OPINION: The RSPCA Doesn't Prevent Cruelty To Animals

Imagine how ridiculous it would seem if a charity like Save The Children or the NSPCC came out in favor of killing kids.

Imagine they promoted guidelines on how to kill day-old babies by shredding them in batches. Imagine they served dead baby casseroles at their fundraisers. And imagine they rolled their eyes and laughed scornfully at the ’emotive’ people who say it’s cruel and immoral to kill kids.

So what about the RSPCA – the so-called Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? There’s only one word in its name I take issue with. The RSPCA doesn’t prevent cruelty to animals – overall, it actually promotes this cruelty.

Through its Assured label, the RSPCA literally gives its seal of approval to mechanized farms and slaughterhouses, in return for funding. It doesn’t only turn a blind eye – it endorses the immoral profiteers who shred male chicks on the day of their birth (the charity describes it as ‘an effective and humane kill’) and pack screaming pigs into gas chambers.

Take a moment to let this sink in. We’re talking about the organization that calls itself the Royal Society for the PREVENTION of Cruelty to Animals.

There’s much more too. As well as receiving funds from the dairy industry, the charity (coincidentally?) defends the dairy industry’s policy of separating newly-born calves from their mother. Even dairy farmers themselves admit how distressing this can be for both mother and calf.

But the RSPCA goes much further – it has produced guidelines for how to slaughter pregnant cows, including instructions on how to crush the unborn foetus ‘by a blow to the head with a suitable blunt instrument’.

When campaigners at Go Vegan World released an advert to expose the truth about dairy farming, the RSPCA’s head of campaigns, David Bowles, opposed the animal lovers and took the side of the dairy industry. He accused vegans of using ’emotive’ language.

Multiple dairy farmers admit that separating cows from their calves is traumatic for both

More recently, Bowles tried to reframe another debate to help another set of animal killers: he said the salmon industry’s slaughter of seals ‘is not culling – it’s about humane pest control’.

You don’t need to pinch yourself – this is really happening. While vegan activists are out disrupting illegal hunts and liberating animals, the RSPCA pays its head of campaigns to sit in an office legitimising animal cruelty using stupid word play.

Heck, the charity even has meat recipes on its own website. Preventing cruelty to animals? Don’t make me laugh!

Now, what about all the pets and other animals the RSPCA saves? That’s got to be a good thing, right? Of course it is – but only up to a point because in 2012 it was revealed that the charity had killed nearly half the animals it ‘rescued’ the previous year. Thousands of them were killed for non-medical reasons.

The whistle-blower who revealed this data committed suicide within months of the truth coming out. Her grieving family said the RSPCA had ‘bullied’ her and behaved ‘like a paramilitary organisation‘. It’s so dark.

Data shows the charity has killed many of the animals it took in

To return to the Assured label, how can a charity that describes itself as preventing cruelty to animals justify its collusion with the livestock industry, which kills 70 billion land animals each year?

On its website the RSPCA says: “Whilst we respect those who choose a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle and the personal commitment it takes, we take the view that we must campaign for the highest possible standards of animal welfare in all areas.”

To a casual reader, that may sound convincing. But vegans know that claims of ‘humane’ or ‘high-welfare meat’ are misleading. These schemes are used to con consumers into unethical purchases – rather than say meat is murder, the RSPCA helps to ease the conscience of troubled consumers who might otherwise stop eating meat, eggs and dairy.

As vegan activists fight to get the truth out, the RSPCA is manning the barricades, defending the killing industry. It tells ‘animal loving Brits’ to continue eating slaughtered meat but ‘look out for the logo and show you care’.

Unless you think it isn’t cruel to violently take another life for your own profit, how can you deny the RSPCA is PROMOTING cruelty?

Perhaps Mr Bowles will say I use emotive language but, from this vegan’s perspective, defenders of the meat industry will always be the enemy of animals. The RSPCA is the most ironically-named organization in history. I think it does more harm than good.