President Donald Trump has put into place several questionable executive orders in his first weeks in office. Some can even be described as deplorable. But arguably the worst one to date is his order to the USDA to remove Animal Welfare Act records from online. (Note: Donald Trump has never owned a dog.)
This move enables the torturing and experimentation of animals without any transparency. According to the Beagle Freedom Project, these records contained public inspection reports from facilities who were breaking the law. They also included annual reports of statistics of the quantity of animals being used for experiments, and the name and location of the facilities where these experiments were taking place.
The public has been stripped of this valuable information and now has no idea who is accountable for animal abuse and testing. Because of this order, violating the law will not be reprehensible and rescuing animals and putting them into loving homes will not be possible. This encourages malicious behavior towards animals and shrinks public power to stop it. Puppies are innocent and do not deserve this torture. They are some of the most loving and trusting animals, and to think that the president ordered for the transparency of the Animal Welfare Act to be stripped is sickening.
Most notably, this order makes absolutely no sense. What is gained from public records of animal testing facilities being taken offline? I do not understand how this could be beneficial to anyone besides the facilities who test on animals. Even then, many facilities are paid off by animal rescue organizations so that they can save the dogs and cats getting tested on. I don’t know why Donald Trump would go out of his way to encourage the torture and experimentation of animals, but it is definitely very telling of his character.
