Lesiter 1

Jenifer Lesiter
ENGL 1213- Comp II
Essay 2- Rhetorical
October 9, 2014
Yay! Animal Rights
The Evil of Animal Rights by Alex Epstein and Yaron Brook addresses the
issue of medical testing on animals. They describe the dangers of a world without
medical testing, the violent nature of protestors, the effects of the violence, and the
ramifications of what the world would face if scientists were unable to continue working
in this manner. The point of the essay is lost in the defamatory vocabulary used to attack
the activists and the writers flawed logic.
This essay is riddled with speculation and fallacy. The authors immediately
alienate their audience in the first paragraph by calling activists terrorists, their
inaccurate assumptions about all activists, and by their manipulation of information. In
the authors opinions, the evil in this situation is not the animal testing but animal
rights in general. The medical testing of animals is a necessary evil.
Huntingdon does medical testing on animals. It is not mostly rats and mice.
Actually, it is a for hire contract animal tester. If one has the cash, Huntingdon will
run their experiment for them. If a corporation wants their product tested on an
elephant and Huntingdon can get away with it legally, they will test their product on an
elephant. However, they are in compliance with all federal and state regulations and
have recently joined a coalition with 72 other countries regarding the openness of

Lesiter 2

animal testing. For many years, the only information or images that the public could
access about animal research were provided by organisations opposed to the use of
animals in scientific progress. The Concordat is an excellent opportunity to dispel these
myths and give the public a chance to see the ground-breaking research that is being
done on its behalf (Huntingdon).
The authors use of the word terrorist in place of activist is not only rude to
people who might consider themselves activists, but is also seriously misleading. The
word terrorist instills fear in people. People have nothing to fear from an activist.
Terrorists use the threat of loss of life. Activists do not take life. In the seven times the
authors address the Worlds Warriors, they only address them as activists one time.
The inaccurate assumptions they make about the people advocating

animal

rights are ridiculous. But man-hatred [human-hatred] is not limited to a few leaders,
it is inherent in the very notion of animal rights (Epstein). This statement is
completely false! It is the authors opinion and therefore carries no merit nor does it add
relevance to the argument. They go on to write, The only goal of a doctrine that
demands such a sacrifice of man to animals can be the annihilation of man (Epstein).
First, simply because the authors limited scope was unable to come up with other viable
goals of such a doctrine does not meant that there are none. Secondly, this is hardly the
doctrine of animal rights activists.
These inaccurate assumptions lead to the manipulation of otherwise useful
information. According to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the
basic principle of animal rights is: animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or
use for entertainment. To abide by this principle we must leave animals freeto

Lesiter 3

overrun and destroy our property, to eat our food, even to kill our children (Epstein).
This basic principle implies nothing like the authors describe. Their logic is flawed. Just
because we will not exploit the animals does not mean that we just take down the fences
and feed our children to them. The entirety of this reasoning is absurd and does not help
their argument. The authors took a fact about PETA and manipulated it with their own
idea of how that plan would play out. Even the correlation between the two ideas is
ridiculous.
I can see the authors point. I understand the necessity of animal testing. I also
understand that it is evil. There are people in the world who will always put the lives of
any animal before the life of a human. I am usually one of those people. Humans know
better. We can develop other ways to harvest things, other ways to fix things, other ways
to grow things. However, medical testing requires live cells. We as a society are just
scratching the surface of artificial cell production. The animal testing is still a necessary
evil. That being said, I completely reject the authors essay. They were caulis and rude.
They treated their own opinion as fact to prove their point, which they failed to do. They
left out information that would be relevant to ones decision making process and they
defamed entire groups of people.
Animals should have rights. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration,
loneliness, and motherly love. When doing something that will interfere with their
needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account (PETA). Jeremy Bentham
once stated, When deciding on a beings rights, the question is not Can they reason?
nor Can they talk? but Can they suffer?

Lesiter 4

Works Cited
Epstein, Alex and Yaron Brook. The Evil of Animal Rights. Reading Literature and
Writing Argument. Custom ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Pearson
Education. 2008. 604. Print.
Huntingdon and Harlan are amongst 72 signatories to the Concordat on Openness on
Animal Research. www.huntingdon.com. 14 May 2014. Web. 3 Oct 2014.
Why Animal Rights? www.peta.org. Web. 3 Oct 2014