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There is quite a distinction here- allow me to make it. One has (imo) the right to end one's own species, the "selfish" woman would be making that choice. The squirrel, on the other hand, is not deciding to end its species' life, another species- humans, and more specifically loggers, are making that decision. I won't use squirrels, since they don't appear to me to have a very complex society- but take dolphins- if dolphins decided not to reproduce, for whatever dolphin reasons they might have (and these decisions were not being made because of- for example- heavy metal poisoning, which was the fault of man) and the dolphin population neared extinction- that would be a dolphin choice, and I would not want man to interfere- assuming we could know all the things I hypothesize, which, of course, we really can't know at this time. Or- to take a better understood less problematic species- if gorillas decided to end their race, by refusing to breed, that would (I think) be up to them. I do not believe we should exert complete dominion over other life forms- we certainly have the power of dominion, but not an absolute right to it in any moral sense (imo). |
