--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here's another, to illustrate the point - a fertility clinic is > on fire. The fire service is 20 minutes away, and can't help. On > one floor, there are 100 infants. On another, is the frozen > embryo storage facility, with 100 liquid nitrogen storage > containers, each containing 100 embryos. You can only keep the > fire from getting to one of the floors long enough to clear it, > the other will be lost. > What do you do? > > I'd be willing to bet that nearly everyone would save the 100 > infants over the 10,000 embryos. Because, no matter how much > the "right to life" is espoused, no matter how much some people > talk of embryos as "children" and claim they see them as equal, > people do value babies more. And if you can understand why, then > you can understand why > abortions up to 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through pregnancy are not > considered murder by a lot of people.
This is, of course, an absurd hypothetical, sort of like the questions we used to ask as a kid - would you rather slide down a set of razors into a pool of rubbing alcohol or be burned alive? Anyhow, if one changes the example such that on the second floor are 150 Senior Citizens, I suspect that most people save the infants first. Of course, I doubt that you would then be reaching the conclusions that Senior Citizens don't have the "right to live" or that Senior Citizens aren't equal, and that killing a citizen isn't murder. QED. JDG _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
