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Claim: PETA Euthanizes Animals

Details

The claim here is that PETA is a hypocritical organization that kills animals. Therefore, any claim that PETA makes, such as the fact that you shouldn't abuse animals for your own entertainment and therefore shouldn't eat meat, is therefore null and void.

Problems With This Argument

1. Dear carnists, which is it?

Sorry, I thought killing animals was ok. Now it's... not ok? What about if those animals lived a good life and were put down humanely? Or is the problem that those animals are the "good" kind not the "food" kind? But why should that matter?

2. The animals PETA euthanizes

PETA states that "While we transfer hundreds of animals to reputable shelter partners and place animals for adoption, our shelter mostly takes in aggressive, sick, elderly, injured, feral, or otherwise unadoptable animals for whom euthanasia is the most humane option, and we euthanize at the owners' request when they can't afford to pay for their sick and dying animals to be put to sleep".

3. Let's assume they are flat-out lying or whatever

PETA takes in every pet that people bring to their facility almost without exception. What I never get out of critics of PETA is, even if they put down perfectly healthy animals, what is a better plan? Let's review some options and see if any of them are immune to chastising:

• Turn animals away: In this case, if you want to go no-kill, you will simply have to turn animals away. There really is no other choice. If you can't find a no-kill shelter home for your pet (I tried to find one recently for a friend, trust me, you call a lot of places - and they all turn you down) they are more likely to be abandoned or abused, or remain unspayed/unneutered and breed and contribute to more animal suffering. Then the line would be "I can't believe PETA stopped taking in animals, those animals are going to end up abused. PETA bad."
• Factory-farm-like conditions: The other option is to simply just start piling the animals up. People would then have something to complain about there too. So now the line would be "PETA forces their animals to live in squalor. PETA bad."
• "They just need to build more facilities, or put out PSAs or something" But wait, I thought PETA was bad. Then your argument would then be that PETA's operations need to be expanded, not ended.

Other plans are just vague things that PETA already does. "They should just concentrate on fixing animals". Okay, they do that by the thousands with their no/low-cost fixing program. So what was the actual plan here?

4. This doesn't counter anything else PETA says

If PETA then makes an argument that you should torture animals for your own entertainment, that argument stands and falls on its own merits, not on the things PETA does or even on the basis that PETA said so. "Hey some people that work for PETA did thing X". Ok, well killing animals for your own pleasure is still wrong, and those employees were wrong for doing what they did if that's true.

5. This doesn't actually counter veganism

Killing animals unnecessarily for your pleasure is wrong. "But, PETA kills animals too". Ok... great. Killing animals unnecessarily for your pleasure is still wrong, and you managed to list some other tangentially related fact that doesn't counter that at all.

Sources

Fact Check: Is PETA Responsible for the Deaths of Thousands of Animals? - Newsweek

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