Cerritos College President Jose Fierro, presented at a Philosophy Club event about animal rights, due to his experience as a veterinarian.

The Philosophy Club held the event on Tuesday, Oct. 11 in Social Science room 137.

Fierro touched not only on the ethics, but also on the issues of science, legality, history, culture, and the organizations involved.

The event was packed with about 45 people, including students and professors.

Professors from the Philosophy Department were proud of the presentation.

Ana Torres-Bower, philosophy professor, said, “It was very, very well for two reasons. One, as a professional, President Fierro is a veterinarian and so he has expertise,

She continued, “Second of course, is the fact that the president is coming to the Philosophy Department and Philosophy Club for the first time as a presenter. This is it, so were kind of making history in doing that.”

During the event, handouts were passed out for students who were there for an extra credit assignment. Others were there out of interest for animal rights.

Genesis Gonzales, who is majoring in Engineering, has been coming to these events and was intrigued by the subject of animal rights. She was pleased with the event but also was concerned with her own conflict.

She said, “It was really informative, I learned a lot of new things. Since [Dr.Fierro] was from the field it [the event] was more useful in all the research he went through in being a veterinarian.”

She continued, “It made me think more about the animal rights that he was talking about in different perspective, because I do care for [animals], but I also eat meat and its kind of hard to be on both sides of it.”

As Gonzales notes of her conflicting thoughts, the same was seen within the presentation as many of the attendees had opposing views from one another.

Throughout the event, many questions were asked about the scientific research done with animals.

The disagreement could be seen within the room when Dr.Fierro asked if lab rats should be seen as a puppy. Half the class said no, while the other half cried yes. Everyone laughed at the contradicting response and the college president moved in to the subject of culture.

Dr. Fierro was invited to speak at this event by the Philosophy Club and was pleased with the dialogue that took place during the presentation.

He explained, “The Philosophy Club invited me, about a month or two ago. So, I said yes and here we are.”

He concluded, “It was a nice event, the questions were very good and the conversations were good. And obviously a lot of questions were left but it is part of the outcome of the lecture.

“People can kind of think about and personally answer some of the questions, particularly when it has to do with their moral positions on animal rights”