Let me repeat a question that I believe adds clarity to the question of whether an embryo is a baby: Imagine you are in a burning hospital. On one side of you is a container holding 9 embryos. On the other side of you is a 3 month old healthy baby. The building is burning down. You can escape with either the baby or the container of embryos but not both. Which would you take? I am almost positive that everybody in practice would take the baby. I've posed this question before. Almost everybody says they will take the baby. Some people try to avoid answering the question, but almost everybody takes the baby when pressed. I actually got one person who said that they would take the embryo, but to be honest, I really believe that this was a lie by someone entrenched in the abortion argument who felt the truth would be a capitulation. I'm pretty much positive that every sane and humane person would take the baby. So, if an embryo actually and truly equaled a baby why is 1 baby more valuable than 9 embryos? The answer is that a embryo ≠ baby. It may be something else. But it isn't a baby.
It's far fetched, but it isn't hard to boil it down to its bare bones. Essentially he's asking.. Which is more valuable/sacred to you?
You and a friend are in a horrible plane wreck. The pilot is dead. You escaped unharmed. Your friend is screaming inside the wreckage while a fire is literally engulfing the plane. You have a gun with one bullet. You do not believe in killing. Your friend begans to scream for you to kill him... "Shoot me!! Don't let me be burned alive!!" Do you honor his wish and shoot him? We could pose hypothetical ethics dilemma's all night. But in the mean time, what will you and I do to save these unborn murder victims? Especially in cases where it is simply NOT life threatening to the mother, and is merely an act of ridding the mother of an inconvenience... That's the question.
We could. And that would be awesome. What was the point of yours? And in the meantime, how about we discourage people from getting abortions through public advocacy and private counseling. Open up the channels to same-sex adoption and union to support healthy family homes. Promote contraception and sexual education... and so on and so forth. (although I have to wonder, if we're needing to scale back social services and child-family welfare programs, why exactly do we want more unwanted babies around?)
That's where you go wrong. It's hard for someone who believes in killing to think like a person that doesn't believe in killing. It would depend on whether the desire to respect the friend's wishes is greater than the code of honor not to kill. But a nice way to divert the actual question. Sincerely, Horatio Caine/Socrates
I just don't see how this better explains the difference between what is a human life and what isn't.
It makes you think, can one human life be inherently more valuable than another? And if so, why? It sets us down the path to uncovering why we feel the way we do about abortion, and given certain circumstances, how we might change our opinion.
Or you are in a burning hospital on one side is a container of dead embryos the other side a healthy living baby
That's an interesting one. I pick the mother. Simply because she has more invested in this life. In other words, her death would leave a bigger wake. A 3 month old baby? Not much of a story written there. I don't really consider the embryo on the scenario.
As I stated, the people who are 'pro-life' tend to hem and haw and obfuscate to avoid the question. That in itself is an answer.
actually, I gave you a very sincere and very viable answer; your analogy sucks. An answer given by anyone, regardless of their beliefs, would not advance the argument any further.
it's an interesting question and one difficult for me to answer...mostly because i don't know at what stage of a fetus we're talking about....and i know that a fetus isn't viable outside of its mother before a certain point...so i'm having a difficult time visualizing this. i'd like to think we'd lament whoever we left behind in a fire. i'd like to think we'd all be "pro-life" enough to get to the spot where we'd all have regret for what was lost. sadly, i don't think we're there. that, to me, is the most important point of the riddle.
