Jessica

Vozel

Read Jessica's bio and previous columns here

June 8, 2009

What Vegetarianism Could Be . . . If It Weren’t for PeTA

Immediately after abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed at his church in Wichita, Kansas, his death became fodder for furthering agendas.

Celebratory “tweets” from pro-life advocates shielded by Internet anonymity wished for his death to be a precedent for the continuing murder of abortion doctors. Bill O’Reilly, in a more visible attack, called the slain man “Dr. Killer.” In our hyper-speed, interactive news world, not even a respectful minute was allowed to pass before Dr. Tiller’s death became not real and actual and life-altering for his loved ones but symbolic for both sides of one of the most divisive issues in America.

Exploitation, sadly, is perhaps to be expected in the “us vs. them” climate of the abortion debate. But it’s not just pro-choice and pro-life advocates who have used Dr. Tiller’s death to their own ends.

The animal rights group PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is attempting to erect billboards in still-reeling Wichita that use Dr. Tiller’s death as a springboard for their message. Two versions of the billboard would, if a billboard company agrees to work with them, aim its message to both sides of the debate: One reading Pro-life? Go Vegetarian and the other Pro-choice? Choose Vegetarian. So far, no billboard company has agreed to be complicit in this offensive campaign, but perhaps that wasn’t PeTA’s point. The mere proposal for the billboard has reached a much wider audience than slapping up a simple, non-offensive ad unrelated to Dr. Tiller’s murder ever could.  

I’ve been abstaining from meat-eating for a little over four years now, and I relate to PeTA’s goals and aims, but their execution is intentionally offensive and terribly miscalculated. I’ve never met a meat-eater who was talked into vegetarianism by a PeTA ad (granted, one of their underground slaughterhouse exposés solidified my vegetarianism, but the video showed raw facts as opposed to the inflated, controversial rhetoric of some of their recent campaigns). And yet I’ve heard plenty of people exclaim: “Just for that, PeTA, I’m going to go grill me a nice 24-ounce steak.”

Another of their campaigns, one that toured college campuses, used large billboards with photographs comparing animal enslavement in circuses and zoos with human enslavement in the American South. Another used objectifying images of naked women wrapped in plastic to resemble packaged, grocery-store chicken breasts.

Every time I see PeTA’s latest insensitive move making the news rounds, my heart breaks twice. Once for the people and groups of people they are callously exploiting, and once for the potential change that is thwarted – for the people who might actually consider reducing or eliminating their meat intake if not for PeTA’s ridiculous tactics, with which they understandably don’t want to be associated.

And such associations exist. Vegetarianism and PeTA are, in the popular consciousness, one and the same. In that view, all vegetarians are bullying diet purists who won’t let you eat your dinner in peace. But the movement outside and away from PeTA is about so much more than that, and the ones who want real change – not self-serving controversy – would never dream of telling other people what to eat, or of using the death of a doctor to further their cause. It helps no one, and no cause, to compare tragedies or to use tragedy for their own benefit.  

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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