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A fertility clinic is burning. Inside the clinic are twenty frozen embryos and a one year old child. You can save either the embryos or the child but not both. Who do you save?
This is inspired by the stem cell research debate.
Wouldn't it be better to ask, would you throw yourself in front of a car to save a basket case full of embryos?
No, not really.
Stem cell research opponents claim that a frozen embryo is a human life. Using this belief, the question is whether to save twenty human lives or one human life. I would expect anyone who holds this belief to save the twenty embryos rather than the one year old child. Otherwise, it would indicate that a frozen embryo is not equivalent to a human life.
Save the child, of course. You know he has potential. He is alive. It is taught that he has a soul. The embryos may have potential, but they may never have a true life. It is doubtful that there is a soul trapped in those frozen embryos.
Which brings up another question. If life begins at conception, do these unplanted frozen embryos have souls?
What if the child is on life-support equipment that is unique in the world to that facility?
What if the child is in a persistent vegetative state and has been so since birth?
What if the child has an incurable, aggressive, terminal disease?
What if the child is an orphan and has no living relatives, to the third generation back?
What if the child is on life-support equipment that is unique in the world to that facility?
What if the child is in a persistent vegetative state and has been so since birth?
What if the child has an incurable terminal disease?
What if the child is an orphan?
Thanks, PT, but this is irrelevant to the point of the OP.
The child, obviously. Saving a real life is far more important than saving potential lives. Plus, the child can feel pain and can suffer, unlike the embryos, so the most humane thing would be to reduce suffering.
Statistically, only 2 or 3 of those embryos has any chance of going to term if they are implanted.
I do believe that life begins at conception, but I also believe that the only pragmatic answer is to save the child that is already born.
When I was an EMT, I would have given more triage priority to treating an injured child than I would to preventing a woman from miscarrying if I had to make a choice.
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