September 23, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
Animal Rights: The Inhumane Crusade
By Daniel T. Oliver
This book argues that animal-rights organizations mislead donors by focusing on animal welfare in their solicitations, when the true agenda of such groups is elevating animal rights to the same level as human rights.
The author, a research associate at the Capital Research Center, in Washington, traces the “criminal actions and terrorism” of today’s movement to Great Britain in the 1820s, when England became the first nation whose citizens formed an animal-welfare group.
Americans followed suit, Mr. Oliver writes, and opposition to using animals for scientific research eventually led to condemnation of hunting and trapping. Eventually, says Mr. Oliver, the animal-rights movement adopted a single goal: the abolition of all uses and ownership of animals.
Expanding on the book’s first edition, which was published in 1993, Mr. Oliver details the legal victories of groups that engage in tactics that he sees as destructive to medical researchers, livestock breeders, and fans of circuses and rodeos.
Mr. Oliver criticizes animal-rights propaganda and the celebrities who lend their fame to animal-related causes. He predicts the movement will eventually wither through overexposure in the news media.
“It seems virtually impossible that even a small percentage of people will ever be convinced that humans and animals are morally equal and that animal use is inherently wrong,” he concludes.
Publisher: Capital Research Center, 1513 16th Street, N.W., Washington 20036-1480; (202) 483-6900 or (800) 459-3950; fax (202) 483-6902; crc@capitalresearch.org; http://www.capitalresearch.org; 232 pages; $14.95; I.S.B.N. 0-936783-23-0.
