Tag: Stella McCartney

Pamela Anderson On Vivisection: “I Don’t Know Much About That Part”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ celebrity spokeswoman Pamela Anderson was interviewed by Larry King recently, Anderson’s knowledge of and adherence to her animal rights views pretty much speaks for itself (emphasis added),

King: Why are you a vegetarian?

Anderson: I don’t like meat. I don’t like, you know, I don’t like meat. I don’t like the texture of meat. I don’t like where it comes from. I don’t like the cruelty that’s involved. And being involved with PETA so long, you get to know a lot about how meat is prepared and slaughtering and all that stuff. So, I’ve chosen, after I’ve kind of educated myself, you know, through PETA, that I don’t want to eat it.

King: No fur coats?

Anderson: No.

King: Leather soles?

Anderson: Sometimes — I have a lot of leather shoes actually — a lot of — but I’ve tried to actually create a clothing line — a shoe line that is non-leather and I have a lot of great shoes, too, from Stella McCartney that are non-leather as well.

But that’s the hardest thing is the leather part of it. A lot of things are leather. Even your car interior. I just ordered and car, and I’m getting all, you know, pleather interiors. There’s no leather interior in the car that I’m getting, bt the car that I have has a leather interior.

King: Are you against vivisection, the treatment of animals to detect disease?

Anderson: I don’t know much about that part. Sorry.

King: But you’re certainly against the killing and slaughter of the animal?

Anderson: Yes and the slaughtering. You know, PETA is — they really — they just want people to be humane about killing animals, too, when it comes to fast food restaurants like KFC. And it’s just so inhumane, how they handle their animals and that’s the first step.

King: Good luck in all you do, Pam.

Anderson: Thank you.

King; Great seeing you.

Anderson: Thank you. Vivisection. I thought you meant vasectomy.

King : no.

Anderson: I’m against those, too. No.

Not quite sure whether she’s against vasectomies or animal research in that last comment. If it is animal research she is against, she has an easy method of protesting against the alleged horrors and cruelties involved in such researcher — simply stop supporting the pharmaceutical industry by continuing to buy things like the medicine she takes to treat her Hepatitis C.

Given that she cannot even give up leather shoes (while complaining about others’ wearing of fur), don’t expect her to leave the stable of PETA hypocrites anytime soon. Presumably she and Dawn Carr can get together and commiserate at how horrible it is that their lives are prolonged due to the efforts of animal researchers.

Source:

CNN Larry King Life, August 22, 2005.

In Defense of Unborn Lambs

Animal rights activists in Great Britain and elsewhere are launching new protests against astrakhan, lambskin derived from lambs that are killed shortly after birth and, activists claim, in some cases before they are born.

Astrakhan is produced in Uzbekistan from the karakul lamb. An individual pelt can bring Pounds 330 to 45 and a coat made from the material can fetch Pounds 3,500-4,500 according to the Times of London.

PETA’s Sean Gifford told The Times,

The fur trade is a violent, bloody business but these skins are particularly gruesome. Upwards of 4 million lambs are slaughtered every year for these coats. A ewe can usually have four births in a lifetime. The first three lambs are slaughtered after they are born. But the mother is butchered 15 to 30 days before giving birth to the fourth lamb. The unborn lamb is then ripped from her belly. Its skin has not had a chance to develop so it is softer and more highly valued.

Some suppliers of astrakhan deny that the ewe is slaughtered before birth. The Times quotes Andrea Martin of the British Fur Trade Association saying,

Karakul sheep and lambs provide an important source of food as well as other income from skins and wools. In Muslim areas, including Uzbekistan, slaughtering methods for animals are governed by strict religious principles intended to assure humane treatment of animals. Allegations of mistreatment and induced abortions make no sense.

What is the relevance of the “induced abortion” claim? The Times claims, for example, that,

Astrakhan was in limited use three years ago but fell out of vogue after Stella McCartney, the British designer, rounded on her friend Madonna for having an astrakhan coat, telling her she was “wearing a fetus”. She has never been seen in public in it since.

If you’re comfortable with wearing a quote made from animal skin, exactly what does the gestational age of the skin matter? Are there people out there who actually think, “I have no problem wearing lamb skin from a two-day old lamb, but killing the lamb before its born is simply unethical?”

Makes no sense (which is why McCartney and Madonna probably find it to be a logical position — or perhaps it conflicts with Maddona’s kabbala beliefs!)

Source:

Aborted lambs are fashion victims. Maurice Chittenden, The Times Online, March 6, 2005.

A New Fur Controversy. New York Metro, March 28-April 4, 2005.

Stella McCartney: Its Not Dead, Its Vintage

The Daily Telegraph profiled fashion designer and anti-fur activist Stella McCartney in January Ethical Treatment of Animals, but don’t think that stops her from wearing animals skins. The Daily Telegraph’s Sabine Durrant writes,

. . . When she [McCartney] arrives the first thing I notice is her cowboy boots, the color of pale calf, slightly battered. They looks so much like leather it’s uncanny.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she says, and tucks them out of sight. They must be the ones she sells — the veggie shoes that have been such a hit in her shops. I bend to admire them again, to touch them, but she’s tucked her feet so far under her stool I can’t reach them. It’s only then it dawns that something dead may, actually, have walked out of her door.

‘Oh, these are leather,’ I say. ‘No, wait, these are vintage,’ she replies.

I see. Fur is dead, but leather is vintage! Come to think of it, that steak I had the other day was (recent) vintage!

Source:

Stella gets her groove back. Sabine Durrant, The Daily Telegraph, January 25, 2005.