[Vision2020] Response to Abortion Post

[Chasuk]

I eat chicken.  This means that I accept that chickens have died for
my benefit.  I wear leather shoes.  This means that I accept that cows
have died for my benefit.  However, I would not eat people (except,
perhaps, under extreme circumstances, such as to prevent death by
starvation), nor would I wear shoes made from cadavers.  I can't
provide logical reasons for proscribing such behaviors.  I know that
cannibalism has been practiced in some societies.  These
contradictions reveal me as a proponent of speciesism.  In some sense,
I consider chickens and cows to be "lesser" animals.  Still, I am not
a strong speciesist: it is acceptable that human animals sometimes die
for my benefit.  To preserve my life, or the life of my loved ones,
the deaths of other humans might be acceptable.  A human fetus or a
human embryo is, to me, a "lesser" human animal.  Anthropomorphic
sentimentalism aside, a human fetus or embryo is equivalent to adult
examples of "lesser" animals.  I guess this makes me a very weak
speciesist.

As a caveat, understand that I don't believe in the soul, spirit, or
the afterlife.  If I did, then my beliefs concerning abortion might be
different, though not necessarily.  If it were different based on the
value of a soul, spirit, or the afterlife, then I might have to
reconsider eating chickens or wearing leather.