[beavus]

an individual human lifetime begins at conception...The time to discuss issues involving the right to life for the embryo...

Okay, so a human life begins at conception (or whatever it is called with cloning). But my hope has been to try to get you to tie this in with rights. A cat's life begins at conception too. You say an "individual" human life means a human "organism". But cats are organisms as well. What is it that distinguishes humans from cats so that humans have rights but cats do not? If an alien landed on this planet and travelled amongst its creatures and rocks, how would he know which of them had rights?

[MHGinTN]

Wow, Beavus, you're over my head ...What is it that distinguishes humans from cats so that humans have rights but cats do not? If an alien landed on this planet and travelled amongst its creatures and rocks, how would he know which of them had rights? Could it be that we are the ultimate predatory species on Earth? If so, should we preying upon our own members for sustaining lives? Implicit in your questions there appears to be the notion of 'why are we any better than the rest of the animals and plants on Earth?' I will leave that to the ethicists and philosophers to answer on their level. But I will offer, humanity has the axiom that we are above the rest of the species on Earth, yet, if we stoop to preying upon our own species members, we will be more like the other species than we will be different from them. To my mind, that represents a degeneracy from our recent advance.