RangerDave wrote:
Elmarnieh wrote:
Its a consideration of the species - not at any given point of development in the life-cycle of the species. You know this. Stop playing ignorant.
On what do you base that assertion, Elm? Also, doesn't it strike you as a bit...incongruous...to believe that rights are something inherent to the individual but only to individuals that belong to a particular collective group? I mean, if an individual human infant has rights, but an even more intelligent, sentient individual dolphin does not, then your version of rights are actually rooted in the collective, not the individual.
That's a big if. The dolphin may well have rights if dolphins are sapient.
Are you for supporting your position and saying it shouldn't be a punishable act to plunge a knife through a person's heart in a vegetative coma because no rights have been violated?
And no I don't find it incongruous. It's always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting the innocent than to be sloppy about it. If any dolphin is found to be sentient and sapient than the species has such rights even if every specific member at every specific point in time might not make that criteria. Using force to prevent someone from becoming sentient and sapient by killing them is something I don't see as much different from killing them once they are its more akin to killing them while unaware in their sleep. Their right to exercise their discretion as to who they are as an individual self-governed is removed yet they are unaware of the loss in either case.