Monday, October 29, 2012

The Burning IVF Facility Thought Experiment

That's supposed to stump pro-lifers.

How would choosing to save one entity over another prove that the entities I didn’t save aren’t human (or are not human in a “morally relevant” sense)? In fact, we could change the conditions of the scenario. Say you’re in a burning building. In one room is your mother, and in another room is a complete stranger. You only have time to save one. I would almost guarantee you would save your mother. But does that mean the one you didn’t save wasn’t human? What if you were faced with the choice of rescuing your spouse or child or a room full of people? If you save your spouse or child over the roomful of people, that does not mean the people in the other room were not human.