HOW THE ANIMAL RIGHTS VIEW ALLOWS FOR THE MORAL PERMISSIBILITY OF ABORTION IN MOST CASES, AND HOW A NON-ARBITRARY CASE AGAINST ANIMAL RIGHTS WOULD HAVE TO ALLOW NOT ONLY FOR ALL ABORTIONS, BUT ALSO FOR INFANTICIDE.

On 23 December of last year I wrote a short article showing that the interests view, logically extended to include non-human animals, necessarily leads to the recognition that all and only beings who have interests and have the capacity to experience may rationally be given moral consideration. Moreover, I claimed that people who give all sentient beings equal moral consideration (not to be confused with equal treatment), would argue that harming any sentient being may only be morally permissible if there are compelling reasons that might override the protection of those beings’ rights.  I therefore argued that the pro-life view, to be morally and rationally consistent, must explain why it would be immoral to terminate a life that has no interests (and doesn’t even know it exists), and yet it would be moral to harm or terminate another life that does have interests and an experiential welfare just because it is not human – which simply begs the question of why species membership alone gives anyone special moral status.

The animal rights view is essentially compatible with the pro-choice view since it likewise holds that only beings with interests can have rights, and that such rights may only be overridden in exceptionally justified cases such as the killing of non-human animals for food if absolutely necessary (the animal rights view holds that this is generally not the case), or the killing of even late-term foetuses in the thankfully rare occasions where the life and health of the pregnant woman are in jeopardy. The animal rights philosophy is therefore completely compatible with the pro-choice view – it only logically extends the argument to include non-human animals, since to do otherwise would be speciesist, which is defined as a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.

Some people object to the animal rights view by saying that while some non-human animals such as apes might be accorded rights, this would not apply to most non-human animals that are not self-aware. The mirror test (although criticized by several scientists as unreliable and sometimes misleading) is usually cited as the test that determines whether members of particular species are not only sentient and conscious, but also self-aware.  Only a few species pass this test.  In any case, the argument goes that if an animal is not self-aware, then that animal does not have a right to life but may only be granted protection against unnecessary suffering – a view that holds that in such cases, painless killing is morally acceptable. In fact, Dr Marique Sciberras in a pro-life interview on Net News - clearly displaying a very superficial knowledge of the philosophical/psychological issues involved - says that she dismisses the philosophical arguments that assign and limit rights to beings that have consciousness and “independence” by saying that “one cannot consider these criteria (because) this theory tells us that an ape is nearly more of a person than a new-born baby or a four-month-old baby so this leads us to conclude that one must feel morally entitled to perform infanticide”. I have already written a response to this here.

Indeed, the ability to think about oneself as an object of perception only develops gradually, and reflective self-awareness in human infants only emerges between 15 and 18 months after birth. However, Dr Sciberras conflates awareness with self-awareness, and hence her confusion – not to mention that she makes the fallacy of dismissing an argument simply because she doesn’t like what it rationally leads to. But what she is essentially saying (or meaning to say) is that since an adult non-human ape is more conscious and/or self-aware than a newborn human baby, to make self-consciousness a necessary criterion for the right to life, we would have to conclude that it is morally permissible to kill human infants who are not self-conscious.  And she would be right if the unnamed philosophers she alludes to, or the animal rights view, actually make that claim.  They don't.

The animal rights view holds that it is sufficient for a being to be capable of having conscious experiences that make it possible for it to have an individual welfare that may fare better or worse, for it to be deserving of rights, including the right to life. It is only those who would deny rights to non-human animals (because they believe both that most non-human animals do not have self-consciousness and that self-consciousness is a valid criterion) that are required to justify their stance against killing human infants without relying on morally irrelevant arbitrary speciesist criteria. It would seem that if self-awareness is a necessary criterion, then human infants would not qualify. The animal rights view holds that it is not.

The animal rights view not only protects all non-human animals that are sentient and conscious (to any degree)  - who in other words are capable of having experiences and therefore know they exist and have interests -  but also would protect human foetuses beyond the 24^th week of gestation (the period when foetuses start to experience anything at all), and argues that both cases’ interests (human and non-human) may only be overridden when they conflict with others’ more or equally significant interests. The self-consciousness criteria, on the other hand, not only disqualifies most non-human animals from having a right to life but would also disqualify both human foetuses and (up to) 15-month-old infants who would not yet be self-aware. The only way for those who cling on to the self-consciousness criteria to attempt to avoid this conclusion would be to either resort to prejudiced arbitrary speciesism, or to argue for potential personhood as a valid criterion.  And like I already explained here, actual rights only apply to actual persons, not potential ones.

Suggested reading on animal rights:

Tom Regan - The Case for Animal Rights

Joan Dunayer - Speciesism

Marjorie Spiegel - The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery

Gary Francione - Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or Your Dog?

Peter Singer - Animal Liberation

Robert Garner - Animals, Politics and Morality