[Retra]

>What behavior would a cockroach have to exhibit before you treat it like a human?

Human behavior. Awareness of social context. Learning, speech, and advanced decision-making and planning skills. Is that just a poorly-thought-out question?

Humans who lack these skills tend to get boxed up, put in cells, and treated like cattle, too.

[okc]

I'm trying to provoke some thought about how we ascribe value to living things (and trying to relate it to the views of the person I was responding to). I was also trying to keep the debate relevant to the original article. Does that make any more sense?

Its an interesting set of qualities you ascribe to being human. does lacking all these (or some) of these make you worth less as a human? does it make you a 'cockroach'?

Some cultures certainly treat people with learning difficulties worse than cattle. Others love, support and engage them - understanding the world through their eyes too.