Now that we've got the formalities out of the way, let me make my already apparent thesis statement. We should be eating our young. In my opinion the reason for this is that as humans (or babies at least) are animals fundamentally not all that different from any other. We have no problem eating other species, so why not the unwanted of our own? Alternately we could all go vegetarian, but I eat a lot of meat and love it so I'd rather make the argument this way. Plus it's more interesting.

Part of the inspiration to get writing this came from a footnote I read in a book on abortion, so I'll start with that. I returned the book - Interests in Abortion by Tracie Martin (2000), to my uni library last week so don't have it here for the specific details of the argument put forth to condemn abortion but I'll give a general summary. Essentially it claims that what makes a person is a psychological continuum between two points in time. If a person at time T1 shares psychological experience with the same person at T2, then the two exist as a single being. So for example, someone who between T1 and T2 got totally brainwashed or had a brain transplant or whatever does not possess this continuum so therefore is in effect two different people. The implications of this approach are obvious - the foetus shares a basic bond with the person it will become so therefore is the same as that person. Therefore it somehow has a right to exist on this basis, since this theoretical probability somehow makes killing a foetus no different from killing an adult. I could go off into a discussion on that, but I won't. What is important is that I will accept this argument for present purposes, insofar as it gives the baby a right to continue to exist by defining it as a person. What interested me most though was a footnote which raised the topic of applying the same principle to an animal. It argued that while the same basic continuum existed within animals, they lacked 'personhood', and therefore have no right to continue to exist. It was with this singularly arrogant statement that I decided killing our own babies is most definitely a good thing. Just because.

But since that’s hardly a persuasive argument, what I would like to consider is just what is this so called 'personhood'? It can hardly be personality (although that did appear to be the implication the author was making - evidently she's never had a dog). Most animals I can think of are capable of displaying personality in some way or other when you bother to observe them. And this personality is often apparent from birth, therefore must develop within the womb (that continuum we were talking about) In fact, I'd say most baby animals show personality earlier than baby humans. I had guinea pigs once who gave birth. The babies were running around that afternoon, showing quite distinct personalities, such as the little runt, the dominant one, the adventurous explorer etc. Most human babies just lie there and cry for quite some time before expressing themselves in any way that could be distinguished as 'personality'. So animals have that same 'being', and therefore right to exist because they do also possess 'personhood', if we're talking a definition that includes behaviour and emotive expression.

If we are talking about cognitive ability, again I would disagree that humans are that much better. In intelligence testing much has been said about the inadequacies of many intelligence tests to accurately test across cultures or even across differently abled people. For instance, someone extremely creative may in fact do poorly on a logic based test when they are extremely bright, and someone who speaks English will suck at a test written in Chinese. It's all to do with multiple intelligences and the many ways in which intelligence can be expressed. So why, if we can make such considerations for people, do we not consider that testing animals according to human criteria will no doubt be sadly inadequate? I say we cannot really know what the true 'intelligence' of many animals is in an objective fashion so we should not assume we are much better than them. In any case, such an argument of human superiority would have to allow the killing of mentally handicapped people who do lack such intelligence. Or of babies, who haven't developed it yet (screw that continuum crap for here). I think that in any case, a species who has single handedly screwed the planet we depend upon, killed millions of ourselves over really rather pathetic and single minded causes or beliefs, can hardly claim to be all that intelligent. Perhaps in the area of science we can, but certainly not in ethics or plain old common sense.

And with the exception of vegetarians who are arguably mutant freaks anyway (no offence intended – who isn’t a mutant freak these days) no one seems to bat an eyelid at millions of animals, even billions, being slaughtered daily for our own enjoyment. They’re even bred especially for this purpose, they don’t even have the chance to fend for themselves in the wild, and maybe escape being food. They’re just born into it. I’m not out to condemn it too much, I love a good slab of dead pig, cow or lamb on the BBQ, with some aborted chickens for brekkie, or in just about anything. In fact, I think most of what I eat has some sort of meat in it at some level. So no, as much as it is a pretty awful practice when you break it down, that’s just life. But if you can treat ‘animals’ so cold bloodedly, surely you can do the same for people, who are merely animals with an inflated sense of self importance. Because we, supposedly, are intelligent. In fact, it even supposedly goes beyond a simple intelligence. Because all sorts of animals learn stuff. We have some sort of academic intelligence which enables us to verbalise ideas and concepts, to mentally create images, languages, abstract mathematical, chemical, metaphysical problems, and all that sort of thing in a intellectual sense, and all the human aspects of ourselves in an emotive sense (same shit but harder to empirify). In short, we tend to think we contain this thing which goes beyond our brain almost, our very essence which is so complex that it cannot be of the animal, it is of the human, our very souls. It encapsulates our being as a person, it is what we are… But what is it? It does seem to just be complex mental advancement. It’s really too much to comprehend, so we can just call it our soul. It's been referred to as personhood so far, but I don't think it's restricted to people. But even if it is, is it always there? It certainly doesn’t seem to be, in an intellectual sense, in a newborn baby. They are pretty helpless, can’t talk, can’t do a thing. They learn some things, some other stuff seems to be natural reflex, and they gradually grow into this advanced being. As is the case with animals. Up to a point. In my opinion the defining difference comes mainly with speech, or complex communications, the ability to have and to express ideas. This is what enables abstract intelligence, advancement of the group, ‘social superiority’. We can say things, express them to others or understand them, all through the medium of language in some form or other. And complex language at that, it is beyond mechanical response, which does not require any more intelligence than a traffic light which may be replaced with a verbalisation of ‘stop’ and ‘go’. Now, it is conceivably possible that animals possess such a complex language system, which we have yet to understand ourselves. We know they often posses simple language systems, arguably mechanical type ones which are standard responses to various stimuli, conditioned rather than thought. If they are complex processes, which I am inclined to believe is so, at least in their thoughts if not in the exact expression or evolution of a specific language. In which case, they are the same as us. We can kill them, therefore we can kill us.

If this is not so, then at the very least, babies who have yet to reach a level of intellectual understanding, still within a reflex stimuli reaction stage, are on the same level as animals. One could argue that perhaps the more complex stage lies dormant within the baby, and therefore makes the baby every bit as ‘human’ as an adult. But then who is to say that is does not also lie within an animal? The biology is remarkably similar, so perhaps animals are on their way to achieving this level of awareness, perhaps they already have it and lack physical properties to articulate it – vocal chords for example. Which may be the case, monkeys can learn sign language, some other animals are able to mimic speech as well to a degree, even work out mathematic problems (I saw this bird on some doco do that sort of funky shit) Babies have yet to have this aspect ‘evolve’ through, as do animals, if indeed they haven’t already had it so. So forget this whole, "where does human life begin?" bullshit, and lets try to determine, where, if at all, does human life become that much different to that of a pig marked for slaughter. Now, it can almost certainly be said that on a basic, non emotive, purely reasoned level, that it is not at birth, but well after that. An adult pig has far more intelligence, personality, and all that shit than a dumb little baby who only knows how to suck, in fact one could argue it has more ‘being’. I’d put the pig as a far better contender for this thing we call personhood, or a 'soul' than the baby. Bring it up in a nurturing way, and it is almost like a person in behaviour in many ways except for it’s articulation, even that can be pretty good (eg, it can 'say' I’m hungry, I want to play etc). Yet there is little problem with bleeding the thing to death and chopping it up for general consumption. It’s hard to see why an unintelligent, pathetic little creature should be so much more important, aside from the fact of what it may potentially be. Which is absurd, because it could potentially be a very scrummy meal. And who’s not to say we aren’t killing the one pig which may provide the link, that will be the real 'Babe', and start talking and communicating and demonstrating all the stuff we hold as identifying us as human and so much better.

I reckon a newborn baby’s gotta be a lot nicer than a tough old cow. All tender and moist and yummy. Like veal, possibly even better. So why not eat the things? There plenty of people out there who don’t want their kids. If they have them and they grow up, their quality of life is liable to be shithouse anyway, in a fucked up family, so why not eat them when they’re born, and no different to a newborn cow, lamb, pig or whatever except they probably are even less aware of what’s going on that their animal counterpart, and barely aware even of what their own existence is.

Let a few farm animals have a quality life for a change, while broadening our diets……