The Case Against Animal Rights  by Dr. Edwin A. Locke   The thesis of this talk is that animal rights advocates pose a serious threat to human welfare. Those in the vanguard of the animal rights movement want to abolish the use of animals in medical research, despite the fact that virtually every major medical advance of the past 100 years has depended on the use of animals. Animal rights advocates either deny these facts or assert that they are irrelevant because research with animals allegedly violates the rights of animals and is therefore immoral.   This talk shows that the argument in favor of animal rights is totally specious. The concept of rights presupposes the existence of reason and volition and the capacity to govern one’s actions by means of moral principles. These capacities are not present in animals; thus animals do not possess rights. The alternatives to animal testing which animal rights advocates favor are not viable. The animal rights position represents more than a moral error; it is a moral inversion. It is medical researchers, struggling desperately to solve the mysteries of killer diseases that have plagued mankind for millennia, who should be praised and animal rights advocates, who wish to stop this research, who should be condemned—not vice versa. At root, animal rights advocates are not motivated by love for animals but by hatred for man.