Is a fertilized egg a new human being at its very first stages of life? The
answer, of course, is yes. Left to its natural course, a fertilized egg will
grow and mature into a fetus, an infant, a child, and ultimately an adult. Each
stage adds complexity and capabilities, but they are all stages in the
development of the same referent—a human being.
However, pro-abortion folks
don't like the idea that a fetus is a human being. They want to deny that the
developing baby in utero is really a baby. This morning I saw a series of tweets
from New York Times Op-Ed writer Patrick S. Tomlinson posting what he thinks is
the ultimate defeater to the pro-life position that life begins at conception.
There, he offers what he thinks is a knock-down argument against the position
that a fertilized egg is a human being. The original thread
begins here,
but I've reproduced it below to make it easier for you:
Whenever abortion
comes up, I have a question I've been asking for ten years now of the "Life
begins at Conception" crowd. In ten years, no one has EVER answered it honestly.
1/
It's a simple scenario with two outcomes. No one ever wants to pick one,
because the correct answer destroys their argument. And there IS a correct
answer, which is why the pro-life crowd hates the question. 2/
Here it is.
You're in a fertility clinic. Why isn't important. The fire alarm goes off. You
run for the exit. As you run down this hallway, you hear a child screaming from
behind a door. You throw open the door and find a five-year-old child crying for
help. 3/
They're in one corner of the room. In the other corner, you spot a
frozen container labeled "1000 Viable Human Embryos." The smoke is rising. You
start to choke. You know you can grab one or the other, but not both before you
succumb to smoke inhalation and die, saving no one. 4/
Do you A) save the
child, or B) save the thousand embryos? There is no "C." "C" means you all die.
In a decade of arguing with anti-abortion people about the definition of human
life, I have never gotten a single straight A or B answer to this question. And
I never will. 5/
They will never answer honestly, because we all
instinctively understand the right answer is "A." A human child is worth more
than a thousand embryos. Or ten thousand. Or a million. Because they are not the
same, not morally, not ethically, not biologically. 6/
This question
absolutely evicerates their arguments, and their refusal to answer confirms that
they know it to be true.
No one, anywhere, actually believes an embryo is
equivalent to a child. That person does not exist. They are lying to you. 7/
They are lying to you to try and evoke an emotional response, a paternal
response, using false-equivalency.
No one believes life begins at conception.
No one believes embryos are babies, or children. Those who cliam to are trying
to manipulate you so they can control women. 8/
Don't let them. Use this
question to call them out. Reveal them for what they are. Demand they answer
your question, and when they don't, slap that big ol' Scarlet P of the
Patriarchy on them.
The end. 9/9
Choices Don't Determine Essence
Is
Tomlinson right? Is his thought experiment the death-knell for the concept that
life begins at conception?
Spoiler alert: no.
Tomlinson has made a
big mistake in his thinking as he believes choosing to save the five year
old somehow denies the humanity of the embryos. How does that follow? How does one's choice determine the essence of the thing that is not chosen? It is a classic
non-sequitor.
Now, I agree that almost all people would grab the child first, but
that doesn't prove the point that the embryos are not humans who hold intrinsic
worth, too. To demonstrate this, let me offer a counter-scenario:
The set-up
is basically the same as Tomlinson's, except you're in a hospital not a
fertility clinic. On one side you have the five year old child. On the other, a
series of ten beds, each with a geriatric patient in a vegetative state. Because
the hospital had built safety precautions into their building for evacuations,hazards, the comatose group are positioned on
top of an elevator platform. You can either A) save the screaming child or B) you can
run to the other side of the room and pull the lever, lowering yourself and the
ten comatose patients to safety. There is no C. Which do you choose?
Again, I
think most people would choose A. Some may choose B and let the child experience
the agony of burning alive. But for most of us, it is as Tomlinson said:
instinctively we go for the child. This in no way means the others have somehow
lost their humanity. It only means that rational people weigh various criteria,
including consciousness and the ability to feel pain when making such decisions.
Like the comatose patients, embryos in test tubes are handicapped. Their ability to naturally grow and
develop has been artificially halted, and they have been denied the womb. Just
because they have yet developed cognition or the capability to feel pain doesn't
make them any less human than my patients in comas. If it were true that those
patients were no longer human, then we wouldn't mind at all harvesting their
organs as we desire for transplants. (If you shudder at that, then maybe
destroying embryos for scientific research should give you pause.)
Ultimately, Tomlinson's thought experiment fails to prove his point. I've
answered his scenario honestly. Should I "call him out" and "demand he answer"
and admit this doesn't prove what he's hoping it will?
