Most leather comes from developing countries such as India and China, where animal welfare laws are either non-existent or not enforced. In India, a PETA investigation found that workers break cows’ tails and rub chili peppers and tobacco into their eyes in order to force them to get up and walk after they collapse from exhaustion on the way to the slaughterhouse.

In the U.S., many of the millions of cows and other animals who are killed for their skin endure the horrors of factory farming—extreme crowding and deprivation as well as castration, branding, tail-docking, and dehorning—all without any painkillers. At slaughterhouses, animals routinely have their throats cut and are skinned and dismembered while they are still conscious.

Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses because skin is the most economically important byproduct of the meat industry. Leather is also no friend of the environment, as it shares responsibility for all the environmental destruction caused by the meat industry as well as the pollution caused by the toxins used in tanning.

With every pair of leather shoes that you buy, you sentence an animal to a lifetime of suffering. Instead, you can choose from hundreds of styles of nonleather shoes, clothing, belts, bags, and wallets. Check out PETA’s cruelty-free clothing guide for great tips on where to find fashionable yet compassionate clothing. Fashion should be fun, not fatal!

Because he uses his influence to promote the benefits of following a vegan diet, PETA is pleased to name Bill Clinton its 2010 Person of the Year.

Studies have proved that vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters. One reason why President Clinton took a step toward going vegan is that he wanted to make sure that he would be around to enjoy his future grandchildren now that his daughter, Chelsea, is married. Since then, Clinton says that his metabolism has improved, and he now weighs as much as he did in high school—so he’s definitely on the right track. “I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit,” he said. “I drink a protein supplement every morning. No dairy.”

By choosing a plant-based diet, President Clinton has spared the lives of nearly 200 animals a year and reduced his risk of cancer, strokes, and other diseases. Of course, the reasons for going vegan don’t end there. The meat industry also contributes to world hunger, exploits workers, and devastates the environment.

Because he uses his influence to promote the benefits of following a vegan diet, PETA is pleased to name Bill Clinton its 2010 Person of the Year. You can join President Clinton in helping to save animals by trying a vegan diet. Take our pledge to be vegan for 30 days and see the benefits for yourself.

With your help, PETA is mounting international pressure on the Canadian government to stop this state-sanctioned, senseless slaughter. We urgently need you to join us in speaking up for these animals today.

Please make as generous an online donation as you can to support PETA’s global campaign to help bring an end to the seal massacre and to stop the killing of other gentle animals for their skins.

Thank you for taking a stand for these and other vulnerable animals everywhere.

Please visit PETA for more information.

By supporting PETA today, you can help reduce and end the suffering of more than 40 million cows—each a sensitive individual—who are killed in slaughterhouses in the United States each year.Most cows never enjoy a peaceful day in a grassy field.Instead, cows raised for their milk are commonly confined to filthy sheds and barren dirt lots. They’re hooked up to milking machines several times each day and are given hormones and antibiotics. They are repeatedly impregnated until their weak bodies finally give out. Then they are hauled on filthy trucks, sometimes hundreds of miles, to slaughterhouses. When they arrive, they are hung upside-down, dismembered, and skinned—sometimes while they are still conscious.

Cows on factory farms urgently need your help. One of the priorities of PETA’s factory farming campaign is to open the eyes—and hearts—of consumers to the suffering of these sensitive animals. Can I please count on your support to help us expose the cruelty inflicted on these suffering animals?

By making an online donation to PETA today, you will help sustain PETA’s vital investigations into milk and beef factory farms and slaughterhouses around the world. Thanks to our efforts—and your kind support—people are waking up to the horrific lives of suffering endured by cows and other animals killed for food.

People are learning that cows raised for their flesh bellow in pain as they are branded with hot fire irons, which inflict third-degree burns. They’re learning that cows’ horns are cut out of their skulls or are burned off and that male calves’ testicles are torn from their scrotums without any pain relief whatsoever.

The cows are shipped to massive, barren feed lots, and not all of them survive the journey. Next, they are fed an unnatural diet that can cause painful stomach ailments and sometimes fatal liver abscesses. The air is so full of ammonia, methane, and other noxious gases from the manure buildup that many cows have trouble breathing and develop severe respiratory problems.

Finally, at the end of their lives, the cows go on a frightening truck ride to their deaths. The only U.S. law that exists for the protection of farmed animals—the decades-old Humane Slaughter Act—is rarely enforced. While the law requires that cows be rendered unconscious before they are strung upside-down, the high-speed assembly line often fails to stun them, which means that many cows are skinned and dismembered while they are still conscious.

PETA has already won major animal welfare improvements at the world’s largest suppliers of pig and chicken flesh, but we’re still working nonstop to end such violence against cows and other animals. In order to win these battles, we need you to show your commitment to animals.

Please make a generous contribution to PETA right now and help us give cows the peace and cruelty-free lives that they deserve.