I feel that animals definitely do have animal rights. I know that when God said that man had control over the earth and the animals that His intent was for us to take care of them and to not hurt them or destroy them. I feel that because of this He gave them rights entrusted in us. Animals do have the right to life and they do have the right to be free from being encaged and entrapped. We must share this world with the animals and Singer points out in his book. We must look at the whole picture, nature as a whole, I look back to in Singers book where he talks about the dam they wanted to build but would have to destroy forest to build it and kill off species possibly. No that is not worth it. Our children should be able to grow up with animals and nature around them. I miss seeing the frogs that used to jump around my neighborhood, the butterflies that used to be all around, the hummingbirds that used to fly by, and they all seem to be slowly going away. It saddens me. I used to wake up hearing the birds sing, now I wake up to construction noise from the freeway or the homes being built nearby. I definitely agree that if we are not forced into eating meat because of starvation or whatever we shouldn�t especially since it might cause pain upon the species killed. I agree with Lang and with Singer on this. However, I myself do eat meat. I guess I�m just so used to it and I haven�t let it personally affect me yet. I guess if I watched them being killed like Lane said I might change my mind. I�m not sure. I guess for me I�d have to know if they suffered at all or not. But in the same respect if they die naturally I don�t see the reason why we can�t have the food. I also don�t see a reason why to not eat eggs or milk. Eggs are sterile and have no chance of being a chicken and milk is naturally produced from the cows and from what I�ve learned in my studies there is no pain involved in that. If you can kill a cow or a chicken without it suffering any sort of pain whatsoever I might be OK with that but if they have to suffer I am not OK with that. Do you see where I�m going with this? I fully understand why Lang says that if it was another human we wouldn�t eat because of the pain. But also it�s a social thing too. Most of us don�t eat dogs because in our society it�s not acceptable, same thing with a lot of things, rats you wouldn�t eat, bugs you wouldn�t, humans you wouldn�t, etc. Merely because that�s our society which becomes more of a Sociology topic than an ethical one and hence I see no need to continue.
Question 6.
In Singers book he talks about the problem of abortion. He confronts both sides of the argument from the conservative side and from the liberal side. He points out that most of the liberal arguments do not adequately destroy the point of the conservatives. However, he uses an ethical method to attack this point. He states that we must figure out the point in which the child feels pain or has some sort of self consciousness. He states that we must do the same for animals in this sense. He changes the premise as It is wrong to kill a potential human being, second premise being a human fetus is a potential human being, therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus. He talks about that yes it does have the potentiality but at what point is it viable or really potential. If the child was to be removed at 3 weeks it would not survive. However, at 6 months it would be a premature child. He says that this still doesn't necessarily defeat the argument though. He adds that the fetus doesn't develop the ability to feel pain until roughly 18 weeks so his conclusion is it is OK to abort a fetus before 18 weeks since it has no self conscious of itself and can't know what is going on. He states it must be the mothers decision. He also talks about research stating that it must be done before pain is felt. However, he is concerned that this research if done on a child that will grow to full term might become disabled due to the research. He then goes into the realm of infanticide or killing infants because of population control or because of the fact they have a disability. He states they still have no self control or rational thought so one must choose for them. I mostly get the point that if the fetus can feel pain then it is too late for an abortion. I understand it that he takes the same aspect with animal rights like this. If pain it is wrong to kill and should be protected at all costs.
My personal view of abortion is that it is wrong and should only be allowed in rare circumstances, I.E., rape, incest, or mother going to die because of it. I still feel the child shouldn�t be aborted though even in cases or rape but I wouldn�t look down on the mother if she chose to do so since I�ve never been placed in that situation and couldn�t understand what one must feel. However, I know of several mothers that birthed their �raped� child and loved it and cherished it. They are glad to have birthed it and regret their thoughts of ever wanting to abort it. My opinion on this is because of my belief in God and because of what I feel He stated. I really don�t care about whether or not the child feels pain but the fact remains you could have just aborted a future president or a future doctor that could have cured cancer and etc. I saw a commercial on TV that showed a firewoman talking about her mother and that her mother had considered aborting her but decided to send her to adoption. The firewomen said look at how many lives wouldn�t have been helped if I would have died. Myself being an EMT understand what she was saying. That if we didn�t exist then we couldn�t have helped these people.
Question 7.
In the next chapter Singer talks about Euthanasia he talks about the three types of voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary. He feels that is should be OK for voluntary and under some circumstances OK for the other two, however, unlikely that those scenarios would occur. He states that if someone is going to go through extreme suffering or has no point left in their life and is accepting to being killed then he feels it is OK. However, the person must be fully aware and conscious of what they are doing. Unless they have a pre-written statement saying they want this. He also talks about several cases of children were the parents ended the child�s life to stop the suffering of the children. Singer also uses the fact that in other non-sophisticated countries these children and adults would be dead. However, he adds a part in there about the fact that there might be a possibility of having such great pain management that a person doesn't even suffer during there death. He talks about Dr. Kevorkian using his death machine to allow people to kill themselves peacefully with the machine. It is themselves who pulls the switch not someone else. He states that we must think about the value of this persons life and whether they have a chance at a livable life or not.
I wrote a speech about this for my public speaking class and would like to add it to this Final it is 5 pages long so bare with it and it is an outline so not necessarily an essay at heart.