Well let’s take Ingrid Newkirks choice to get sterilized. What bearing does this have on anything? I can think of many good reasons to take that position, and hers were quite valid. She did not feel it would be ethical to give birth to a child when there were so many that need adoption. Fair enough. In this poster, this position is being used ad hominem, to imply she is a horrible woman who cares nothing for animals.

And then we have the premise that all PETA members believe that no animal use is ethical. I find it extremely hard to believe that every single PETA member would be that myopic. I’m sure there are lots of people who share Ingrids view in that respect, but there are probably a lot of PETA members who also believe that eating a cheeseburger, or wearing fur or leather, is not unethical if the livestock was treated humanely.

However let a PETA member wear anything from an animal, and suddenly they are hypocrites. This is another Ad Hominem attack based on a flawed presumption.

Last, and certainly not least, is the whole euthanizing of animals thing. How many people actually adopt abused/stray animals? Of the purported 2300+ animals PETA impounded, do you think soo many would have been killed if they were actually adoptable? People only want the brightest, happiest, cutest, cleanest animals. Few want the abused, emaciated cat, or the pitbull with battle scars.

In these instances, euthanasia is the most humane route, since keeping animals in a pound is, in fact, borderline inhumane, in and of itself. Not to mention expensive. And compounding the problem is that people just do not spay/neuter their animals, so there is an abundance of new pups, kittens, etc. being born. Few will adopt a possibly damaged pet from a pound when they can get a perfectly good pup from the family down the street.

So while the percentage of euthanized animals is very high, it is pet owners themselves that are the primary cause. That and PETA is wasting millions on fanatics, and the animal rights equivalent of “abstinence campaigns” when, for the the vast majority of their target audience, they should be giving out condoms and free blood tests instead.

The poster ostensibly spouts facts, but uses a very subtle appeal to emotion, as opposed to actually addressing the reality of those facts, to get people to side with their anti-PETA agenda.

The unfortunate other side of the coin however, is that I’ve found a lot of PETA members to be completely irrational pro-animal fanatics. I could write paragraphs more about the illogical nature of some of their positions, but I’ll not bore you with all that…