Pro-Abortion on Humans; Pro-Life On Animals - Part 1

A friend of mine, Don Grant, received an email link from a colleague, Lisa Frost (attorney and member of the Animal Legal Defense Fund), regarding a letter to the editor she wrote that was published in the Siskiyou Daily News (Ashland, OR). Below is the link to Ms. Frost’s letter followed by Mr. Grant’s response.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series on their dialogue.

Lisa Frost’s Letter to the Editor:

Palin's motto: drill-drill-drill=kill-kill-kill [1]

Don Grant’s Response:

Hi Lisa:

Thank you for sending me your interesting “op piece” on Sarah Palin. It is fortunate that, in America, we can all express our opinions in public forums such as newspapers and over the Internet. However, I do not share some of the “ideology” of the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and the agenda set forth by similar organizations for a few of the reasons stated in this e-mail. Without necessarily disputing the facts in your “op piece” or knowing your “ideology” (even though I believe that “ideology” often drives our choice of “facts”), I simply offer the following comments:

KILL, KILL, KILL: Our society has an interesting, yet perverted, set of values when we can decry shooting a wolf, yet will smear candidates and anyone else who argues against the killing of millions of unborn and just born babies (human life). I certainly believe that animals should be treated humanely and not indiscriminately killed or used as testing objects, yet I suspect that the NRDC would not raise the same outcry for the slaughter of “human” animals under the slogans of “pro choice” and “constitutional rights.”

Slogans are just that: slogans. However, ethical and moral values must transcend the constitution and the ideologies of these organizations. If not, then our societal “moral” and “ethical” values are simply the function of a majority vote by the people or, as more often occurs, a 5-4 vote of a supreme court.

If the constitution permitted slavery (as it apparently once did because we now have the Thirteenth Amendment), then I doubt that we would be arguing that the “constitution” (or as it is interpreted by the ruling hegemony) embodies our appropriate moral and ethical values as a society and as individual thinkers.

Unfortunately, to the converse, “ideologies,” in our modern society (whether denoted liberal or conservative) too often transcend a careful factual, logical, ethical and moral analysis of many issues. Without a “sourced” moral and ethical basis, then society and, to a large extent, those who shout out their agenda the loudest, are left to a shifting set of values depending on those who have the “will to power” which produces a very parochial and nuanced view of morality and ethics without any analysis of the universal picture. I would be interested in your thoughts on these issues.

[1] Siskiyou Daily News, October 7, 2008, http://www.siskiyoudaily.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x282363330