Yesterday, 05:49 PM
The argument that life does not begin at conception because this would require fertility clinics to be shut down (due to the fact that most frozen embryos would never be born) is not a good one.
The "obvious" counter-argument is that if life does begin at conception, then those fertility clinics should indeed be shut down, precisely because they will end up disposing of or destroying viable embryos. IOW: Not wanting to shut down fertility clinics is not a good reason for rejecting the proposition that life begins at conception. (Making murder illegal might put contract killers out of business - or at least severely constrain the manner in which they operate - but that is not a compelling argument for legalizing murder.)
But that counter-argument is not a good one either (which is why I use quote marks when describing it as "obvious"). The problem with both the argument and the "obvious" counter-argument to it is that they each mash together and conflate two quite distinct issues. (This is a very common occurrence in debates over abortion, and it is one of the reasons abortion is such a "sticky subject".)
The first issue is "when does life begin?" and the second issue is "under what circumstances should homicide be actionable?" These are entirely separate questions. The first issue sets the stage for the second issue, but does not (and cannot) answer it.
If life begins at conception, then it does indeed follow that any act which results in the end of conceived life (such as disposing of or destroying viable frozen embryos) is homicide. But it does not follow that every such homicide must or should be regarded as actionable. There are many kinds and degrees of homicide: suicide, negligent homicide, accidental homicide, murder, justifiable homicide, etc. Not all of them are considered actionable - that is, not all of them are regarded as mandating preventive action prior to their occurrence ("accidents happen", after all) or as requiring the imposition of some kind of punishment after they occur (justifiable homicide in reasonable self-defense, for example). And even for those varieties of homicide that are considered actionable, the nature, kind, and severity of the action taken in response to them is not at all uniform or universal. Negligent homicide is treated less harshly than premeditated murder, for example, and (attempted) suicide less harshly still. Likewise, it seems entirely reasonable that there should be a range of responses to various kinds of "abortive" homicides, depending on circumstances and particulars. Deliberately killing a pregnant woman could be considered a double murder, while ending a pregnancy that endangers the mother's life could be considered justifiable homicide, and so on (and this could involve the modification of already existing categories of homicide, or even the establishment and recognition of new ones, if it is useful to do so).
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