Spay-Neuter Clinics Would Be Replaced with Abstinence Coaches
One of the priorities for Joshua Bolten, President Bush’s new chief of staff, will most likely be to push forward the Administration’s program that promotes abstinence among household pets in lieu of spaying and neutering.
The proposed program, outlined in the President’s budget sent to Congress earlier this year, would create the National Feline and Canine Abstinence Administration and fund it with an initial $500 million.
The new agency’s mandate, according to budget footnotes, would be to “promote sexual abstinence among household dogs and cats in lieu of the cruel and arbitrary forced sterility of surgically removing reproductive organs.”
“Just as abstinence among humans is a preferred means of preventing AIDS and unwanted children, the President feels that abstinence, used properly, could solve the our nation’s enormous problem of unwanted kittens and puppies,” said a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear that his two male bulldogs might find out.
The abstinence program, which has been pushed down on Congress’ list of priority legislation by such things as immigration reform and renewal of the Patriot Act, appears to have support among Republican conservatives in both the House and Senate.
“Preventing the forced sterilization of some of God’s creatures by promoting abstinence would clearly warrant the Senator’s support,” said an aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. “My assumption would be that there would be a role for faith-based groups in a pet abstinence program,” he said.
A spokesman for the National Association of Spay-Neuter Veterinarians said the group, which has more than 100,000 members and performs $1 billion worth of sterilizations each year, was watching the proposed Federal program closely.
“I could see us supporting such an initiative, provided that our members, who are all experts in household pet fertility care, had a role in the abstinence program,” said a spokesman for the Washington-based group.
Details of how a Federal household pet abstinence program might work have been sketchy so far. The budget footnotes said only that “mandatory abstinence coaching for dogs and cats” would be the primary focus of the proposed Feline-Canine Abstinence Administration.
“I could see the nation’s veterinarians getting behind this program if they had a central role in providing the abstinence coaching and some of the ambiguities in the proposed program are cleared up,” the spokesman said.
One major ambiguity, he said, would be whether the abstinence coaching was provided only for the dogs and cats, or would also include their owners.
“There would have to be some penalty on dog and cat owners who arbitrarily decide one day that wouldn’t it be fun to have a batch of kittens or a litter of puppies,” he said. “They might need the training just as much as the pets.”
A spokesman for the National Association of Puppy Mills, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said the group had not examined the Federal program in any detail, but would most likely be opposed to any governmental intrusion into the reproduction rights of household pets.