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My badly worded point was that the vicim of the crime of murder or rape must always be a human, yet I don't see this clown taking his argument to it's final conclusion. If we can't assume that humans are distinct from animals in the abortion debate, should we assume they are distinct in any legal or moral sense, and what are the implications of riding that slippery slope?

Sorry, I have to warn you that you're talking to a lawyer (me).

I doubt that "murdering" animals is a problem unless the animal is also an endangered species.

"Raping" animals is, as far as I know, always illegal. Heck, it's also illegal to have "consensual" sex with an animal -- assuming that's possible. In other words, sex with animals is always illegal.

I guess we're on a slippery slope but this is my usual state of being.

"If we can't assume that humans are distinct from animals in the abortion debate, should we assume they are distinct in any legal or moral sense, and what are the implications of riding that slippery slope?"

The implications of ever riding that slippery slope are lots of deaths of lots of innocent people that government officials and the intellectuals behind them dislike or find inconvenient for one numbskull reason or another.

The implications of failing to find the solid intellectual barriers separating the level ground from the slope are as follows:

First, that mystics of various stripes will continue to use the supposed absence of such a barrier as evidence that mysticism must, necessarily, be the cornerstone of moral judgments.

Second, that careless folks, or folks with a nefarious agenda of some sort, will continue developing and advocating philosophies which advocate running fast and furious toward that slope.