Thought experiments, consistency, and the pro-life cause

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On a different forum I am a part of, I was given the following thought experiment, which those who are familiar with the abortion debate might be familiar with:

“If as many pro life advocates do you believe human life begins at conception and there was a fire in a lab that did IVF and you had time to save a couple of 6 year old children or a row of say 20 test tubes with fertilized eggs in would you pick the 20 human lives over the 2 human lives?”

This was my response:
"I’ve always been curious at the potency of this thought experiment. Say I pick the two children, like I think most people would. What conclusion can be drawn from that? That I don’t really believe the unborn have significant value or that I am a hypocrite? My answer would probably be, “So what?” I don’t think it serves to actually refute any arguments for the pro-life cause, merely paint pro-lifers in a bad light.

As for my answer, I would pick the two children for a few reasons:
  1. The embryos, even if they survive the fire would not have a particularly high likelihood of survival, collectively. I heard somewhere that appx. 50% of embryos don’t make it to birth.
  2. The children can feel pain and fear. Now what I am not saying is that those attributes ground the right to life. However, I think we can agree that a very painful, frightening death would probably be worse than one that is neither painful nor fearful.
  3. There are parents and other people with emotional bonds to the children, and they would suffer horrible grief at the death of these children.
  4. Maybe I am a little bit of a hypocrite."
At face value, I thought this was an adequate answer. However, when I thought about it, I realized there was a problem. This thought experiment was about being consistent when it comes to the pro-life cause. I accepted I may be a little inconsistent, but even if I am, it doesn’t refute any of the arguments. Here is the problem, though. If I am inconsistent, why can’t pro-choicers be? Say that I point out their logic can often lead to infanticide. They could simply say, " While you may be right, I am going to bite the bullet and be inconsistent here. I still think you can kill the fetus without killing a born child. Even if I am a hypocrite, it doesn’t refute the arguments fir the pro-choice cause." They would be using my logic against me, so I feel like by providing the answer I did, I could end up shooting myself in the foot. Does anyone have a way out out of this dilemma?
 
ccmnxc said:
On a different forum I am a part of, I was given the following thought experiment, which those who are familiar with the abortion debate might be familiar with:

“If as many pro life advocates do you believe human life begins at conception and there was a fire in a lab that did IVF and you had time to save a couple of 6 year old children or a row of say 20 test tubes with fertilized eggs in would you pick the 20 human lives over the 2 human lives?”

This was my response:
"I’ve always been curious at the potency of this thought experiment. Say I pick the two children, like I think most people would. What conclusion can be drawn from that? That I don’t really believe the unborn have significant value or that I am a hypocrite? My answer would probably be, “So what?” I don’t think it serves to actually refute any arguments for the pro-life cause, merely paint pro-lifers in a bad light.

As for my answer, I would pick the two children for a few reasons:
  1. The embryos, even if they survive the fire would not have a particularly high likelihood of survival, collectively. I heard somewhere that appx. 50% of embryos don’t make it to birth.
  2. The children can feel pain and fear. Now what I am not saying is that those attributes ground the right to life. However, I think we can agree that a very painful, frightening death would probably be worse than one that is neither painful nor fearful.
  3. There are parents and other people with emotional bonds to the children, and they would suffer horrible grief at the death of these children.
  4. Maybe I am a little bit of a hypocrite."
At face value, I thought this was an adequate answer. However, when I thought about it, I realized there was a problem. This thought experiment was about being consistent when it comes to the pro-life cause. I accepted I may be a little inconsistent, but even if I am, it doesn’t refute any of the arguments. Here is the problem, though. If I am inconsistent, why can’t pro-choicers be? Say that I point out their logic can often lead to infanticide. They could simply say, " While you may be right, I am going to bite the bullet and be inconsistent here. I still think you can kill the fetus without killing a born child. Even if I am a hypocrite, it doesn’t refute the arguments fir the pro-choice cause." They would be using my logic against me, so I feel like by providing the answer I did, I could end up shooting myself in the foot. Does anyone have a way out out of this dilemma?
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For Judaism, there is no dilemma. The two born children MUST be saved in preference to the embryos. The latter have the potential for life as people, while the former ARE people. I’m sure many Catholics would disagree and am interested in their responses to your intriguing thought experiment.
 
Well, first thought, why are 2 6y/o in an IVF lab and I pray I am never in such a situation.:banghead:
 
ccmnxc said:
On a different forum I am a part of, I was given the following thought experiment, which those who are familiar with the abortion debate might be familiar with:

“If as many pro life advocates do you believe human life begins at conception and there was a fire in a lab that did IVF and you had time to save a couple of 6 year old children or a row of say 20 test tubes with fertilized eggs in would you pick the 20 human lives over the 2 human lives?”

This was my response:
"I’ve always been curious at the potency of this thought experiment. Say I pick the two children, like I think most people would. What conclusion can be drawn from that? That I don’t really believe the unborn have significant value or that I am a hypocrite? My answer would probably be, “So what?” I don’t think it serves to actually refute any arguments for the pro-life cause, merely paint pro-lifers in a bad light.

As for my answer, I would pick the two children for a few reasons:
  1. The embryos, even if they survive the fire would not have a particularly high likelihood of survival, collectively. I heard somewhere that appx. 50% of embryos don’t make it to birth.
  2. The children can feel pain and fear. Now what I am not saying is that those attributes ground the right to life. However, I think we can agree that a very painful, frightening death would probably be worse than one that is neither painful nor fearful.
  3. There are parents and other people with emotional bonds to the children, and they would suffer horrible grief at the death of these children.
  4. Maybe I am a little bit of a hypocrite."
At face value, I thought this was an adequate answer. However, when I thought about it, I realized there was a problem. This thought experiment was about being consistent when it comes to the pro-life cause. I accepted I may be a little inconsistent, but even if I am, it doesn’t refute any of the arguments. Here is the problem, though. If I am inconsistent, why can’t pro-choicers be? Say that I point out their logic can often lead to infanticide. They could simply say, " While you may be right, I am going to bite the bullet and be inconsistent here. I still think you can kill the fetus without killing a born child. Even if I am a hypocrite, it doesn’t refute the arguments fir the pro-choice cause." They would be using my logic against me, so I feel like by providing the answer I did, I could end up shooting myself in the foot. Does anyone have a way out out of this dilemma?
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First of all, I would point out that IVF is considered an abomination by the Church for precisely the reason that you have “left over” babies when it’s all said and done.

Secondly, this is a variant of the classic lifeboat dilemma…which utilitarians use to push schoolkids into taking on a utilitarian mindset.

My answer would be I don’t play the stupid moral dilemma game. Life has too many variables in it to capture it in a silly paragraph long scenario. And, no, you don’t want them to inject more parameters into the game that will help them to their conclusion.
 
ccmnxc said:
“If as many pro life advocates do you believe human life begins at conception and there was a fire in a lab that did IVF and you had time to save a couple of 6 year old children or a row of say 20 test tubes with fertilized eggs in would you pick the 20 human lives over the 2 human lives?”
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My advice: Refuse to play the casuistry game. Real life is nothing like this.
markomalley said:
My answer would be I don’t play the stupid moral dilemma game. Life has too many variables in it to capture it in a silly paragraph long scenario. And, no, you don’t want them to inject more parameters into the game that will help them to their conclusion.
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👍
 
markomalley said:
My answer would be I don’t play the stupid moral dilemma game.
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Yes. It’s a sad strategy that the adversaries of G-d employ way too often in order to upset us believers, regardless of our religious affiliation.

Also, I would like to mention to whoever came up with that question, that obviously he has no experience in emergency rescue whatsoever. What is more,* I pray he never finds himself in one*, because sometimes it is impossible to save everyone: children, women, elderly, sick…someone can die, despite the rescuer’s best efforts. And the rescuers pay a big toll in this. What is worse, sometimes rescuers just can’t accept leaving someone behind, so they keep going in and going in, and sometimes they die, true martyrs of love.

So this “thought experiment” elaborated by a promoter of the culture of death (who probably felt quite smart, too) is yet one more occasion in which it would have been far better to keep one’s mouth shut and think twice. But I am afraid such a grasp is too beyond the tainted conscience of someone who thinks it is right for a mother to kill the unborn in her womb.
 
ccmnxc said:
On a different forum I am a part of, I was given the following thought experiment, which those who are familiar with the abortion debate might be familiar with:

“If as many pro life advocates do you believe human life begins at conception and there was a fire in a lab that did IVF and you had time to save a couple of 6 year old children or a row of say 20 test tubes with fertilized eggs in would you pick the 20 human lives over the 2 human lives?”

This was my response:
"I’ve always been curious at the potency of this thought experiment. Say I pick the two children, like I think most people would. What conclusion can be drawn from that? That I don’t really believe the unborn have significant value or that I am a hypocrite? My answer would probably be, “So what?” I don’t think it serves to actually refute any arguments for the pro-life cause, merely paint pro-lifers in a bad light.

As for my answer, I would pick the two children for a few reasons:
  1. The embryos, even if they survive the fire would not have a particularly high likelihood of survival, collectively. I heard somewhere that appx. 50% of embryos don’t make it to birth.
  2. The children can feel pain and fear. Now what I am not saying is that those attributes ground the right to life. However, I think we can agree that a very painful, frightening death would probably be worse than one that is neither painful nor fearful.
  3. There are parents and other people with emotional bonds to the children, and they would suffer horrible grief at the death of these children.
  4. Maybe I am a little bit of a hypocrite."
At face value, I thought this was an adequate answer. However, when I thought about it, I realized there was a problem. This thought experiment was about being consistent when it comes to the pro-life cause. I accepted I may be a little inconsistent, but even if I am, it doesn’t refute any of the arguments. Here is the problem, though. If I am inconsistent, why can’t pro-choicers be? Say that I point out their logic can often lead to infanticide. They could simply say, " While you may be right, I am going to bite the bullet and be inconsistent here. I still think you can kill the fetus without killing a born child. Even if I am a hypocrite, it doesn’t refute the arguments fir the pro-choice cause." They would be using my logic against me, so I feel like by providing the answer I did, I could end up shooting myself in the foot. Does anyone have a way out out of this dilemma?
Click to expand...
ccmx,

What are a couple of children doing in a lab where there are test tube babies?

How much time does it take for 3 people to get 4 test tubes in each hand so that with 3 people there are 6 hands that can handle at least 18 test tubes…put two in your pocket and the problem is solved.

All labs have fire extinguishers and all labs have fire showers that go off when a fire starts.
 
CopticChristian said:
How much time does it take for 3 people to get 4 test tubes in each hand so that with 3 people there are 6 hands that can handle at least 18 test tubes…put two in your pocket and the problem is solved.
Click to expand...
I’ve come across this question before and I used pretty much this same answer. Why not just save all of them? That’s the only correct answer.
 
I would save the children - the embryos do not yet have their host ( mother ) and there is no guarantee any would survive even if you saved them - the process is combined with a procedure known as embryo transfer, which involves physically placing the embryo in the uterus.The embryo has to be successfully planted in the womb for the process to be a success. The answer lies in what the success rate is of this procedure. The embryo cannot become a human being without the mother.
 
PeterGStanley said:
I would save the children - the embryos do not yet have their host ( mother ) and there is no guarantee any would survive even if you saved them - the process is combined with a procedure known as embryo transfer, which involves physically placing the embryo in the uterus.The embryo has to be successfully planted in the womb for the process to be a success. The answer lies in what the success rate is of this procedure. The embryo cannot become a human being without the mother.
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The question remains to be answered…what is anyone doing in a lab like this…and

How did two 6 year olds get in the lab where you and they are the only ones there?
 
aspirant said:
“Imagine that you and two elementary school children broke into a lab…”

The original question is utterly ridiculous. :rolleyes:
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Ok,

So as I imagine this was my motive to do something with the embryo or teach the children how to break in?
 
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