“A principled stance would be to oppose the killing of embryos in pursuit of having a child generally, whether it be IVF or trying to conceive naturally.”
I get where you’re coming from, but it’s not the way I’d approach it. As I’ve said before, the issue to me is when do we grant “personhood” to the blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant—pick your stage of development—or create a new one. Somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum I’d wager lies termination without moral or criminal penalty.
I do not fault religionists in their viewpoint, but it’s one lying in dogma and I can’t imagine how we’d change that. For them, they will forever be “disappointed”. On the other hand, I’ll never support late term or post-partum “abortions” and there are some hard cases out there I admit. I’d really like some non-arbitrary, logical point in development with a rationale for acceptable termination. Right now, it seems the religionists (I’m mostly one, and I don’t resent the term) have the most logical rationale while the other cutoffs seem entirely arbitrary, but I admit to not studying the debate very much.
I use to wonder if this was plausible, but there's a powerful response. There's a difference between killing and letting die. If we accept your argument, then a parent who gives birth to 4 children where 3 of them die shortly after birth (through no fault of their own) is a murderer, and they shouldn't be allowed to have children. But this is absurd. They aren't, e.g., stabbing the child.
Embryos dying in utero seems equivalent to the infants dying on their own, and it's implausible to suggest that it's the same as disposing embryos. E.g. imagine disposing infants like we do embryos.
“A principled stance would be to oppose the killing of embryos in pursuit of having a child generally, whether it be IVF or trying to conceive naturally.”
I get where you’re coming from, but it’s not the way I’d approach it. As I’ve said before, the issue to me is when do we grant “personhood” to the blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant—pick your stage of development—or create a new one. Somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum I’d wager lies termination without moral or criminal penalty.
I do not fault religionists in their viewpoint, but it’s one lying in dogma and I can’t imagine how we’d change that. For them, they will forever be “disappointed”. On the other hand, I’ll never support late term or post-partum “abortions” and there are some hard cases out there I admit. I’d really like some non-arbitrary, logical point in development with a rationale for acceptable termination. Right now, it seems the religionists (I’m mostly one, and I don’t resent the term) have the most logical rationale while the other cutoffs seem entirely arbitrary, but I admit to not studying the debate very much.
Btw, what's the best way to contact you now that you're not super active on Twitter?
I use to wonder if this was plausible, but there's a powerful response. There's a difference between killing and letting die. If we accept your argument, then a parent who gives birth to 4 children where 3 of them die shortly after birth (through no fault of their own) is a murderer, and they shouldn't be allowed to have children. But this is absurd. They aren't, e.g., stabbing the child.
Embryos dying in utero seems equivalent to the infants dying on their own, and it's implausible to suggest that it's the same as disposing embryos. E.g. imagine disposing infants like we do embryos.