Yes, but was it like being gang-raped? see if anyone gets it
wow.
the obvious difference would be that there are a limited number of individuals of an endangered species, and it makes sense to protect them so that the species can continue. On the other hand, there are plenty of humans, and humans are able to understand and make ethical decisions that have to be made for animals. Get back to me when the human race is in danger of extinction through dwindling numbers and we can pick this back up.
But if I was to terminate at the same point we do human babies then what is the difference if it really isn’t considered a human life or the specific animals life?
Seriously? He just explained that to you.
Well let’s try to work with your analogy.
Would anyone try to stop a bald eagle from destroying one of its eggs if somehow it decided that she had laid too many or because it deemed the egg defective (had a crack or something)? Or would we consider that to up to the eagle to decide?
Nah. Even then it doesn’t work as a metaphor, does it?
How about performing an abortion on a polar bear? Nah. Just give it up.
Actually, IIRC, many vets will spay a pregnant cat. Which requires – gasp! – aborting KITTENS!!! (Only if it is early in the pregnancy, same as humans, I believe)
(I assume they do the same to puppies?)
Not unless I have a death wish. A slow, painful death wish.
Well, you’ve failed to make your point on just about every conceivable level. Aside from the whole pregnant eagles issue, you framed your hypothetical as forcing an abortion on someone unwilling - the whole “give the eagle an abortion because you don’t think she’d be a good mother” thing bears absolutely no resemblance to any real world pro-choice position. No one advocates forcing abortions on women. That is, in fact, the complete antithesis of the pro-choice movement.
Now, your reformatted question has two major problems with it. Comparing abortion to owning a pet, and asking if we’re putting animal lives above human lives, is clearly absurd. If I want an abortion (obvious biological incompatabilities aside) I’ve got a very narrow window in which to receive one. If I want to get rid of my dog, I can do it whenever the hell I want, from early puppyhood up to the very end of his life. So you’ve failed there, as well.
The panda comparison, at last, seems to be getting near a valid comparison - although you didn’t quite hit the point you were flailing at, which is the life of a fetus versus the life of an endangered animal. The problem with this comparison is that the reasoning behind the endangered species act, and the reasoning behind abortion laws, are completely separate. The endangered species act is intended to prevent the extinction of threatened animals. Abortion laws are intended to protect a woman’s control over her own body, and her right to make medical decisions for herself. If humans were on the verge of extinction, it might make sense to reconsider abortion laws. But we aren’t - there are six billion of us, and growing. We’re not going to run out of humans any time soon. And if there were six million pandas running around, there’d be no problem with killing the damned things, pregnant or otherwise. But there aren’t - there are only a few thousand left, and there’s a good chance they’re not going to be any at all in the near future.
So, the bottom line here is that the only value your OP had was the hilarious biological gaffe. Everything else about it was poorly conceived and patently ridiculous.
I’m not certain I understand that sentence.
I suppose at it’s most base level, there is no difference; a “life”* is terminated through the decision of a human.
- In the sense of anything that qualifies as a living thing is a “life”
If you are trying to equate that there is no other factors that play into that decision then you are being extremely obtuse, or just plain disingenuous.
Do you eat meat? You took a life. How about veggies? they are living things. Fruits? they are the reproductive organs of plants. You terminate thousands of tomatos every year when you flush your waste down the drain, or fail to spread all the seeds out on the ground somewhere fertile.
You’ll have to narrow down your point a bit here.
Now now.
It would be quite quick.
Yeah, that’s a ridiculous question. Hardly anyone gives a damn about an individual eagle’s life; they care about preserving the species. This indirectly requires preserving every eagle we can, but it’s not like we have any laws regarding the “reckless disregard for aquiline life.”
Humans, on the other hand, are plentiful; our survival as a species does not require that every individual live a long and full life. It is our regard for human life that prevents us from slaughtering each other as readily as we do other plentiful animals (well, mostly). Many of us, however, do not extend that regard to every member of the species. Executions and wars, for example, as well as those who are not yet quite human, are arguably legal and moral activities.
Since eggs are fertilised while still inside the bird, and they develop there before popping out, I think it would be possible to give a bird an abortion, just a very early one.
War Pregnant Eagle!
Yeah, but what if I didn’t die, and it left me FOR dead, and I was rescued, and my injuries were fatal? Huh? HUH???
Really, REALLY shitty band name!
I feel bad now. I performed some chicken abortions this morning. And some toast abortions, too.
Holy shades of Kel Varnson - Latex Division.
Houston, the (OP) eagle has laid an egg.
Or the name of a male Indian who the other Indian kids kept beating up on the playground.
Q. How did they serve the chicken at the pro-life fundraiser?
A. Sunny side up.
It may interest you to know that Tom Regan, probably the pre-eminent philosopher of animal rights, has serious problems with the Muirian concepts of species protection that led to the Endangered Species Act: he tentatively refers to them as ecological fascism. While I’m not sure I agree with him on this or on other subjects, it illustrates the frequent conflict between animal rights folks and environmentalists (I remember in the early nineties a ridiculous dustup among Earth First!ers when the EF! Journal contained a description of a guy shooting cattle grazing in Montana wilderness).
The ESA is clearly not based on the rights of individual members of a species: it’s designed to protect the species as a whole. Abortion laws, on the contrary, have nothing to say about our species as a whole, because frankly there’s not much abortion has to say about our species as a whole. They only address the rights of individuals.
Well, what if the eagle was acid glue and the egg was Hitler?
You’re full of it! I was in the Army and we never aborted no stinking kittens!