Here’s a simple thought-experiment. There’s a fire at an fertility clinic, and there is precious little time before the entire building is engulfed in flames. Down one hallway, there’s the soft purring sound of an incubator with a thousand frozen embryos; down the other hallway, the cries of a newborn baby. Which do you choose to save?
Usually, people answer “the baby” and the interesting debate then concerns why.
Answers on that thread include:
- Because the baby could suffer more (to which Zac adds the condition that the baby is anaesthetized)
- Because the baby has more years ahead of it
- Because the chances of the baby surviving are greater
StephenB, interestingly, says that if he could be sure that 50% of the frozen embryos would subsequently be born, he’d save the Vat.
All these answers are predicated on the idea that an embryo is a full human being from “the moment of conception” (which one? I ask) and that the ethical dilemma is of the do you save a hundred strangers or one friend? type. Zachriel’s question, on the other hand, is designed to elicit the acknowledgement that gestation is a process of becoming, and that the reason people “save the baby” is an implicit acknowledgement that a baby’s death is a bigger deal than a blastocyst’s.
Well, I’m in the latter camp, not simply because of the additional dimension that most embryos are attached to another human being, whose human rights are also an issue, although that is huge. The other reason I’m in that camp is that I think we make ourselves. As we we develop from babyhood to adulthood, increasingly we own our past and possess our future. So to the death of a seven year old – or even a two-year old – to me, is actually a bigger deal than the death of a baby – it is the cancellation of an imagined future and a remembered past. Which is NOT to argue for the legitimacy of infanticide. Legally, it seems to me, the absolutely right place to mark the beginning of full human rights is birth. It’s clear, it’s intuitive, it’s pretty unambiguous, and it’s well before the baby has any conception of her own future or remembrance of her own past.
Nor is it to dismiss the tragedy of infant death. But infant death, I argue is the death of the hopes of the infant’s family – it is not the death of the infant’s hopes, because the infant’s hopes do not yet extend much beyond the next moment. I would save the baby, not the Vat because the baby is someone’s child. But if the choice was between a baby and a two year old, so help me, I’d save the two year old.
What would you do?
The paper I’m currently circulating actually touches on this question (which I think is a very interesting one). I don’t believe in natural rights, whether thought to vest in embryos, babies or adults, so I think assessments of what to do here will have to be made based on other considerations. I will say here that I agree that the concerns of, and likely effect on, the parents–and others in “the village” — are important, if not AS important as those of the baby or possible babies; but I don’t want to go into too much detail at present.
As earlier indicated, if my paper ever gets published, I’ll post a link, and if not, maybe I’ll put it up someplace on the web myself. I mainly want to say that I think it’s a very interesting thought experiment, and I’m glad you posted it, since I expect to find the responses enlightening. So thanks.
Double post. Sorry.
Given the direction of technology, every cell in your body is a potential person.
There is nothing magic about a clump of cells.
Rights are an outcome of political processes. We log ago granted humanness and citizenship at the point of birth. Even the Bible does not value a fetus at the same price as a born alive child.
BinDun:
(Lizzie, no more breaks for you, ever)
Well, I’m having my say now 🙁
I tease. It is one of the great thought experiments, especially for the ‘peoplehood begins at conception’ folks. Barry’s “some things are unthinkable” post that inspired it is worth a read.
Why does UD never fully load? I always get interminable whirlygigs in my tabs.
If I were a shit disturber, I would suggest that “humanness” is an emergent property.
I’m speaking of the legal situation.
I do not believe it is possible to make a self-consistent dividing line between cells and persons. Historically, the only way to make a person was to have sex and hope. Technology is making conception a somewhat obsolete term.
We should do Beam Me Up Scotty one of these days.
Yes, I share that view. And I mostly agree with Elizabeth on baby vs. vat.
Yes, I have that problem.
So I just tested, and it fully loaded. But usually it doesn’t. I think it has to do with the site being on the cloud, and their cloud provider screwing up. But the apparent infinite delay doesn’t seem to affect anything that I want to read. It is probably occurring in the advertisement rotation.
I’m curious why do you think that, Elizabeth. It’s not obvious to me, anyhow, that all those answers require that assumption.
Maybe they aren’t. They seemed to me to be (somewhat post hoc) rationalisations of the instinctive choice to save the baby in terms that granted full human status to the embryos in the Vat. So they nodded (it seemed to me) to classical dilemmas like the Trolley on the Line. Not necessarily many-strangers-versus-one-friend but that and other dilemmas where it’s a choice between the many and the few, such as when the choice to save the few depends on the likely fate of the many even if you don’t. Triage.
But I’m not a philosopher (as is obvious) and I may have missed something. More than likely in fact.
.
The advertisements are the fun part!
I’m just thinking that StephenB may have thought something like “Hmmm an embryo is worth a tenth of a baby, so I’ll make my calculations that way.” Similarly, I’d think the person concerned about the suffering might not care if either or both are persons.
Consider the Judith Jarvis Thompson arguments regarding abortion and parasitism. She believes her arguments hold whether or not the embryos are persons.
Well, that’s sort of what made it funny. But you are right, that is one implication. I was thinking more probalistically: at what point does that number of embryos amount to as near as dammit a probability of at least one live’un at term?
Link or summary?
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
{And I see I spelled her name wrong above.}
Ah, yes, I’ve read that before. As I said in the OP (or implied), the issue of the mother’s rights and obligations is a whole issue to itself, and a huge one.
But the Baby and the Vat dilemma quite elegantly separates the mother part out.
I’m sorry, but how do you know this? Omniscience?
An embryo is to a “full human” as an acorn is to a “full oak.”
Lizzie,
Yes, and not only is there no principled way of deciding what the morally binding “moment of conception” is, there’s also no compelling reason for distinguishing it from the preceding moment.
Suppose we take the moment of contact between these two proteins as the moment of conception. Then consider the earlier moment when there was a one micron gap between the two. Does it really make sense to say that we’ve killed someone if we interfere at the later point, but not if we interfere at the earlier point?
There’s no reason to assume those answers must be predicated on that.
Lizzie:
Mung:
Mung,
You’re a Catholic, right?
Pope Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, 1965:
walto,
You’re right. They could be predicated on other rationales, like Stephen’s. Lizzie should have said that some people (especially some Catholics) predicate their answers on the idea that personhood begins at conception.
I didn’t realize all those answers came from Pope Paul VI. Elizabeth probably should have said that!
X>(
Right. I think we’re in agreement on that.
No, I am sympathetic. Maybe one day I’ll become a Catholic. But I am not now nor have I ever been a Catholic. Any more questions Senator McCarthy?
Where does he say an embryo is fully human? Are you going to ask me to defend the Pope against the charge of claiming embryos are fully human?
IOW, they believe that at that moment they become a living soul. Which would mean they receive the form or essence of a rational animal. Which some would argue is sufficient to establish personhood.
By the way, what’s the newborn baby doing in a fertility clinic? Some poor woman was there to receive an implant and unexpectedly gave birth to the baby Zachriel?
What I meant was not that those answers could only be given by someone who held that full human personhood began at conception, but that the assumption behind them in the UD conversation seemed to be: yes, the embryos are fully human, so by what underlying rationale do we choose the baby?
Rather than exploring the possibility that possibly we choose the baby because we sense that the embryos are not fully human.
Oh that’s easy. The fertility clinic I went to was in the same building as the obstetric department. The same consultant for both.
Actually, to be strictly accurate, the fertility clinic was in a Portacabin next to it, but there was a covered walkway between.
The more I see people trying to justify a moral decision with all sort of tortuous logic (vjtorely, Im looking at you), the more I think it is simply a personal, subjective choice, and just not amenable to analysis.
I think you should save the refrigerator full of vaccines, because think how many more babies you could save with that.
Or wait, come to think of it, what about the xray machine. When you think of it, from a materialists perspective, is there any more value for a baby compared to an xray machine? Isn’t our preference for babies just an accidental byproduct of meaningless evolution?
I think StephenB’s answer is a coherent one, actually. Given his premise that the Vat is full of babies, it still makes sense to apply “probability discounting” to the decision, otherwise known as “the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” reasoning.
Well, known as that to me anyway.
It’s similar to “delay discounting” – people will typically choose £10 next week over £1 now, but not over £10 next year. That’s rational enough, because a lot of things can get between you and that £10 over a year, so it’s a form of probability discounting.
So it makes sense to me, given his premise, that if he could be sure that a substantial number of the embryos had a good chance of reaching term, that he’d save the Vat rather than the Baby. However, it also seems to me to illustrate just how badly the assumption that a zygote is human being can warp – well – adjust – our moral intuitions.
And, I suggest, lead to cases in which a sexually abused child is forced to carry a pregnancy to term rather than be given access to emergency contraception.
A product of evolution, yes, but not “accidental”. And only “meaningless” in the sense that the moon is “meaningless”. Our instincts to cherish children are highly meaningful to us, and are, I suggest, strongly related to our ability to form altruistic social justice systems.
Elizabeth,
It can’t be altruistic, if it is simply the result of our genes preserving themselves.
It seems another definition you want to play humpty dumpty with.
Water can’t be wet if it’s just the result of hadrons rearranging themselves.
Altruism, let me remind you, is the capacity to place the welfare of others at least as high as your own.
The fact that the human capacity to do that is a result of the genes we inherit doesn’t mean that it isn’t altruism when we do.
I think I meant electrons.
I’ve shared this thought experiment with prolifers before. I’ve noticed many will bend over backwards looking for an excuse to avoid answering it, usually by attempting to discredit the TE as being “unrealistic” (ie “there would be medical staff there to help!!”). This, of course, misses the point.
I wonder what the reaction of bystanders would be. As Zachriel puts it:
I agree. Choosing between evils is not a moral choice.
Noted. A ‘Christian’ nonetheless.
Thanks for setting that forth clearly. I’m sympathetic to that approach, myself. I just don’t see why only the babies and embryos ought to be thought worthy of consideration.
If I’m escaping from a fire, then it is much easier to pick up a baby and to know what to do to care for that baby, than to pick up a vat and know how to care for the vat. So simple pragmatics says to go with the baby.
BinDun BinDun (2011)
https://web.archive.org/web/20111026062321/http://www.bookwormroom.com/2011/02/01/the-msm-gosnell-and-planned-parenthood/#comment-114383
ETA:
BinDun BinDun BinDun (2008)
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=14;t=1274;st=27870#entry107601
My reasoning is informed by the original Jurassic Park movie. One can encounter many obstacles while transporting embryos.
We’ve all learned much from that series.
Moved some posts to guano, some maybe not rule-breaking but to keep the continuity.
Doffs cap.
Moved the last few posts to Guano, including my own. Gregory, if you want to flame other posters, take it to Noyau. Please stop derailing other threads with your hobbyhorses.