[Vision2020] Compassion for All Life

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Good Morning Visionaries:

For those whose minds don't comprehend logical and physical possibilities, I offer the following revision to my proposition about human beings and persons:

There are persons who are not human beings (whales, dolphins, gorillas, and chimps), and there are human beings who are not persons (Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, Terri Schiavo, and fetuses up to 25 weeks).

With these clues anyone can now solve the Personhood Puzzle at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/personpuzzle.htm.  Send your solutions to me at this address and your prize will be a six pack of frozen tofu burgers.  For carnivores I can offer a copy of my "Theology Bluebook."

Definition: a person is any being with significant cognitive activity.  According to our moral, legal, and religious traditions, persons are the only beings who have a serious moral right to life.

Fact: Down Syndrome people and microcephalics have significant cognitive activity compared to all other higher mammals except whales, dolphins, gorillas, and chimps.

Fact: Whales have larger brains than humans do as a proportion to body size, and dolphins have 40 percent more cortical areas in their brains than we do.

A group of attorneys in Seattle support granting personhood to chimps.  They teach sign language to their offspring and they invent new words, such as Washo signing "water" and "bird" together when she first saw a duck.

Off course, I'm still willing to switch from persons to any being that feels pain, but I'm sure meat eaters of the world are not ready for a consistent pro-life position.

Tofu Boogers Forever,

Nick Gier

Yes, I eat so much tofu that it is coming out my nose.