New York DMV Green-Lights PETA’s ‘Reject Speciesism’ License Plate

For Immediate Release:
October 24, 2022

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Honk if you respect all animals! That’s the message hitting New York streets this week, as the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has just launched a first-of-its-kind license plate designed by PETA. The specialty plate aims to get drivers to hit the brakes on speciesism, the archaic belief that other animals are inferior and exist solely for humans to exploit.

The new plate is the latest addition to New York’s long history of animal advocacy: New Yorkers founded Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s first sanctuary for animals rescued from cruel farms; pushed most of New York City’s designer shops to drop fur; and persuaded the city to ban the sale of foie gras, including from Hudson Valley Foie Gras, where a PETA investigation showed that force-feeding birds to sicken and enlarge their livers ruptures their organs. And animal advocates are still going strong—they’re currently rallying for New York City’s horse-drawn carriages to be replaced with electric cars and for the state to end taxpayer-funded horse racing bailouts, among other efforts.

“New Yorkers now have a license plate to match their animal-saving activities, whether they’re driving to the store for vegan snacks or taking a road trip to Farm Sanctuary,” says PETA Director of Outreach Ashley Byrne. “PETA is calling on locals to deck out their cars with this anti-speciesist message, because every animal deserves to live free from exploitation.”

PETA notes that other animals share our capacity for pain, hunger, fear, thirst, love, joy, and loneliness—yet speciesism is used to defend treating them like research tools, food ingredients, fabric, or playthings. Not only does this mentality contribute to the deaths of billions of animals each year, it also accelerates the climate catastrophe and the emergence of zoonotic diseases. To combat speciesism, PETA encourages everyone to only buy cosmetics and household products never tested on animals, eat and wear vegan, and avoid aquariums, roadside zoos, and circuses with animal acts.

Application instructions for the specialty plate and fee information are available here.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way.” For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.