A Response To PETA’s Position On “Happy” Or “Humane” Exploitation

Ingrid Newkirk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has written a PETA Alert concerning PETA’s position on “happy” exploitation.

This Alert reads in part:
PETA has pushed hard and will continue to push hard to reduce the sum total of suffering in the meat, dairy, and egg industries—because that makes a huge difference if you are a pig or a chicken on a factory farm. We’ve stopped PETA protests outside Burger King or McDonald’s restaurants when those companies agreed to reforms, but that doesn’t mean that we would ever suggest eating meat from Burger King or anywhere else—because we know that massive suffering still goes into every bite. Yes, it’s better to pay extra for an egg from a chicken who had a marginally less hideous life than one who suffered more, but we must do better by animals. In fact, we have yet to find a “humane” factory farm where animals don’t have their tails cut off and their ears painfully notched, where they aren’t debeaked, dehorned, or castrated without anesthesia, where they aren’t kept in crowded conditions without sunlight or fresh air, where they don’t have their beloved children taken away from them, where they aren’t denied the companionship of others, where they aren’t sent to a feedlot, or where they are instantly dispatched without the trauma of capture, the horror of transportation, or the terror of seeing other animals killed before suffering the same fate.
PETA has pushed for vegan living since our inception in 1980. Our motto is: “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” With so many vegan cookbooks and meal options available and with programs like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s 21-Day Vegan Kickstart and our wildly popular vegan starter kit, we can all help animals—and not miss a thing. Let’s live and let live, and tell others to come along with us, reminding them that animals have emotions and needs just as human beings do.
There is no such thing as humane meat. Giving animals a few more inches of living space is simply not enough. Animals deserve more. 
Although I had become a vegetarian , I continued to eat dairy and eggs, believing that it was necessary to do so given that I was not eating meat, poultry, or fish. I had never even heard the word “vegan” and I was unaware that it was possible to live a healthy life (let alone a healthier life) without consuming any animal products.
But PETA has changed dramatically since those early days. In addition to its steady stream of sexist campaigns that merely reinforce thinking of others as commodities, which characterizes both sexism and speciesism, and its position on the no-kill movement, there can be no doubt that PETA has become deeply involved in the whole “happy” or “humane” exploitation movement. The momentum is on our side, but it will take every one of us to bring this change about by being active advocates of animal rights. Thank you!