ANTI-PET OWNERSHIP QUOTES 
 
"Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about
by human manipulation."  -- Ingrid Newkirk, national director,
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Just Like Us?
Toward a Nation of Animal Rights" (symposium), Harper's, August
1988, p. 50.
 
"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 (Washington, DC: People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (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 (Washington, DC: People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (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.
 
"In a perfect world, all other than human animals would be free
of human interference, and dogs and cats would be part of the
ecological scheme."  --PeTA's Statement on Companion Animals.
 
"[A]s 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, "Just Like Us? Toward a Notion of Animal Rights"
(symposium), Harper's, August 1988, p. 50.
 
"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,
national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(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, national director, People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Chicago Daily
Herald, March 1, 1990.
 
"[Animal] Fancies provide an escape from the real world, a sense
of purpose in a lot of purposeless lives, a chance to play God by
breeding animals, and a chance to play celebrity by showing
them." (The Animals' Agenda, Dec. 1991, Phil Maggitti).
 
"Human care (of animals) is simply sentimental, sympathetic
patronage." (Dr. Michael W. Fox, HSUS, in 1988 Newsweek
interview).
 
"We are not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us 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. (New York Review of Books, 1990), Preface, p. ii.
 
"The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the
theory of animal welfare... Animal rights means dramatic social
changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values
prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to
call ourselves advocates of animal rights."  --Gary Francione,
The Animals' Voice, Vol. 4, No. 2 (undated), pp. 54-55.
 
"Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal
welfare separated by irreconcilable differences... the enactment
of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of
animal rights...  Welfare reforms, by their very nature, can only
serve to retard the pace at which animal rights goals are
achieved."  --Gary Francione and Tom Regan, "A Movement's Means
Create Its Ends," The Animals' Agenda, January/February 1992,
pp. 40-42.

>From  kpm2@acpub.duke.edu Mon Mar 11 12:04:15 MST 1996