Animal Rights Protests Essay Example For Students

Animal Rights Protests Essay Over the past fifteen years a powerfully charged drama has unfolded in New Yorks Broadway venues and spread to the opera houses and ballet productions of major cities across the country. Its characters include angry college students, aging rock stars, flamboyant B-movie queens, society matrons, and sophisticated fashion designers. You cant buy tickets for this production, but you might catch a glimpse of it while driving in Bethesda on particular Saturday afternoons. If youre lucky, Compassion Over Killing (COK), an animal rights civil disobedience group, will be picketing Millers Furs, their enemy in the fight against fur. These impassioned activists see the fur trade as nothing less than wholesale, commercialized murder, and will go to great lengths to get their point across. Such enthusiasm may do them in, as COKs often divisive rhetoric and tacit endorsement of vandalism threaten to alienate the very people it needs to reach in order to be successful. The animal rights idealogy crystallized with the publication of philosophy professors exploration of the way humans use and abuse other animals. Animal Liberation argued that animals have an intrinsic worth in themselves and deserve to exist on their own terms, not just as means to human ends. By 1985, ten years after Peter Singers watershed treatise was first published, dozens of animal rights groups had sprung up and were starting to savor their first successes. In 1994 Paul Shapiro, then a student at Georgetown Day School, didnt feel these non-profits were agitating aggressively enough for the cause. He founded Compassion Over Killing to mobilize animal rights activists in the Washington metropolitan area and throw animal exploiters out of business. Since then, COK has expanded to over 300 members with chapters across the country, including one at American University, which formed in the fall of 1996. COK organizes protests as a primary activity of the group, although some chapter s may choose to expand into other areas if they wish. COKs focus on direct-action protests and demonstrations is just one way that the animal rights movement has mobilized to end the fur trade. The larger animal rights organizations have conducted attention grabbing media blitzes with the help of stars like Paul McCartney, Melissa Etheridge, Rikki Lake, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington. Lobbying efforts by animal advocacy groups have resulted in trapping restrictions in numerous states and an end to federal fur industry subsidies. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has persuaded several fashion designers including Calvin Klein and Donna Karan to stop using fur in their clothing lines. In addition, anti-fur concerts, videos, compact discs, t-shirts, drag revues and award ceremonies have been used by animal rights groups to advance their cause. Each side of the conflict over fur coats has an entirely different way of conceptualizing and talking about the issue. Animal rights groups bluntly describe fur as deadanimal parts and emphasize that animals are killed to produce a fur garment. Those involved in the fur industry consistently use agricultural metaphors and talk of a yearly crop of fur that must be harvested. Manny Miller, the owner of Millers Furs, refused to describe his business in terms of the individual animals; I dont sell animals. I sell finished products. I sell fur coats. These linguistic differences extend to the manner in which both sides frame the debate over fur. COK refers to the industry in criminal terms; fur is directly equated with murder and those involved in the industry are labeled killers. Industry groups like the Fur Information Council of America (FICA) always describes fur garments as objects and clothing; it is the ultimate cold weather fabric that is your fashion choice. On Saturday, April 12 th, Compassion Over Killing demonstrated outside the White House, protesting the Clinton administrations opposition to a European Community ban on the importation of fur coats made from animals caught in the wild. In addition, the demonstration called for the release of several Animal Liberation Front (ALF) members imprisoned for vandalizing property and liberating animals from research labs and factory farms. Several dozen high school and college students turned out for the event, but the protest attracted a handful of thirtysomethings and an elderly woman as well. Most of the young people there seemed to dress in a similar style; baggy pants, piercings and t-shirts advertising obscure hard-core rock bands adorned most of the activists. The organizers of the protest provided more than enough signs for everyone to carry. Each sign had a slogan stenciled on the cardboard in boxy black letters, including Abolish the Fur Trade, Fur is Murder, Stop Promoting Vanity and Death, and Fur is Dead- Get It In Your Head. Some of the signs displayed graphic photographs of skinned animal carcasses. In contrast to the dramatic messages they carried, most of the activists were subdued as they slowly trudged in a circle. The inclement weather seemed to dampen their spirits a bit, as for most of the three hour protest it alternated between drizzle and half-hearted rain showers. The few passersby seemed intent on getting through the rain, and quickly walked past while giving the protesters wide berth. In periods when the precipitation was less intense, the majority of people passed by with expressions of studied indifference or disgust and seemed to have a visceral reaction to the bloody, explicit posters. It is not necessarily bad to show people what you are against; no one in COK likes to look at those photographs. At the same time, its important to try to reach people at a level where your message can resonate. Using words like murder may attract attention, but it has just as much potential to turn people off. The fur industry is trying its hardest to paint groups like COK as a radical fringe; one FICA press release said, the more bizarre the activists look, the better we look and what they had outside were freaks. COKs choice of words might just be playing right into the other sides hands. Essay about Missing Persons: The Media Bias to Report Only Pretty Blonde Girls EssayWorks CitedCowit, Steve. Hollywood Hypocrites. Fur Age 04/06/97 11:35:32. Feitelberg, Rosemary. Surge in Luxe Business, Designer Participation Bode Well for Fur Week. Womens Wear Daily 14 May 1996: 1+. Freak Show Protest Falls on Deaf Ears. Fur Age http://www.furs.com/FUR/FurAge76.html 04/06/97 11:41:16. Fur Information Council of America. Fur, Your Fashion Choice.Motavalli, Jim. Our Agony Over Animals. E Magazine Oct 1995: 28-37. People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Annual Report. 1994. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The PETA Guide to Animals and the Clothing Trade.Responsive Management. Americans Attitudes Toward Animal Welfare, Animal Rights and Use of Animals.Riechmann, Deb. A Harvest of Fox Fur And Anger. Washington Post 5 Jan 1995: M2. Shapiro, Paul. An Interview With the Owner of Millers Furs. The Abolitionist Summer 1996: 3-4. Shapiro, Paul. Personal Communication. Bethesda, MD. 5 April 1997. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics For Our Treatment of Animals New York: Avon, 1975. Stern, Jared Paul. Are You Fur Real? Fashion Reporter June/July 1996: 5-6.