David B

If this is not the best forum, mods feel free to move.

I read this somewhere. Maybe Dawkins.

To the question for the anti abortionists, that I've stolen/adapted from somewhere.

Imagine you are in a laboratory, in which there is a three year old child, and a flask containing 10 fertilised eggs, frozen, but viable, if implanted into a womb.

The lab catches fire.

You can save either the flask or the child, but not both.

Which do you save?

David B

Karalora

Versions of this question have made the rounds before. Expect the answers to run along the lines of:

1. I would try to save both.

2. I would save the toddler, because the eggs will die anyway once removed from refrigeration.

3. I would save the toddler, but only because the emergency situation would cause me to react instinctively.

4. This is an absurd hypothetical scenario. Try asking something more realistic.

5. Letting fertilized eggs die is different from killing them on purpose.

6. *vanishes from thread, never to be heard from again*

Writer@Large

See, I like it framed this way better:

You hear on the news that a child died in a fire at a fertilization clinic. A man in the clinic had the chance to save the child, but did not. Instead, he chose to carry out the clinic's frozen embryos in a sturdy portable temporary refrigeration unit, kept on-site for these circumstances. The embryos were quickly rushed to another facility, and are all still viable. One child died, but a dozen embryos lived. Is this man a hero?

--W@L

David B

Yup, I like that too.

David B

Gawen

The doctrine of the double effect...or...David Hume's, a ``slave to the emotions." I say people are more willing to kill someone as a side effect of saving others than to kill that person as a direct means toward that end even when they can't explain their preferences afterward.

The rational decision is to sacrifice one life to save ten potential lives or visa versa. But which choice feels more like murder? Is it murder? Is it your decision to decide whether or not someone else's life or potential lives should be sacrificed to save one or the other/s?

And what happens if you all lose your lives/potential lives? Is it logical or emotional to do this on your own or try to find someone else to possibly become horribly burnt or killed, but if succeeds is a hero?

The child feels pain and horror, amongst other things. The eggs would not.

I know what I would choose. Do you?

JamesBannon

Certainly. I'd choose the child every time.

Bobby McGee

Oddly enough, the only person I've heard choose the embryos was a pro-life atheist.

Black Leaf

Your question assumes that everyone opposed to abortion believes life begins at conception. While some anti-abortionists hold this viewpoint, not all do.

David B

Fair enough.

But lots of people opposed to abortion do believe that life begins at conception.

I don't.

I'd object to 38 week abortions myself, without very exceptional circumstances.

David B

peanutaxis

Makes sense.