NY Animal Activist

This week, The New York Times Magazine published a compelling letter to the editor arguing that a recent article examining animal cruelty failed to connect violence against companion animals to farm animals. The letter, written by New York-based reader Mariann Sullivan, takes aim at one particular statement in the article: that children who witness animal cruelty directed towards companion animals are likely to suppress affection for animals because of the pain such memories elicit. Sullivan argues that such willful ignorance does not only apply to acts of violence against companion animals, but Americans similarly divorce themselves from feeing empathy for farm animals when they choose to eat meat.