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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.politics,net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: Vet kills his baby.
Message-ID: <380@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 13:04:47 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.380
Posted: Mon Feb 25 13:04:47 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 08:09:18 EST
References: <319@cadre.ARPA> <361@cybvax0.UUCP> <353@enmasse.UUCP> <365@cybvax0.UUCP> <335@cadre.ARPA>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 70
Xref: watmath net.religion:5750 net.politics:7823 net.legal:1460
Summary: 

In article <335@cadre.ARPA> sm@cadre.ARPA (Sean McLinden) writes:
> Any anthropologist can probably also tell you than there are some cultures
> where it is acceptable (even desirable), to eat the flesh of their opponents
> who have fallen in battle or their dead heroes. Perhaps you could go one
> step further and suggest that unwanted children be used for food ("Give so
> that others may be served").

How stupidly inefficient.  We could use them instead for organs.  By the
way, there are people in the US who consume human placentas as karma-free
meat.

Cannibalism of newborns is common among a host of animal species, under
several kinds of circumstances.  Cats regularly eat deformed kittens, and
some animals consume their litters when apparently there will be insufficient
food to feed them.  Male lions who win a pride will try to kill nursing
cubs so that the females will be ready to mate again sooner.  There is nothing
unnatural about cannibalism.

Cannibalism is seldom practical among humans for a large number of reasons.
If you want, I will detail them in another note.

> >In some cultures under some conditions, infanticide may be considered sick.
> >In others, it may be viewed as normal, practical, pragmatic, and important.
> 
> Don't confuse morality with custom (although "moral" comes from the French
> "custom").

Infanticide may be either or both customary or moral.

> There are a lot of traditions practiced by ancient as well as
> contemporary cultures which, while (possibly) practical, may not be "right".
> One advantage to the sophistication of human communication is that human
> behaviors are able to evolve at a MUCH greater rate than behaviors in other
> animal species. Simply because another species or culture finds such behavior
> acceptable, it does not become the right thing to do. (Or, perhaps, you might
> also like to see us emulate certain insect species, where females destroy
> the males after copulation. That would sure help the cause of population
> control, decrease teen preganancy, and "fix" all sorts of social problems).

I never made any such argument as "because another species/culture does
something, it is right."  I will say that we cannot immediately reject a
practice as wrong if another species/culture does it.  We need to examine
the purposes served and applicability first.

> >I do not draw a line between deformed and normal newborns.  
> You don't draw a line between humans and animals either.

Correct.  Instead I recognize similarities and differences.  The world is
too complex to characterize as "this side of the line is white and that side
is black."

> >...      Proclamation of humanity by the parents or by
> >adoption would confer all the rights that children normally enjoy today.
> In other words, the capacity to judge the humanity of any living creature
> lies with those of us who have already been judged to be human (by virtue
> of the fact that we survived). Or, we could pick one person; Idi Amin,
> perhaps. He's obviously human since he's survived.

Fine.  I shall allow a spontaneously aborted fetus to judge your humanity.
What?  I don't get to be absurd also?

We are already making such decisions.  Humans always have.  These decisions
have costs and benefits that affect us profoundly.  Perhaps you wish to
expand these benefits to new classes, such as zygotes.  Fine.  There are
others even more willing to extend these benefits than you, to all animal
life (as in the Jain sect in India.)  Where should it stop?  The answer is
that we get to decide.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh