Terrible, Good, and Something to Look Into

We will start with some terrible news. Great apes have been given human rights in Spain. Here are some quotes from LifeSiteNews. I added the bold.

A Spanish parliamentary committee yesterday gave its support to a resolution that would grant so-called "great apes" the rights to life, liberty and freedom from torture.

According to numerous mainstream reports, the environmental committee's resolution is supported across party lines and is expected to be passed by parliament, thereby coming into effect as law.

"This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project (GAP). "We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening."

According to a Reuters report, it will also become illegal to keep apes in circuses, or for the purposes of television commercials or filming.

Since it's inception GAP has lobbied in favor of a UN Declaration on Great Apes. That Declaration demands, "the extension of the community of equals to include all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans.

"The community of equals is the moral community within which we accept certain basic moral principles or rights as governing our relations with each other and enforceable at law."
The list of "moral principles or rights" includes the three "rights" included in the Spanish parliamentary committee's resolution. Currently, however, it is not clear what penalties, if any, would be levied against an ape should an ape violate these moral principles by, for example, killing or injuring a human being or another ape in a case where it was not necessary for self defence.

To those who have been observing events in Spain these last several years under the socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, it comes as no surprise that such an unprecedented resolution would be passed first in Spain.

As bioethicist Wesley Smith explains on his blog in a post on the Spanish resolution, "Of course the purpose of this isn't to merely improve the treatment of great apes - which could be accomplished as it already has been in some places via normal animal welfare statutes. Rather, the explicit point of the GAP is revolutionary - to demote human beings from the uniquely valuable species and into merely another animal in the forest.

"Once people accept that premise," he continues, "Judeo/Christian philosophy goes to the guillotine allowing the utilitarian agenda to proceed unhindered, leading in turn to the moral value of the weak and vulnerable among us becoming archaic, resulting in their loss of the right to life and being used instrumentally for those deemed more valuable. (Lest you think we exaggerate, check out Peter Singer's writings, and who can deny that his values are triumphing?)"

Smith concludes, "In the world being born out of the ashes of the sanctity/equality of human life ethic, value will be subjective and rights temporary - depending on one's individual capacities rather than humanity. And we will see apes - animals (and eventually other animals), which are completely oblivious about the hue and cry being mounted against human worth in their names - being viewed as more important than some humans."

Note how evolution, socialism, and the UN are all tied in to this. As a side note, I would love to see the US get out of the UN.

Now on to some good news. Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned DCs hand-gun ban. To me this proves that the Court can still read the Constitution and rule in favor of the people. I find that encouraging.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down Washington D.C.'s ban on handguns, saying individuals have the right to own guns.

In a 5-to-4 landmark decision Thursday, the high court struck down the 32-year-old ban, saying it violates the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court also struck down the city's requirement that legally-owned firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled in the home, saying that makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the lawful purpose of self-defense.

And now I leave you with something to look into. I was unaware that many vaccines use human fetal tissue. I was also unaware that there are ethical alternatives. http://www.cogforlife.org/ was recommended on Faith2Action.org's Hot Battle Action Steps. If you go to COGForLife.og, there is a link on the left side that says vaccine sources. It gives a list of vaccine brands that use non-human fetal material for the vaccines. So, if you vaccinate your children, ask your doctor for the brands that don't use baby parts.