It Is A Mistake To Assume That

With The Eventual Acceptance Of Darwin's Theory We Reach A Modern Understanding Of Nature, One Which Has Since Then Changed In Detail Rather Than In Fundamentals. Only Those Who Prefer Religious Faith To Beliefs Based On Reasoning And Evidence Can Still Maintain That The Human Species Is The Special Darling Of The Entire Universe, Or That Other Animals Were Created To Provide Us With Food, Or That We Have Divine Authority Over Them, And Divine Permission To Kill Them.

Of Course, Infanticide Needs To Be Strictly Legally Controlled And Rare - But It Should Not Be Ruled Out, Any More Than Abortion.

It Is A Mistake To Assume That The Law Should Always Enforce Morality.

If Zoos Are Like Arks, Then Rare Animals Are Like Passengers On A Voyage Of The Damned, Never To Find A Port That Will Let Them Dock Or A Land In Which They Can Live In Peace. The Real Solution, Of Course, Is To Preserve The Wild Nature That Created These Animals And Has The Power To Sustain Them. But If It Is Really True That We Are Inevitably Moving Towards A World In Which Mountain Gorillas Can Survive Only In Zoos, Then We Must Ask Whether It Is Really Better For Them To Live In Artificial Environments Of Our Design Than Not To Be Born At All.

If We Are Prepared To Take The Life Of Another Being Merely In Order To Satisfy Our Taste For A Particular Type Of Food, Then That Being Is No More Than A Means To Our End.