Human Dignity and Life
Dear editor,
I'm writing in response to Michael Breen's Nov. 20 column, ``We, the Animal Eaters.'' In it, the honored writer suggests that of the actions that people of this age support, ``one that would be (most) hard for our descendants to understand and overlook'' is the consumption of meat.
To be sure, vegetarian/vegan lifestyles are not always easy and those who adhere to them out of concern for animal rights should most certainly be commended, as should all those who defend animals' rights.
But is human dignity and life not more important than that of beasts? Hopefully our descendants will be shocked that we used ridiculous idioms such as ``unwanted pregnancies'' to refer to unborn children (much as Nazis used numbers to dehumanize their victims and feel better about their crimes) and ``terminating'' instead of ``feticide.''
``Hard cases'' of ``terminating unwanted pregnancies'' following rape, incest, deformities and risk to the mother's health are exceedingly rare and most doctors have never encountered a ``life of the mother'' case. The worst moral offense of our time is the abortion holocaust.
Bradley L. MacDonald
Seoul