Animal Rights and Abortion Theories: A Comparative Study
Verified
Added on 2022/11/17
|4
|719
|383
AI Summary
This article discusses the comparison between animal rights and abortion theories. It explores the morally permissible killings of animals and fetuses in certain cases. It also examines the issues related to sanctuaries and shelters for animals.
Contribute Materials
Your contribution can guide someone’s learning journey. Share your
documents today.
Running head: WOMEN STUDIES WOMEN STUDIES Name of the student Name of the university Author Note
Secure Best Marks with AI Grader
Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
1WOMEN STUDIES Question 1 Animal rights activists, who supposedly turn vegan or at least support the vegan way of life which eradicates meat and egg consumption from their dietary patterns, generally tend to believe in the fact that animals and fetuses, both are sentient beings, therefore, both deserve as well as have the rights to live and breathe. However, in certain cases, the animal rights theories as well as the abortion theories changes or modifies accordingly. Questions might arise in case of “morally permissible killings” of animals. According to the article of Abbate, an act of abortion, according to the pro-abortion activists is morally permissible in certain sensitive cases where the health of the woman (the mother) is at stake. In such cases, the fetus would be considered as an “innocent threat”, a living being who does not create anything wrong but can possess threat because of its existence, in certain sensitive biological cases for which neither the fetus nor the mother is responsible or accountable (Kaczor). Just as the vegan animal rights activists believe in the morally permissible killings of animals in cases of self-defense and self-protection, similarly, their ethical consistency also harmonizes with the fact of “morally permissible killings” of the fetuses, rather, morally permissible abortions in certain cases where the woman’s life is at stake due to unnatural complications of pregnancy. However, abortion still is a question which draws moral and ethical attention and it has been subjected to a number of controversies and theological condemnations. However, the act of morally permissible killings of both fetuses and animals are subtly accepted by the greater society (Abbate). Question 2 According to the article of Hua and Ahuja, the sanctuaries or the shelters of the animals, cateringtotheanimalswhohadbecomeoutdatedfromthebiomedicaltestcentersor
2WOMEN STUDIES laboratories, had been an outcome of the neo-liberalization of animal rights in the twentieth century. However, even though the sanctuaries and shelters exhibit an explicit form of anti- captivity measures, yet their philosophy and insight is not conservationist according to their practice. The sanctuaries that has promised to provide the animals with a “better” life and conditions and have therefore, institutionalized themselves as shelters, are often way backward when it comes about the reality of providing “good” conditions for the animals. Sanctuaries are often observed to be working poorly when it comes about the individuality of the sentient animals. However, the zoos and acquariums that violates the fundamental rights of animals, however, is not more unethical than the sanctuaries and shelters. The shelters and sanctuaries face space related problems which restricts the natural mobility and tendency of the animals (Hua and Ahuja). Animals are born free and possess the right to roam around their own habitat by expressing their normal behavioral tendency. Unfortunately, the sanctuaries sometimes fail to provide such situations to the non-laboring animals. Even though anti-captivity discourses and animal rights movements have given shape to a better form of sanctuaries and shelters, yet there are plethora of work left for the benefit of the animals in the animal shelters (Bekoff and Carron).
3WOMEN STUDIES References: Abbate, Cheryl E. "Adventures in Moral Consistency: How to Develop an Abortion Ethic through an Animal Rights Framework."Ethical Theory and Moral Practice18.1 (2015): 145-164. Bekoff, Marc, and Carron A. Meaney.Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal welfare. Routledge, 2013. Hua, Julietta, and Neel Ahuja. "Chimpanzee Sanctuary:" Surplus" Life and the Politics of Transspecies Care."American Quarterly65.3 (2013): 619-637. Kaczor, Christopher.The ethics of abortion: Women’s rights, human life, and the question of justice. Routledge, 2014.