This year, PETA celebrates 35 years of changing minds and saving lives. But what does “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” really mean? It means what it has always meant – acknowledging our similarities and making the world a lot less cruel for all living beings.

People

I am you, only different.

Human beings have justified wars, slavery and sexual violence through the belief that those who are different are not worthy of moral consideration.

The boundaries between “us” and “them” have changed throughout history, and we’re horrified now to recall the abuse inflicted on others once classified as “outsiders” by societies: the extermination of Jews by the Nazis, the enslavement of Africans by American plantation owners and the slaughter of Christians for entertainment by the Romans. Laws now forbid discrimination based on gender, race, religion, age and sexual orientation. Yet it was not so long ago that human beings who were seen as different by those with power faced torture, exploitation and death.

Our society no longer believes that any human being has the right to rape, torture or enslave another. The challenge now is to wipe away the prejudice that blinds many people to the need to respect others who happen not to have been born human beings.

Ethical

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We are taught the Golden Rule as children, and all major religions teach principles of nonviolence and kindness. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Ethical treatment – the Golden Rule – must be extended to all living beings: reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, birds, amphibians and crustaceans.

Would we imprison our children in cages so small that they could barely move? Would we steal our sisters’ babies and eat them? Would we deliberately infect our friends with diseases? Of course not. So how – by claiming to be “superior” or “different” – can we do such abominable things to other living beings? Why not, instead, abandon the archaic and unjust boundary of “human” that we use to justify inflicting pain, suffering and death on billions of beings?

All living beings share the desire to live. We all feel pain, joy, grief and pleasure. We all have worth.

Treatment

Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.

All living beings desire the freedom to live a good and relatively natural life according to their inherent needs and instincts. While it is impossible to eliminate all suffering, human beings can easily stop deliberately inflicting suffering on other beings for our own purposes. We lose nothing in replacing a cheeseburger with a veggie burger or a leather purse with a fabric one. But when we forgo our responsibility to be kind, those we exploit lose their liberty and their lives just for our fleeting fancy.

We grow up being taught old discriminatory habits. We are pretty much fooled into eating the flesh of some animals and ignoring the cries of hunted animals while breeding “pets” to cuddle. We grow up confused. As adults, most of us are disturbed if we see animals being tortured and killed, yet we purchase and consume the flesh, fur, milk and skin of our fellow living beings every day. We work hard to deceive ourselves in order to maintain the illusion of a real distinction between humans and animals. Instead, we should dispel that illusion.

Threats of economic collapse, defiant claims of inherent rights and the resistance to change – these tired arguments have been heard and overcome many times throughout history. Every time a boundary shifts, the suffragists, abolitionists or emancipators are at first ridiculed for their defense of equality. Eventually, the false impressions are thrown out and freedom is won – for women, blacks, Christians, gays, Asians, Jews. Let freedom from oppression now include all beings.

Animals

We are all animals.

Human beings have few unique capabilities. All animals use language, enjoy complex social bonds, sacrifice pleasure for the good of others, use tools, imagine and dream. Everyone plays with friends, enjoys intimacy and mourns the loss of loved ones. Some animals have enormous capabilities beyond our own – in navigation, endurance, communication and detection of natural phenomena such as approaching storms and drought. No one who has studied other animals doubts that they are whole, intelligent and thoughtful.

Regardless of any living being’s capabilities, from the human infant to the chimpanzee who outwits college students in computer games, no one deserves to be abused. All living beings deserve respect and consideration of their interests, not because they share the characteristics we admire in ourselves but because they are all living beings in their own right. We share the same Earth, and we are ruled by the same laws of nature. Let’s do our part to bring about animal liberation.

What Do You Stand For?

Let everyone know that you are opposed to cruelty to animals by speaking out at every opportunity. Write letters to the editor and post comments in response to blogs and news articles. Follow PETA on Facebook and Twitter, and share information by liking and retweeting it. Visit PETA.org to respond to action alerts and other announcements.