Ingrid E. Newkirk is the cofounder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the largest animal rights organization in the world. She has spoken internationally on animal rights issues, from the steps of the Canadian Parliament to the streets of New Delhi, India, where she spent her childhood.
A message from the president:
Friends,
Do you want animals to suffer? Didn’t think so. Then I want you to consider the most wonderful prospect: a time when we do not have to wear animals’ skins on our feet, never need to hold lambs down and shear off their wool for our sweaters, buy gloves that might have come from a dog-leather factory in China, or have foods that involved cramming chickens into a crate and hauling them down the highway to an awful place.
Right now, you can choose “humane meat” at Whole Foods, meaning that while the pigs were castrated without painkillers and did end up being killed, they didn’t have their ears painfully notched. And you can pick out a wool coat from a “responsible” supplier like H&M, whose standards mean that while the lambs’ teats and ears may have been cut off during shearing and they weren’t spared the three-day journey through the Australian outback to the slaughterhouse, they did not endure one, two, or even three other painful procedures.
But, don’t you want much more than that? Don’t you want a time when we can know that no animal suffered at all or was ever killed for what we are wearing, eating, and using? Well, you can have that time RIGHT NOW. Please, reject all the bogus “humane” and “responsible” and “sustainable” labels on food and clothing made from animals, which in reality perpetuate suffering and killing and keep animal-abusing industries thriving, and instead embrace 2015. Every taste, style, and product that you could ever want is already here in a 100 percent cruelty-free version this very minute. Don’t take anything less. Be an animal liberationist TODAY. This minute.
Now. We will give you free lists, tips—anything you want. Please join us now in rejecting all cruelty to animals.
Kind regards,
Ingrid E. Newkirk, President