rat mothers

In a now-closed thread, riverrat stated the following in a discussion about abortion:

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A rat's fetus is just as precious to a rat, as a human fetus is to a mother.

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I think it should be pointed out that rat mothers sometimes eat their young offspring. I've done a bit of research to discover the reasons why, and the anwers I found are very telling, I think.If the mother rat senses that there is something wrong with an infant rat, she will kill it and eat it. If the litter is very large, she will kill and consume the smaller, weaker infants. If she isn't lactating, she will kill the infants and eat them all, or she may ignore them because she doesn't recognize them as her own and they will starve to death. If she is in a very stressful situation, such as in an overcrowded area or in close proximity to a snake, she will kill and eat them all, because she senses they will have no hope of survival.Info from here.This seems quite similar to human behavior, except that instead of infanticide and cannibalism, we use abortion.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-09-2006 08:30 AMThis message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-09-2006 08:31 AM

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Are you saying it's ok to live like rat's?

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No, but you certainly did: I agree with you.

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i know that dogs sometimes eat their pups.

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Cats, too.

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i imagine it's the same reasoning. this is probably a very common occurrance in mammals.

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I don't think it is "reasoning, though. I think it is instinct.

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a mother would rather kill her own offspring than allow it to suffer slowly or die at the hands of another. anyone see that mash episode where the mother smothered her baby?

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That was the very final episode of the series. I remember it.

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Most of those decisions cannot relate to us, because we have many methods of feeding children,

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But that's not what you said.You said that rat mothers feel similarly about their offspring as humans do.Rats sometimes perform infanticide and cannibalism.Do you still want to claim that rat mothers and human mothers have the same feelings?

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what i wonder is this. can a mother's body reabsorb a fetus when resources are low, or will she simply abort?

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I don't know. All I've ever heard about is miscarriage.

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If you agree with me, then end the thread.

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Either you are being a smartass or you don't understand my last post.Are you still claiming that rat mothers and human mothers cherish their offspring in the same way, even though rat mothers kill and eat their offspring under certain conditions?

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Let the confusion begin, and the out of context spam wars commence!!!

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That is not what I said

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Your like only smart when you want to be?

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The following is a verbatim quote from your message on the other thread, and it quoted in the OP of this thread:

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A rat's fetus is just as precious to a rat, as a human fetus is to a mother.

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Are you objecting to my changing "fetus" to "offspring" when I paraphrased you?If you object to a restating of your words and believe I have taken them out of context, then please explain exactly how this was done.

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How many times has schraf corrected me for calling a fetus a zygote?

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Er...I don't know. How many?I can't remember ever doing it myself, but maybe that's just me.

testify, sister.

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Perhaps if more posters on this forum tried to engage in discussion rather than dredge up pointless arguements, they would see the kind of common ground you mention, and maybe come to a better understanding and acceptance of each other's position.

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Indeed.

You replied to the wrong post, FYI.

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It's killing life.

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When is it life?At conception? At implantation? When it has a heartbeat? When it has a CNS? When it can survive outside the mother's body?

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Saw my mom yesterday, told her, hey mom, thanks for not getting an abortion.

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I'll bet Hitler said the same thing to his mom, too.

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So all we have to do is come up with a way to see who is going to be like Hitler, and just abort those babies. Fair enough.

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That's the point, rat.Most people like Hitler are made, not born.Just like most people who are like Mother Theresa are made, not born.It is, therefore, a crap argument to point to Mother Theresa and say that you are against abortion because look at how much good she has done.It can be turned around and noted that if Hitler had been aborted, all the evil done by him would never have happened.There is no way to tell who is going to be like Hitler, nor Mother Theresa, and there never will be.And besides, it makes no sense to thank your mother for not aborting you. You wouldn't have been aware of anything while it was happening.You wouldn't have had any consciousness.

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If your mother came to you and said, you were almost an abortion, wouldn't that affect you?

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It would explain a lot of things.But no, not really, I don't think. It would be irrelevant to me now.If she had aborted me, I would never have existed to think about it, would I?It would sort of be like asking me how I would feel about it if my mother and father had not created me, but had instead created a different person with a different egg and different sperm.It's a strange non-answerable, irrelevant question.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-19-2006 08:01 AM