To the Editor:
Geoff Sharpe's "egg sculpture" was intended to demonstrate the brutality inherent in eating. But even more than that, the piece, and Sharpe's subsequent explanation, confirmed what I have always believed about the animal-rights movement - that it is profoundly anti-life.
Man must eat to survive; nobody would dispute that fact. But because of this, he should not be condemned as brutal or cruel when he fulfills this requirement. Any morality that damns humanity for being human is rotten to the core, and yet this is what the animal-rights activists do. What they advocate is not kindness to animals, but the elevation of animal life over human life.
As "Cruelty-Free" week passes, people would do well to remember that animal research saves human lives. But according to Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), even if research on animals produced a cure for AIDS "we'd be against it." Michael Fox, vice president of the Humane Society, goes further: "The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration." Fox and others believe that humans are essentially no different than other animals, and should be treated similarly.
Consider the meaning of that statement. Despite man's ability to reason, to form concepts, and to hold a code of ethics - none of which any other creature can do - animal-rights activists claim that our lives are no more valuable than the life of a dog. (Yet somehow, the idea of pit bulls organizing for human rights strikes me as improbable.)
What underlies the movement is a deep-rooted hatred for mankind. Anyone who values their life should oppose it.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 22; April 26, 1996
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