“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.
So women should stop trying to get pregnant because if they do get pregnant, the embryo may not implant in the uterus, leading to its death, or it may implant in the uterus but due to unknown issues, may de-implant or die (e.g., result of some genetic abnormality that prevents the continuation of development and life), and this end of life of the embryo is the equivalent of the woman killing an embryo, the same as a scientist deliberately creating an embryo for artificial implantation in a uterus and then throwing away the extra unused embryos? My gosh, trying to equate these two scenarios is ridiculous and overly abstracts the issue.
I defend the personhood since conception but I agree with you trying to actively kill and non-intentional incidental deaths aren't the same, IVF can be regulated to have less deaths
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.
I think that children dying is so incredibly rare now that it distorts our intuitions. If a couple had some strange disease that killed 80-90% of their children, then I think it would be ethically questionable for them to keep having children over and over as they keep dying.
Do you think letting embryos die by exposing them to air in the IVF clinic (leaving them on a table outside of a freezer) would be morally okay?
And to be clear, there's no perfect definition of "letting die" like there's no perfect definition of anything. See Huemer on analyzing concepts. There just seems to be a difference between letting a newborn infant die because you were trying to create a new permanent life and letting an embryo die as a disposal process (assuming they are both morally significant beings, of course). Many philosophers might appeal to the doctrine of double effect here.
By perfect you meaning no exceptions? That's unrealistic. Letting die involves passivity whereas killing involves activity. Sure there are gray zones but let's not pretend there is no difference between killing and letting die. We can ascribe different moral judgments to them but one is certainly worse than the other.
I'm not saying that there is no exception to or difference between killing or letting die. My point is that there are grey areas where one could reasonably say that the situation applies to what we mean by either killing or letting die.
The killing/letting die distinction gets at our intuitions about non-effective altruists vs. murderers. A poor janitor who is a serial killer seems worse than a rich person who isn't an effective altruist.
I'm not so sure. It probably depends on how much the infants suffer.
No, because that's not really a case of "letting die" in the ethical sense. It's more like leaving an infant somewhere you know they will be murdered. Say you leave them outside during a blizzard.
“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.
So women should stop trying to get pregnant because if they do get pregnant, the embryo may not implant in the uterus, leading to its death, or it may implant in the uterus but due to unknown issues, may de-implant or die (e.g., result of some genetic abnormality that prevents the continuation of development and life), and this end of life of the embryo is the equivalent of the woman killing an embryo, the same as a scientist deliberately creating an embryo for artificial implantation in a uterus and then throwing away the extra unused embryos? My gosh, trying to equate these two scenarios is ridiculous and overly abstracts the issue.
I believe you read someone else’s comment. I never said anything you are refering to.
I defend the personhood since conception but I agree with you trying to actively kill and non-intentional incidental deaths aren't the same, IVF can be regulated to have less deaths
Btw, what's the best way to contact you now that you're not super active on Twitter?
Do you have my email?
I think so, but I just wanted to make sure. It's on your Twitter, right?
It's Ives.Parrhesia at gmail.com
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.
Interesting thoughts.
I think that children dying is so incredibly rare now that it distorts our intuitions. If a couple had some strange disease that killed 80-90% of their children, then I think it would be ethically questionable for them to keep having children over and over as they keep dying.
Do you think letting embryos die by exposing them to air in the IVF clinic (leaving them on a table outside of a freezer) would be morally okay?
And to be clear, there's no perfect definition of "letting die" like there's no perfect definition of anything. See Huemer on analyzing concepts. There just seems to be a difference between letting a newborn infant die because you were trying to create a new permanent life and letting an embryo die as a disposal process (assuming they are both morally significant beings, of course). Many philosophers might appeal to the doctrine of double effect here.
By perfect you meaning no exceptions? That's unrealistic. Letting die involves passivity whereas killing involves activity. Sure there are gray zones but let's not pretend there is no difference between killing and letting die. We can ascribe different moral judgments to them but one is certainly worse than the other.
I'm not saying that there is no exception to or difference between killing or letting die. My point is that there are grey areas where one could reasonably say that the situation applies to what we mean by either killing or letting die.
The killing/letting die distinction gets at our intuitions about non-effective altruists vs. murderers. A poor janitor who is a serial killer seems worse than a rich person who isn't an effective altruist.
I'm not so sure. It probably depends on how much the infants suffer.
No, because that's not really a case of "letting die" in the ethical sense. It's more like leaving an infant somewhere you know they will be murdered. Say you leave them outside during a blizzard.