“The feeling that members of one’s own species deserve special moral consideration compared to members of other species is old and deep. Indeed, the only thing more strongly forbidden by our culture than killing people (outside acts of war — unfortunately) is eating people (even if they are already dead). And yet somehow most of us thoroughly enjoy eating members of other species. Many of us rightfully tremble & are repulsed of the judicial execution of even the most sadistic of human offenders, while simultaneously reveling in terminating without trial the lives of fairly mild animal pests … Indeed, some of us even still kill members of other harmless species as a means of mere recreation or amusement, while the human fetus — with no more feeling than an amoeba and certainly no more self-awareness than any other animal in embryo , enjoys a reverence and legal protection far in excess of those granted to adult chimpanzees, elephants and dolphins. And yet to do so is an error most grave, for the chimp & the elephant & the dolphin — just like the pig & the chicken & the cow — feel and fear and think and dream. And yet despite these now well-established facts, it is the even-nonviable human fetus that is instantly and fully accorded special privileges and rights, instead of the fully formed and fully self-aware animal … Whether the unethical ethic of ‘speciesism’ can be sunk to the same moral nadir as ‘racism’, I do not know. What I DO know is that it has absolutely no proper basis and no accurate justification in biology.” ~ inspired by Richard Dawkins

Filed under: Sanctifying Sentience by Scaughdt