Against dog cloning, whose lives are often short and painful

Jennifer Fearing, president of United Animal Nations, has a strong op-ed in the Wednesday August 10 San Francisco Chronicle. It is against dog cloning and headed, "Good grief, Snuppy." (Pg B9.)

She reminds us "that it can take more than 200 animals surgically impregnated to yield a single clone birth" and that "Along the way, in each of these grand experiments, these 200 animals are housed in laboratories and subjected to multiple invasive surgeries, to say nothing of the very few they actually give birth to -- clones whose lives are often short and painful."

She writes, "I don't know any pet lover who would willingly comply with a process that caused the pain and suffering of hundreds of animals to clone his or her favorite pet. Once people really understand that the odds are better than not that the clone will not act and possibly not even look like the animal they hope to replace, most are turned off."

The piece ends, "Don't be fooled by the cute photos. For every one of those kittens and puppies that they bring out into the light, there are hundreds more who suffered to make that photo op possible. The 'promise' of pet cloning isn't humane -- to either the animals or the humans involved. It is a consumer fraud and an animal welfare atrocity."

You can read the whole piece on line at: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/08/10/EDG9OE4U9I1.DTL
It presents a great opportunity for letters to the editor about human treatment of other animals. The San Francisco Chronicle takes letters at letters [at] sfchronicle.com and advises "Please limit your letters to 200 or fewer words ... shorter letters have a better chance of being selected for publication."

Since pet cloning is currently being discusses in many papers, you might use some of the points from Fearing's article as a basis for letters to the editor in your local papers. If you have any trouble finding an email address for a letter to the editor, feel free to ask me for help. And I am always happy to edit letters.


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)