I found this web site, and although I realize that the content is very serious, I though it was still a little funny as I read through the comparisons between anti-abortion activists and animal rights activists.
I will admit, part of the reason that I found this comparison funny is because I have met extreme pro-choice / extreme animal rights activists, and I have met extreme pro-life / extreme hunters (the hunters that do it for sport and trophies, not for food, that fully support animal testing and etc.
Anyway, the web site with every thing else is here: http://www.fnsa.org/v1n4/murti.html ... but the background is absolutely horrible and can be hard to read through so I also copy and pasted quite a bit of it below.
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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.
Feminist writer Carol J. Adams notes the parallels: "A woman attempts to enter a building. Others, amassed outside, try to thwart her attempt. They shout at her, physically block her way, frantically call her names, pleading with her to respect life. Is she buying a fur coat or getting an abortion?"[2]
The Fur Information Council of America asks: "If fashion isn't about freedom of choice, what is? Personal choice is not just a fur industry issue. It's everybody's issue."[3] As in the abortion debate, lines are drawn. "Freedom of choice" vs. taking an innocent life. "Personal lifestyle" vs. violating another's rights.
Activists, no matter how sincere, are frequently accused of self-righteousness. Still, they continue to stir the nation's moral conscience, often using graphic pictures and videotapes of tortured animals or abortion victims.
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Footnotes
1. - J.P. Goodwin, "What More You Can do to Fight Fur," The Animal's Voice Magazine 7(2)(1994): 7.
2. - Carol J. Adams, "Abortion Rights and Animal Rights," Feminists for Animal Rights 6(1-2)(1991): 1.
3. - Ibid.
Get a clue, people. Animals are not beings; they are animals. Thus comparing the two issues is pointless. Anyone want to take a guess where I stand?
First, it is a lie that abortion is painless to the mother (mother, not patient - NOTE THAT!) The testimonies of countless mothers that have undergone abortions is proof of this fact. Nor is abortion as safe as you want to believe it is. Second, abortion is far from painless for the BABY. No matter what you want to believe, life starts when the sperm joins with the egg. At only 5-6 WEEKS, the earliest that you usually even know that you are pregnant, you can see the baby's heartbeat (I have seen this myself, so don't even try to argue this point).
Second, the abortion industry kills people every single day; that is their sole reason to exist. Get a clue.
Third, animals are not people; they have no souls, and they do not get "rights". While this does not mean that we should be needlessly cruel to them, it does mean that we can eat animals, and use their furs and skin for clothing. If you have an issue with that, complain to God. he is the one that made the first clothing from animals, and He told Noah that people were to eat meat.
If this sort of thinking is the result of "higher education", I weep for the future.
Okay, abortion can be painful,depending on how far along you are at the point of the abortion. but pregnancy is painful too.
Secondly, you cannot tell me an animal does not have a soul. Just because you follow the bible doesnt mean that everyone does, and it doesnt mean its the be all and end all. the bible wasnt written by God, it was written by MAN. Would you eat a dog or wear a suit of cat-fur? Who are you to tell them they dont have rights? Who made you God?
You clearly are uneducated and unfeeling. I feel sorry for you, going through life so naive and ignorant.
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
I was not comparing the two issues - only making a comment on the existing comparison between the activists who work for each issue and the tactics they use.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
I think you missed the point. It was not said that they are related- it was said that people who are for one tend to be for the other.
(Just commenting on one of your arguments. It may be painful for the mothers- but lots of things are painful, that doesn't mean they should be banned.)
Odd enough, I am against both abortion and killing animals for fur. But I don't believe either should be banned. I'm against it on a moral plane, not a political. Freedom of choice is very important.
However, being an extremist hardly ever turns out to be a good thing.
One thing that people tend to forget is that while both sets of extremists may be filled with rage, and although both use intimidation, vandalism, and destruction of property, the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front have NEVER CAUSED A SINGLE HUMAN DEATH. Anti-Abortion fanatics, however, are responsible for countless human deaths.
According to the Government, the #1 Domestic Terror Threat is the US is the Animal Liberation Front (who likes to release animals, destroy research, vandalize people businesses and homes). Anti-Abortion groups (who assasinate doctors and firebomb clinics) don't even make the list! Homeland security dollars are used to investigate suspicious vegans while the right-wing conservatives are ignored. Who does make the list of terror threats? Food-not-bombs: guilty of feeding the homeless.
It has been observed that that the corporations that run our country and government have much more to lose if the animal-rights "lunatics" are able to gain support from the public than if everyone goes pro-life.
I was under the impression that the author was trying to make a point, and i think he/she was, that abortion and animal rights are two issues one in the same and defenders of one should defend the other.
I guess then my issue is the argument of freedom of choice with animals and then freedom of choice with abortion.
you should have the freedom to have surgery on your body so long as it doesnt murder someone (a formed baby with a nervous system), but you should not have the freedom of choice to mutilate and torture an animal that has done nothing to deserve it.
Too often people offer their opinions without the discomfort of "thought."
When looking at abortion, you have draw the line at what is murder and what is surgery. There is a big difference between killing of an embryo and stopping the production process. PErsonally, I think that a baby is not formed directly when the sperm hits the egg and there is a certain amount of time where you can nix the process through abortion without moral apprehension. It is the equivilant of an appendectomy at the point. There is a point in fetal devlopment when the first human characteristics (heart, blood flow, nervous system ect) start to shape and at that point i consider it murder. Also, the process of abortion is pain free (physically) to the mother.
When you look at animal rights, animals are not only killed but they are tortured and made to endure horrible living conditions as they await their unsuspecting deaths. They feel an unbelievable amount of pain in the process of their deaths.
I see the attempt at a correlation, but they are really two completely different things.
Too often people offer their opinions without the discomfort of "thought."
I agree that the two issues are completely different;
What was being compared though was not the issues themselves, but the way in which activists act to further their cause.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
I can definately see the connection.
Jenna
you are talented to read through that. but the article is amazing
Thanks, LOL, that background was absolutely horrible!
After a while, my eyes were bobbing, I had to copy and paste the entire site onto a word document just to finish reading it.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
That's amazing. The parallels are so clear, but I don't make that kind of strong connection when I consider the two groups. I think both extremist groups are crazy.
Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson