> > By aborting one single human, the number of innocent animals that
> > would go undevoured as a direct result would be difficult to even
> estimate...spike
>
> [Robert J. Bradbury] probably could estimate it fairly accurately and on
> a day when I'm really ambitious, I'll probably attempt that
> (since its such a JUICY idea)...
Ok, I was suffering from an attack of laziness. If one figures in the number of vegetarians, the number of Hindus (who eat no beef), Jews (who eat no pork) etc, I estimate the average human in his or her lifetime will devour the following numbers of animals:
40 steers
50 swine
100 turkeys
1000 chickens
2000 fish
1E4 shrimp
2E4 insects (bugs in the wheatfields are ground into the flour, etc)
1E18 bacteria and other single celled fauna
All these would go undevoured, should a single human go unborn. The number of wild animals who are without a habitat, owing to the agricultural land needed to produce all these cattle, hoggage, etc, would perhaps double the number of animals which must perish for one of us great apes.
On the other hand, the excrement of a single human provides nutrients for countless microorganisms at the waste treatment plant, so perhaps we are not such a bad deal after all. spike