Imagine this. You’re about to take a bite of a nice, hot, juicy hamburger with all the toppings. You can smell it and it smells so good and you’re so hungry. You are just about to put it in your mouth when you hear the lady behind you suspiciously ask the waitress what kind of meat the hamburger is. You listen because you also are about to eat the same burger that the women just had. You hear the waitress tell the woman that the burger is made of people meat, but it is okay because it was a mentally retarded person so they have no value just like animals! You suddenly lose your appetite and are sickened at the thought that you were about to consume the meat of another human being. You are disgusted that the waitress said that just because it …show more content…
This is where it gets kind of hard to follow along with this argument because just looking at people and animals, there are obviously many differences and therefore it doesn’t make sense to connect the two in such a way that premise 2 of this argument has done, but consider the similarities between the two also. Neither mentally retarded people nor animals have the mental or physical capabilities as those who are not mentally handicapped. Neither of them will ever have the potential to be a “normal” human being. What makes a person a significant being is their ability to feel emotions, have awareness, and create complex cognitive thoughts and thought processes, none of which mentally retarded persons can do. Therefore if you think about it that way, technically mentally retarded people have no significant value and it would be perfectly acceptable to go out right now and have a human hamburger. I think that everyone can agree that this is harsh to think that way and that it is not true, but if you are thinking that way, then you also have to think about animals that way as well. Mentally retarded people are not superior to animals as far as mental capabilities go. In fact, studies have shown that there are many dolphins and apes that score higher on cognitive capability tests than mentally retarded people. Therefore animals should not be treated as less than mentally retarded persons should be and neither should be