Bibliograph

Beating hearts:, abortion and animal rights, Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf

Type

Label

Beating hearts:, abortion and animal rights, Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Beating hearts:

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf

Series statement

Critical perspectives on animals : theory, culture, science, and law

Sub title

abortion and animal rights

Summary

How can someone who condemns hunting, animal farming, and animal experimentation also favor legal abortion, the deliberate destruction of a human fetus? The authors of Beating Hearts aim to reconcile this apparent conflict and examine the surprisingly similar strategic and tactical questions faced by activists in the pro-life and animal-rights movements. Beating Hearts maintains that sentience, or the ability to have subjective experiences, grounds a being's entitlement to moral concern. The authors argue that nearly all human exploitation of animals is unjustified. Early abortions do not contradict the sentience principle because they precede fetal sentience, and Beating Hearts explains why the mere potential for sentience does not create moral entitlements. Late abortions do raise serious moral questions, which the authors explore by comparing the plight of women forbidden from having abortions to the plight of laying hens and dairy cows exploited for their reproductive products. These ethical explorations lead to a wider discussion of the strategies deployed by the pro-life and animal-rights movements. Should legal reforms precede or follow attitudinal changes? Do gory images win over or alienate supporters? Is violence ever principled? By probing the connections between debates about abortion and animal rights, Beating Hearts uses each highly contested set of questions to shed light on the other

Target audience

adult

Classification