Ask people to name an animal rights organization and a great majority of them will probably name PETA. However, those of us who are abolitionists know that PETA is pretty damn far from being an animal right organization. What most people don’t know is that there are actually two kinds of people in the animal movement, those for animal rights and those for animal welfare.

Anyone who is truly fighting for animal rights is fighting for an end to the commodification of animals. We don’t believe that humans should be using animals for their own gain or entertainment. We believe that all animals should have the right to live a free and natural life without human interference.

Animal welfarists on the other hand are fine with humans using and killing animals as long as it’s done in a “humane” way. There are no rights for animals in this scenario, nothing that tells people that these creatures who can feel pain, and experience emotions are anything other than objects, commodities for us to use as we see fit.

Some of us in the animal rights movement have a problem with organizations like PETA, HSUS and others using the term animal rights to define the work they do. They say that we’re on the same side but in reality their work is greatly harming the goal we’re trying to accomplish. They convince people that they can both be compassionate and still have their cheeseburgers. They make people feel good about consuming “happy meat” by telling them that it’s cruelty free when it’s anything but. How can they say we’re working toward the same goals when they’re goal seems to be making people comfortable with exploiting animals?

If you feel strongly about this issue as I do, please take a few seconds to go and sign this petition telling PETA that it’s not acceptable for them to use the term “animal rights” when promoting animal welfare.

I’d like to leave you with this piece from Animal Writings

We said “they can’t feel pain” until we found out they could.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they are irrational” until we found out they were not.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they cannot speak” until we found out that gorillas can learn sign language and parrots can construct meaningful verb and object sentences.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they don’t know how to use tools” until we found out that some do.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they have no culture” until we found out they did.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they have no art” until we learned that some elephants play drums or paint — on their own, and wolves harmonize.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they can’t play” until we found out they invented play.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they are inferior” until Darwin said “different, not inferior.”
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they cannot love” until we found out that pigs saved their humans’ lives, and dogs braved gunfire to be with their human family, and rabbits grieve themselves to death, and elephants after an absence embrace, and that the sighted cat guided his blind brother by intertwining their two tails, and that two hens living in a filthy cage with nothing offer comfort to each other.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “we have to eat meat” until we found out we didn’t.
Still we beat them and killed them.

We said “they have no soul” until we read the original Hebrew bible. We said “God put them here for our use” until we read “A righteous man regards the life of his beast” and “Blessed are the merciful.”
Still we beat them and killed them.

We say “they have no rights.”
And we will go on beating them and killing them until we find out they do.

All attempts to justify cruelty have been vain attempts to maintain power. Only when we release our grip on power and stand humbly as servants to Creation will we truly find our power.

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