research using animals is immoral, that the animal research community is scientifically bankrupt, that it has not and will not lead to human health improvements.
PETA is not the only group that acts on its beliefs, but it is one of the few that can financially back members in legal trouble. Earlier this month, PETA paid for the defense of a University of Pennsylvania laboratory employee who was charged with the theft of laboratory rats. The employee was convicted and ordered to pay restitution of $60. PETA also paid the $60 - a nominal amount compared to the thousands of dollars in damages some affiliated groups cause.
Most notorious is the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), denounced by the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States. Comparing themselves to the Underground Railroad, ALF members have claimed credit for vandalizing fur stores, butcher shops and slaughter houses.
The group's most famous break-in is the 1984 raid at the University of Pennsylvania's Head Injury Clinic, in which $20,000 worth of equipment was destroyed and videotapes of experiments stolen.
Copies of the videotapes were sent to PETA, which distributed excerpts around Capitol Hill. Although the film was immediately defended by the National Institutes of Health, the federal agency that spends $12 million a year on animal research, some congressmen were enraged at what they saw: a baboon struggling to crawl off a table during a head-bashing experiment; laughing researchers using hammers and screwdrivers to remove a metal helmet that had been cemented to a live ape's head.
Following 13 months of congressional pressure and public outcry, the NIH cut funding, forcing the lab to close. The film is still shown in lecture halls around the country and is credited in part with increasing PETA membership.
Although PETA claims that it does not know the identity of ALF members, PETA officials have said the FBI has tapped their phones and infiltrated their employee pool.
Burnett is quick to point out that, as does PETA's, ALF's credo prohibits the injury of any living being.
"ALF is simply a demonstration of how slow the system moves," she said. " . . . Animals suffer while people talk."
by CNB