PETA: Gone Too Far This Time?

08/7/08  Print This Post Print This Post    13 Comments   Popular   Written by Eva Holland
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Photo by safaris (Creative Commons

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you’ve probably heard about last week’s gruesome stabbing and decapitation aboard a Greyhound bus in Manitoba, Canada.

Now, famously provocative animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has tried - and failed - to run an ad in a Manitoba newspaper, comparing the murder to slaughterhouse practices in the meat industry.

Said a PETA spokesperson:

“Like human victims, animals in slaughterhouses experience terror when they are attacked by a knife-wielding assailant.

We are challenging everyone who is rightly horrified by this crime to look into their hearts and consider leaving violence off their dinner plates.”

Call me politically correct, but I don’t see how it’s appropriate to compare a 22-year-old murder victim to a steak, before the young man in question has even been buried.

And to attempt to run the ad in the same region where the killing took place only adds salt to the wound.

I’m all for animal rights, but it seems to me that some activists are so zealous about protecting animals, that they do so at the expense of human beings.

That goes for the anti-whalers who spray Japanese sailors with acid, the eco-terrorists who firebomb animal testing facilities, and - yes - the PETA advertising hacks who didn’t think twice about a murdered young man, his family, and a traumatized community.

After all, aren’t people also animals deserving of ethical treatment?


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About the Author

Eva Holland

Eva Holland is a contributing editor to the Matador Network. She recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of quitting her day job to write and travel full time.

13 Comments... join the discussion!

  • Peter replied on August 11, 2008

    While I dont give a hoot about PETA or their beliefs (I will eat meat till the day i die, and love it), i dont see this as going too far. For them a "traumatized community" (a load of bull) isnt as bad as the slaughter they dislike. If they were to treat all animals the same, what they are witnessing is a holocaust. Something that is work stopping, even if it requires a little poking at a sore wound. They do so at the expensence of human beings….. and what gives us humans the right to kill, but not to be killed (Or in this case, hurt) in turn? I just suppose we are naturally better than our counterparts.

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  • KellanApple replied on August 11, 2008

    This is why I hate PETA. Did you know they have a huge freezer in their head office that is for euthanized animals? Now how is that for animal rights? Fuck you PETA!

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  • NIck replied on August 12, 2008

    Going to far? Not really.I don't think it's the fact that your killing animals it's the life they live before they die http://www.meat.orgcheck it out

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  • NIck replied on August 12, 2008

    Going to far? Not really.I don't think it's the fact that your killing animals it's the life they live before they die http://www.meat.orgcheck it out

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  • me replied on August 12, 2008

    how would animals experience terror of a knife when they don't know what it is or what it can do?

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  • Meat Lover replied on August 12, 2008

    I dont like mistreatment of animals any more than anyone else but I do like a good burger. Those PETA people need to get real. With the demand for meat so high, how else is the livestock industry going to keep up? With alot of the farm land in the US being sold off for timeshares and what ever else the people with money want, its no surprise to me that the farmers are resorting to anything they have to just to make a living. And just how would they have it anyway? Play soothing music and put the cow to sleep before having the Priest come in and give it a "proper" funeral, then WHACK!! off with its head….right, move to India…at least I think thats where they worship cows.

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  • Baby Seals replied on August 12, 2008

    Pretty soon these morons will be trying to arrest and imprison wild lions and tigers because they are cruel to the poor helpless animals they hunt…sheesh!

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  • Eva replied on August 12, 2008

    Peter - I'd be curious to know if you would still think the notion of a "traumatized community" is a "load of bull", if it was someone you knew who'd had their head hacked off with a butcher's knife. Or, for that matter, if you'd been on the bus. Sleep well at night afterwards, would you?

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  • joel replied on August 12, 2008

    Yah WTF is wrong with these people… baby seals has a point… if PETA wants to give animals rights than when ever a predator kills some prey we will have to put that animal in some kind of animal jail…. IT is all a bunch of bullshit

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  • BILLY BOB replied on August 12, 2008

    PETA….People Eating Tasty Animals!!!!!!!

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  • Jose Rodriguez replied on August 12, 2008

    I do not eat red meat but I do not mind eating a fish or a chicken my moto is if you kill them eat them if you just kill them for show you are a *&^%$#@! my thoughts

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  • meelo replied on August 13, 2008

    im pretty sure they dont use knives in slaughter houses until the animal is dead from a gun shot wound, or a machine similar to a gun built to save ammo. not that is makes a huuuuuge difference, but still.

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  • me replied on August 13, 2008

    I'm with Peter. And Eva, I would. The first night after such an incident is usually the only problem and anyone who is traumatised or affected for a long period is out of touch with reality and the state of affairs in the world, past and present if it had such an effect.

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