and if you want to rally for paramoecium rights, i am all for it. why, indeed, should they be subject to avoidable suffering?
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Obviously, it's important to not go too far down this road lest we declare the removal of various microbial lifeforms from our bodies during washing or teeth cleaning to be an affront against nature (and I think there are people who make just such a claim...about them, the less I say, the more polite I'll appear to be).
Elaborate philosophical explanations aside, the reason why some of us feel an ethical responsibility towards animals and not, so much, towards plants is because animals have the ability to look us in the eye and move us as fellow creatures. We have an easier time fearing, admiring, loving and turning to animals as companions then we do plant life because the plant realm, like the world of insects, seems more alien and remote in comparison.
There are indeed those who experience a strong fellow feeling towards life in general -- who sustain a state of reverence whether considering a cockroach, a leaf or a polar bear but I'd wager the percentage of such people is modest in comparison to the pool of folks who'd have little trouble sympathizing with Ravi's general point of view -- at least up to the borders of the animal realm.
And regarding the paramecium...
Perhaps I'm willing to consider these organisms as deserving of some level of live-and-let-live respect but I draw the line at buggers that're likely to kill me and hundreds of millions besides like our newest friend H5N1 ( <http://www.eda.org.hk/h5n1.htm#TOP> ).
Sorry 'all-life-is-sacred'ers', but H5N1, and other wee beasties like it, must be contained and not respected -- or if respected, the respect should be the sort you give to a serious foe pointing the business end of an RPG7 at your throat and not a treasured loved one.
.d.
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