Morality/Abortion question: where do you draw the line (read details)?

Question

Most (if not all) pro-lifers I've talked to say it is morally permisible to take the life of a non-human primate (like a chimp or bonabo), if it is needed for meat or is doing something like destroying your crops.

But they say it is not OK to end the life of a zygote or embryo.


But what if some other non-human primates had not gone extinct?

What if today their were extant Australopithecus, or Homo habilis? Would it be OK or not to take their lives or to abort their young?

Where do you draw the line, and why?


PLEASE, if you are a evolution denier, don't answer my question.

Julia:
Before I answer your question, may I ask why you're trying to exclude "evolution deniers"?


Because they are not capable of understanding the question - as you have demonstrated.

Answer 1

hmmmm ...
An interesting question.


Never thought of that before.

The easy answer is, "Well, they did go exstinct, and there is a reason behind that."

But that doesn't answer your question.

Of course, your real question is, 'where do you draw the line?'

I think we have to draw it at Homo sapien sapien.
I understand that there is a moral issue involved with ending the lives of great apes. I don't think its right to take the life of an animal that's destroying crops ... the best thing to do would be to move the animal, and we shouldn't eat the meat of a primate anyway since there is question to its safety ...

but if it ever came down to choosing between the life of a primate and the life of a human, I would have to choose to save the human.

Answer 2

Before I answer your question, may I ask why you're trying to exclude "evolution deniers"?

Why are you excluding people who deny an idea that's only a theory anyway -- and one that's not supported by the fossil record?

We say it's not okay to end the life of a human embryo, because the operative word there is "human."

Human life begins at conception -- it cannot possibly begin anywhere else.

Thus, it is wrong to take that life at any time.

Talking about non-human primates in the midst of an abortion debate is an entirely moot and irrelevant point.

Abortion as a moral debate point involves HUMAN life, not primate life.

If you want to debate the taking of non-human primate life, take it up on some animal-rights forum. It doesn't belong in an abortion discussion.

.

Answer 3

I think that the antiabortionists clearly have it backwards, if they say the things you're attributing to them in the first two paragraphs. Isn't it obvious that a zygote or embryo is not a thing to which we have the moral responsibilties we owe to something like an adult non-human primate? Would you really sacrifice an adult bonobo to save a fertilized human egg, or a (say) 6 week old human embryo? If you answer "yes" to that, I think your morality is simply perverse. I wouldn't let you near children or animals. Heck, I'm not sure I'd trust you with plants.

This kind of question is the kind of thing for which the notion of a "soul" was invented. It allows believers to justify decisions that are obviously morally perverse.

Later:
Okay, here's a thought experiment that may help with this question. I particularly direct it at Julia, who seems to be terribly confused about the issue (giving her the benefit of the doubt - the other alternative is that she is seriously impaired with respect to morality).

Imagine a research lab. Along one wall is a row of cages containing various adult animals - cats, dogs, chimpanzees, bonobos, etc. Along another wall is a row of jars in which human fertilized eggs, human unfertilized eggs and sperm, and human embryos are kept alive artificially. Imagine also that there are several adult human lab workers.

Now imagine that a fire breaks out in the lab. You're outside, and you have equipment with which you can safely enter the lab and rescue some of those inside. Who do you rescue?

I assume that we would all agree that you first rescue the adult human lab workers. You know that's what real emergency workers would do in that kind of situation, and were they to ignore those workers and instead rescue the animals or eggs/embryos, there'd be hell to pay.

Now suppose you've rescued the adult humans, and you have time to go in (again, with no risk to yourself) for another rescue. If we are to believe the anti-abortionists rhetoric, we would expect that they would go back in and "rescue" the fertilized eggs and the embryos, and furthermore, that they would not make a moral distinction between the urgency of that rescue and the rescue of the adult lab workers.
Now, if that doesn't seem like a morally perverse decision to you, I think you have a serious moral deficit. It's utterly obvious that once the adult humans have been rescued, your moral obligation for the next rescue would be to the adult non-human animals. If you honestly disagree, I have to believe that you're simply not fit to participate in society - that you have a "morality" so perverse that you cannot be trusted to participate in ethical decision making. Yet that "morality" is exactly what it seems to me the anti-abortionists are claiming.

It should be clear why I don't trust antiabortionists at all. If they REALLY feel the way they claim to feel, they have a "morality" that is almost reptilian in its alien and franking disgusting character. I deeply want to believe that they're only saying those things (about the relative value of a fertilized egg and an actual animal) because they haven't thought through what that would imply about their character and about their very capacity to participate in decent society.

Answer 4

I don't really see human life as being as "special" as so many people believe it is. If a child is never born, if it is aborted or miscarried, then it never exists, no suffering, nothing lost but potential, and potential is never the same as reality. It is the same as having never been pregnant, in a logical sense. The parents may be upset, but the rest of life and time marches on, and nothing is changed. Life is not rare or precious, it can be created by the lowliest of animals, and none of us would take notice. I don't believe there is a line to be drawn, abortion and infanticide are as natural as the beginning of life itself.

Answer 5

I have to believe that man is special because God has a stated purpose for us. Animals have a purpose as well, and that is to be used as man sees fit. Therefore, that which makes us human, which God values, is what seperates us from non human primates.

This may be a totally parochial attitude, but it is all that I have been given.

Answer 6

I think it's okay to abort the religious right.

Answer 7

Christians don't care about animals.Most of them are raving lunatics.
All they care about is themselves .