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Animal "Rights" and the New Man Haters
By Edwin Locke, Ph.D.
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Recenty a sixth grade student threatened
to bomb the headquarters of a prominent corporation, the Gillette
Company. Gillette's "crime"? The use of animals to test the safety
of their products. This student's role models have not been so hesitant.
In the name of so-called "animal rights," terrorists have committed
hundreds of violent crimes. They have vandalized or fire bombed meat
companies, fur stores, fast-food restaurants, leather shops and medical
research laboratories across North America. The animal "rights" movement,
however, is not about the humane treatment of animals. Its goal is
the animalistic treatment of human beings.
According to these terrorists, it is immoral to eat meat, to wear fur coats or
leather shoes, and to use animals in research - even if it would lead to cures
for deadly diseases. The terrorists are unmoved by the indisputable fact that
animal research saves human lives. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals) makes this frighteningly clear: "Even if animal tests produced a cure
for AIDS, we'd be against it."
How do the animal "rights" advocates try to justify their position? As someone
who has debated them for years on college campuses and in the media, I know firsthand
that the whole movement is based on a single - invalid - syllogism, namely: men
feel pain and have rights; animals feel pain; therefore, animals have rights.
This argument is entirely specious, because man's rights do not depend on his
ability to feel pain; they depend on his ability to think.
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