Letters to the Editor
vasumurti
Published Letters: 72
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sentient versus insentient life
[Read the article: Buckle up those fetuses!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]nkennedy writes: "Animals are sentient, independent beings that should have rights, too. Fetuses are not."
I agree that if we can't respect sentient life, how will we ever respect insentient life?
"Although I may disagree with some of its underlying principles," writes pro-life activist Karen Swallow Prior, "there is much for me, an anti-abortion activist, to respect in the animal rights movement.
"Animal rights activists, like me, have risked personal safety and reputation for the sake of other living beings. Animal rights activists, like me, are viewed by many in the mainstream as fanatical wackos, ironically exhorted by irritated passerby to 'Get a Life!'
"Animal rights activists, like me, place a higher value on life than on personal comfort and convenience, and in balancing the sometimes competing interests of rights and responsibilities, choose to err on the side of compassion and nonviolence."
During 1986 - 1988, when I had access to USENET, a nationwide computer network linking corporations, military bases, think tanks, universities, etc., I paid close attention to the abortion debate. The subject of animal rights always came up, albeit indirectly.
The mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but rather some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights.
When a pro-lifer discussed the potential humanity of the unborn, a pro-choicer replied, "MY CAT has more potential than that!"
One pro-choicer said sarcastically, "Maybe the kid (the fetus) should be raised as a vegetarian. After all, don't cows have the right to life?"
Another pro-choicer, Oleg Kiselev, upon hearing the pro-life argument that brain waves can be detected in the unborn as early as six weeks, pointed out that animals also have brain waves. He then added, "Excuse me, while I eat my veal stew."
In the spring of 1988, Stephen Carrier, a grad student in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, pointed out that chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA with humans, and so, to argue that species membership alone makes life worth protecting "is to fetishize DNA."
A pro-lifer responded: "If it'll please you, I will agree to protect anything that is 99 percent human."
To this, Stephen responded: "Okay. How about 50 percent? That would probably bring quite a few species into the net."
Stephen Carrier admitted, "I don't know what makes it acceptable to kill animals for meat. Some people think it's wrong, and I have no logical answer for them. But it's not murder, and I believe abortions are analogous. Yes, it's killing--but it's not murder."
Stephen admitted his argument was "not a mathematical proof, but there is no mathematical proof that will resolve the abortion debate."
In the fall of 1986, pro-life student John Morrow of Rutgers University compared abortion to slavery: Roe v. Wade denied rights to an entire class of humans merely on account of their age and developmental status, just as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 denied rights to an entire class of humans based on the color of their skin.
Dave Butler of Tektronix in Oregon responded: "Abortion and slavery? Not even close. A fetus isn't human. If you believe it's wrong to eat meat, should your morality be imposed upon everyone else?"
"Not even close" has become a popular slogan with pro-choicers. It even appeared on the headlines of most San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in November 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.
"Not even close" is not a new slogan. Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation that when Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, "her views were widely regarded as absurd."
Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft by demonstrating that if women could be given liberation, then animals could be given liberation, too. And since this is "absurd" it must be equally "absurd" to give women liberation. Taylor called his parody, "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes."
"Not even close" is the "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" of the late 20th and early 21st century, because it takes for granted the invincible prejudice that other animals couldn't possibly have rights. It is this prejudice which we in the animal rights movement are struggling to overcome.
Again, the mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights. This led me to conclude that if there's any group out there which ought to be sympathetic to animal rights, it's pro-lifers.