Pity PeTA: Ingrid Newkirk's views on life after death
Body to be chopped for cheap publicity

By Teresa Platt, executive director, Fur Commission USA

(Listen to Newkirk reading her will in the HBO documentary I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PeTA, 2007)

In an interview with New Yorker Magazine, Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), the vegan cult, reported that she was sterilized in 1972 at the age of 22.(1)

And about perpetuating the human race, Newkirk had this to say: "Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog; it is nothing but vanity, human vanity. … I am not only uninterested in having children, I am opposed to having children."

In the same interview, the reporter explained that Newkirk told him, "in the most unequivocal terms, that the world would be an infinitely better place without humans in it at all." 

Well, that’s the end of that, and us - literally - if we follow Newkirk and PeTA, like lemmings, off the cliff.

Of course such sentiment explains why PeTA promotes a vegan food and fiber policy, a policy which would result in starvation and pollution and the end of the bulk of the human race.(2)

And instead of bearing and loving children to perpetuate the human race, Newkirk has other ideas on other ways to achieve immortality. She has stipulated in her will that her body will revert to PeTA corporate ownership,(3) and she has made "suggested directions" as to its use after her death.

She "suggests" the meat be used for a BBQ, that her skin be used for clothing and purses, and that her eyes be delivered to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency in protest of laws requiring products be tested on other animals before being tested on the human animal.

Newkirk also suggests her accusatory "pointing finger" be delivered to a circus manager, and her feet be made into umbrella stands in protest of one of the creative ways Africans came up with to make use of the legs of dead elephants, after the meat and hide of the creatures were utilized.   

The whole exchange got me thinking. Like Newkirk, I too would like my body to be used for human benefit after I die. For this reason, I carry a donor card in my wallet.

My eyes will give others sight. My skin will help burn victims recover and protect them from the cold. My lungs will help others breathe.(4)

My organs and tissue will be used after my death, not for some silly publicity stunt, but to actually help people.

We wonder how many PeTA followers are following Newkirk lemming-like, and getting sterilized before they can breed.

Don’t be a lemming. Reject PeTA and make a positive difference in the world. Become an organ and tissue donor today.

Notes:

(1) The Extremist: The woman behind the most successful radical group in America, by Michael Specter, New Yorker Magazine, Apr. 14, 2003. at http://michaelspecter.com/pdf/peta.pdf

(2) See Let Them Eat Cake! PeTA sees foot-and-mouth disease as the final solution. FCUSA commentary, Apr. 24, 2001.

(3) Newkirk gives control of her remains to PeTA Inc, stating, "While the final decision as to the use of my body remains with PETA ..."

(4) For a complete list of what can be donated, visit the Health Resources and Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

See also:

Ranch sells beef for dinner, bones for surgery. By Alexis Madrigal, for Wired.com. (January 16, 2008)

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