DISQUS

Olive · 6 months ago

We have no idea if the life in the womb feels pain, and frankly, we don't care because it's inconvenient to us and besides, we can't relate to its pain. It isn't "human" or "mammalian" enough for us. Abortion is a convenience for men and women ... it's all about us and our convenience. Allah forbid someone violate "the bodily-autonomy rights of women" who have big shrieking mouths; the little human inside can't yet make a sound. The only reason some care so much about animals is that we can relate to them, to the blood and gore which we perceive as our own, their expressions of pain similar to our own. It makes us squirm. Do plants feel pain when we cut them? Do they "enjoy" the sun, the warmth, the rain, like we do? Oh, they don't "feel" like we do, so we don't even think about it. I respect the Native Americans or a person that kills an animal themselves for food more than any self-righteous vegan. They kill their food, they know what they are doing, and native peoples usually give thanks to the animal and whatever great spirit they believe in. They knew they were the superior animal and could take a "lesser" life so that they could go on living. This seems so much less hypocritical to me than a vegan who cringes at pain yet turns their head from the obliteration of life in the womb, which is an extension of us, humanity. Any line you draw regarding life is arbitrary, and the line reveals what kind of person you are, who you are at your core and what your life values are.

Adam · 6 months ago

Wow Olive, what the hell are you talking about? For one thing, you completely contradict yourself in your inane babbling. You acknowledge up front that we "have no idea if the life in the womb feels pain," then say a vegan must be a hypocrite if he or she "cringes at pain yet turns their head from the obliteration of life in the womb."

Then, you throw in some retarded analogies. You've compared a fetus in the womb with some unidentified plant ... so what's your point? Do you support laws preventing women from cutting down vines they don't want covering their houses? If not, does that make you a hypocrite, as plants and fertilized eggs are now apparently one in the same? Of course we don't "know" plants don't feel pain, but we know it. I'd ask you to provide evidence to the contrary, but I already know you cannot.

So what kind of person can we infer Ryan is, now that he's made clear where he draws the line "regarding life"? Is he a worse person than the killer of Dr. Tiller, who presumably drew that line closer to where you would? I mean, after all, "any line you draw regarding life is arbitrary, and the line reveals what kind of person you are, who you are at your core and what your life values are." Right?

Olive · 6 months ago

If animals couldn't feel pain, would it still be alright to take their life to enjoy consuming their meat and get needed nutrients from them? And just because the life in the womb (supposedly) feels no pain, is it OK to take it? Is relating to "pain" the litmus test?

And even then, relating to pain sometimes isn't a criteria. This can be turned on and turn off. You just have to look at someone as "lesser" than you. That's why Nazis had to look at the Jews as sub-human and Europeans at Black slaves as sub-human. The stronger always determines if the weaker lives or dies. Whatever is more convenient for the stronger. This is life. We kill animals because many love meat and believe we need it. We kill life in the womb, which contains everything that we need that makes us "us" because it is an inconvenience. We do both because we can.

I was convinced of the stupidity of abortion and of it's immorality after reading the following paragraphs, taken from the book "Unweaving the Rainbow" by biologist Richard Dawkins. I, like him, am an atheist.

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going die because they are never going to be born. The potential peolpe who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

[...]

"you [...] must regard a particular instant, nine months before your birth, as the most decisive event in your personal fortunes. It is the moment at which your consciousness suddenly became trillions of times more foreseeable than it was a split second before. To be sure, the embryonic you that came into existence still had plenty of hurdles to leap. Most conceptuses end in early abortion before their mother even knew they were there, and we are all lucky not to have done so."

I can't help thinking it is hypocritical to care about an animal just because they feel pain as we do and totally not care about a "fetus", which is the composition of everything we will be, a seed of hope, each one unique in all the world, none alike in millions and millions. So if we could kill animals quickly and mercifully, without pain, would it then be OK? And if we find out that ... the fetus does feel pain, would that make any difference to those who only care for the rights of the more powerful?