In an apparent riff on the microwaving death of a Sacramento newborn earlier this year, PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals) is set to release a new campaign of billboard advertisements featuring a microwave. The billboard will juxtapose a pork chop about to enter the microwave with a mother pig nuzzling her offspring. The message? "Everybody's Somebody's Baby."
Billboard image courtesy of PETA.
Ka Yang, a Sacramento mother, was arraigned last Thursday for the death of her six-week-old daughter Mirabelle Thao-Lo. If found guilty, Yang could face the death penalty. Yang's attorney Linda Parisi gave a comment to local news outlet Fox40 about the proposed billboard, saying, "that certainly seems to me a very insensitive comparison." For their part, Fox40 did not mince any words -- correspondent Andria Borba called PETA an "attention-whoring animal rights organization" that she thought "couldn't get any lower." Fox40 also points out that baby Mirabelle Thao-Lo was alive when placed inside the microwave, whereas the porkchop isn't.
PETA spokesperson Lindsay Rajt confirmed to the Huffington Post that the advertisement does reference Thao-Lo's recent microwaving death. In a phone call, Rajt said, "We really wanted to call on all the people who have felt rightfully horrified by the tragedy and go beyond horror -- to look in their own lives for things they can do to reduce the amount of violence and suffering in the world."
As for the strongly-worded Fox40 news segment, Rajt had this to say: "I was a little bit taken aback by the response. I think most reporters recognize that they're supposed to report the news, not spew vitriol at people."
This isn't the first time that PETA has launched a campaign in response to a murder by microwave. The Columbus Dispatch reports that local advertising companies in Dayton, Ohio, rejected the same exact billboard from PETA in May of this year. Days earlier, China Arnold of Dayton had just been convicted of killing her month-old infant by burning her to death in a microwave.