Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
The opinion of Peter Singer is that the ability to experience pain is tantamount. Hence, in his philosophy, abortions that are performed prior to conscious awareness is no breech of ethics. For one who believes that all life is either sacred or otherwise worthy in itself of moral consideration simply because it is life, abortion of a pregnancy at any stage must not be something done lightly, if their position is to be consistent. (I'm not trying to make this a debate on abortion; I only use the example for sake of illustration.) The latter position opens another whole can of worms. Since the dividing line between animal and vegetable life is blurred at the boundaries, should we not walk on grass? Should we apologize to our garden when we neglect to water it? Even the dividing line between life and non-life is not always easily determined. What consideration must be given in these cases? Bacteria are clearly living organisms, but are viruses? What of people in a vegetative state whose bodily functions are only being maintained via external mechanical means?
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Without going into a long explanation I think I tend to take a sort of "darwinist" view. All life is of equal worth, and it's (including us) all competing for space. Killing an animal of a higher order is not inherently or essentially worse than killing a plant or animal of the lower orders. Why is the pain of an animal 'worse' (i.e. more important) than that of a plant? Logically it doesn't make sense.