Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has dragged comedienne Ellen DeGeneres and United States President Barack Obama's names in the controversy sparked by the Facebook photos of her youngest child Trig with Down's Syndrome.
Trig, 6, has one big brother Track CJ, 15, and three big sisters Bristol, 24, Willow, 20, and Piper, 13. Posted on New Year's Day, the photos show Trig trying to reach the kitchen sink by stepping on the family dog, which she captioned, "May 2015 see every stumbling block turned into a stepping stone on the path forward."
PETA criticized the photos and said Palin had "no apparent sympathy for the dog" in a statement. The organization also described her as a "bizarrely callous woman" with "hard-hearted, seeming obliviousness."
In addition, PETA criticized Palin for having interview at an Alaska turkey farm with birds being slaughtered in the background.
In response, Palin took to Facebook to defend her New Year's Day photos. In a lengthy message, she wrote, "Dear PETA, Chill. At least Trig didn't eat the dog."
Furthermore, Palin called PETA hypocritical for not denouncing DeGeneres, PETA's 2009 person of the year, for posting a similar Facebook photo in 2014 and asked the organization whether or not they are "as crazy" when Obama revealed he "actually enjoyed eating dead dog meat."
Obama did write in his autobiography "Dreams from my Father" that he was "introduced to dog meat" when he was living in Indonesia and did not write whether or not he enjoyed eating it but wrote that it was "tough."