Sbusa’s Weblog

Determining Rights December 10, 2007

I was thinking the other day about what would happen if someone used an electric collar on his or her child. That would be thought to be inhuman and cruel. But then, why isn’t it thought to be so for dogs? Because humans are different beings, they think, feel, and imagine. We also can communicate with each other better through language, and therefore have other methods of teaching. These are what we call human characteristics. These are what give us rights, what make us human. If all of this is true, then what is the difference between a dog and a person who lies in a hospital bed in a vegetative state? I am talking about a person who cannot think or feel or imagine or communicate in any way; in other words a person who can do nothing more than breathe, eat, drink, and have a heartbeat. What separates that person from dogs despite that he or she is physically a human being? We determine why humans have rights and dogs do not with these human characteristics, so shouldn’t it follow that a person in a vegetative state that lacks these human characteristics should not have rights? Logically, it makes sense and is something that we should think about.