PETA Statement: Animals Are More Than ‘Property’

For Immediate Release:
May 29, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Below, please find a statement from PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel for Animal Law Jared Goodman regarding the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s affirmance of a lower court’s ruling that dogs are simple “property,” rather than family members, in a custody dispute case:

A car is a piece of property, but a dog is a member of the family. States allow animals to be included in trusts, and several states require courts to consider an animal’s interests in custody disputes. No animal should be used as a pawn in someone’s divorce, and PETA urges all courts to apply the same “best interests” standard used in child custody cases to any dispute over a dog or cat.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way,” and the group opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. More information is available at PETA.org.