Felicity

Please see:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/452907-post78.html (Doesn't all come down to when does life begin?)

So...Why the sweet lovey-dovey sentimentality for animals, but for defenseless humans in the womb--zippo to outright hatred? I don't get it.

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While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. ~*Leonardo Da Vinci*~

1069

Perhaps it's a pragmatic preference for the actual over the potential.

Also, if a stray animal was somehow inhabiting my body against my will, I'd certainly not take kindly to it.

And if a fetus was, like, living in an alley somewhere and eating out of dumpsters, of course I'd bring it food and try to find shelter for it.

You seem to have this idea that prochoicers are stingy, selfish people.
I try to make sure everybody has what they need.
But that doesn't mean I can afford to rip out parts of my body and hand them around, or distribute my bodily resources to all and sundry.

Animals don't demand more than you can reasonably afford to give them... and society doesn't condemn you for not giving them more than you can reasonably afford to give them.

The same cannot be said of Z/E/Fs.

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Lightdemon: "Is 10 going to outer space or something?"
Jerry: "...yes, 10 is going to outerspace."

brewmenn

I haven't found that stereotype to be true with pro-choicers beyond this forum.

But I agree that I don't understand anyone that views an unborn baby as some type of blood sucking parisite.

Korimyr the Rat

So far, my track record would suggest that I care about fetuses a lot more than I do about various non-human mammals.

I've never stalked a fetus, run it down, killed it and eaten it. I've never peppersprayed a fetus while delivering newspapers. And for all my willingness to endorse killing a fetus to get it out of an unwilling woman's womb... I've never poisoned a fetus to keep it out of my garden shed, either.

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Tashah

Perpetual animus and venum. G-d knows I hate visiting the Abortion forum.

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Felicity

Very interesting article on the similarities between the pro-life movement and the animal rights movement. It's written on a HORRIBLE wallpaper background, though...I cut and pasted it to a doc file to be able to read it.


Similar Principles: The Animal Rights Movement, Feminism, and Abortion Opponents
Vasu Murti
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Movements with a Similar Agenda
Like the nineteenth century movements to abolish human slavery and emancipate women, the contemporary movements in animal rights and prenatal rights move along parallel lines. Because similar moral principles are involved, the rational, secular, ethical debate over animal rights is beginning to resemble the raging debate over abortion. Animal-rights activists have even shown themselves to be "anti-choice," depending upon the issue. An article in The Animal's Voice Magazine, for example, states:
"Exit polls in Aspen, Colorado, after the failed 1989 fur ban was voted on, found that most people were against fur but wanted people to have a choice to wear it. Instead of giving in, we should take the offensive and state in no uncertain terms that to abuse and kill animals is wrong, period! There is no choice because another being had to suffer to produce that item. . . . I want to repeat that an eventual ban on fur would be impossible if we tell people that they have some sort of 'choice' to kill. . . . Remember, no one has the right to choose death over life for another being."[1]
The anti-abortion movement and the animal-rights movement use words and phrases like "respecting life" and "compassion." Both compare the mass slaughter of animals and the mass execution of unborn children to the Holocaust. Both see their cause as part of the human-rights movement, and consider themselves as extending human rights to a disenfranchised minority.
Anti-abortion activists counsel young women on sidewalks outside abortion clinics. Animal-rights activists talk to "sport" hunters about compassion for other living creatures. Activists in both movements have even picketed the homes of physicians or medical researchers who perform abortions or experiment upon animals. The controversial use of human fetal tissue for medical research brings these two causes even closer together.
Both movements have components that engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, and both have their militant factions -- the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and Operation Rescue. The popular news media usually depict animal-rights and anti-abortion activists as extremists, fanatics, or terrorists who violate the law. Each movement, nonetheless, has its intelligentsia: moral philosophers, physicians, clergy, legal counsel, and others........

Read the rest at Similar Principles: The Animal Rights Movement, Feminism, and Abortion Opponents

CoffeeSaint

For me, it's because I like animals better than I like people. I don't want either group to die, but I'd rather spend time with my dog than with most people I know.

In fact, I'm going to go do that right now.

rathi

I view killing either as something that you don't want to do, but sometimes has to be done. I support animals testing and eating animals. Everything in life is not equal and you have to prioritize conflicting values.

Thelost1

I don't support either.

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Emphasis added.

"The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next."
~Emerson

RadFemRocker

Well, don't know many pro-choicers that hate fetuses, to start with. We don't think they're important enough to justify forcing women to gestate againts their will.

For me anyway, the main difference is that allowing an animal to live never violates another human being, whereas allowing a fetus to live can, in cases where the woman wants to abort. Therefore the pro-choice relationship with animals is a hell of a lot simpler.