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From: tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Human beings
Message-ID: <413@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 4-Aug-85 23:41:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-s.413
Posted: Sun Aug  4 23:41:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 01:47:37 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 30

> (2) Fetuses do NOT have the same right to life that people do, for the
> same reason that cows (and Ken Arndt) don't and technological aliens
> (from Tau Ceti?) would have.  Fetuses and cows aren't intelligent and
> technological Tau Cetians (if they exist) and people are.

Infants are not as intelligent as adults, but this is not a reason for
killing infants.  Human fetuses, infants, and children become adults in
time if they are allowed to live and nothing (such as a terminal disease)
intervenes in the meantime.  Cows do not become intelligent to anywhere
near the degree that humans are intelligent, no matter how long they live.
I would argue that young technological Tau Cetians (if they exist) deserve
as much protection as adult technological Tau Cetians and possibly more --
note that we don't expect children to take care of themselves and thus we
provide someone (natural parents, adoptive parents, foster home) to look
out for them until they are old enough to look out for themselves.  Thus
I would also oppose the Tau Cetian equivalent of abortion (if it exists --
the Tau Cetians might lay eggs and thus not have the biological problems
that cause reproduction to be inconvenient for human beings).

By the way, we don't need to look as far as Tau Ceti for other intelligent
species.  Chimps, while not anywhere as smart as humans, have demonstrated
the ability to communicate concepts and the ability to feel emotions.  To
my mind, this means that it is much less acceptable to do nasty things to
chimps (or their young) than to other animals -- one of the psychological
experiments that involved depriving a young chimpanzee from contact with
all other chimpanzees (to see the mental problems that would result) seems
particularly barbaric in this light.

                                        -- Thomas Newton
                                           Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA