Animal Rights: Part Two
Melissa Norbeck
Posted by Melissa Norbeck
Decisions, decisions. Vanilla or chocolate? Tea or coffee? Pancakes or French toast? We are all faced with decisions in our lives, and we are forced to come up with answers to questions daily. But to wear, or not to wear, animal products is the question at hand. Deciding not to wear animal products really needs to be a conscious effort. In the picture from my last post, I wore “leather” boots, and someone asked the question that I knew would come up. Are my boots real leather? I knew the question would arise because when I was choosing my outfit, my mom also mentioned the boots. However, my boots are definitely all man-made material.
Ironically enough, I just went to see The Nutcracker Saturday at the Academy of Music, and PETA was outside handing out pamphlets about wearing fur. Years ago when people went to the Academy of Music, they got all decked out in their mink coats and diamonds. It’s not really like that anymore; still it was reassuring to see their presence. My aunt and I just had a conversation a few months back about wearing fur, and she thinks that people should not even wear fake fur. I disagree because there are now different options to choose from where people can still look just as good wearing faux fur and faux leather that they don’t have to wear the real thing.
The poor animals (cats, dogs, rabbits, fox, raccoons, etc…) whose fur is robbed from them, are skinned alive; how horrible that must be; just unimaginable. A problem is that many of the fur products are mislabeled, and people really don’t know what they’re buying. However, real is real, and it is expensive, so a person knows when he/she is buying real fur because of the cost. But many times the real fur is labeled with something like jackal when it is really cat or dog. So it is better to not buy real fur at all. I also have my list of companies who do not test on animals and try to only buy shampoo and makeup and things like that from those companies. I feel it is our duty to help animals; they have no voice and no choice – we are their voice, and we have the power of choice!
Man Made Material