Frozen embryos are ‘children,’ Alabama Supreme Court rules in couples’ wrongful death suits

[Bradskii]

Both if possible. There is not a moral conundrum here. If you can't save both then the one which is safest to retrieve. You can't safe the impossible no matter how cruel it may seem to be. Being killed in the process of saving is the same as not saving. You would have died more honourable than most but the outcome would be the same.

The trolley problem don't apply here. Common sense should.

Way to go avoiding the question! Which you surely know is exactly the same as giving the answer.

 

[Bradskii]

Science is important to law but so is emotional state. There is a balance to it. The laws are to ensure a just society not a scientific one.

Which is why we don't base them on emotional responses from women who have, or are experiencing the loss of a pregnancy.

In regard to that, you might note the different emotional responses between a woman who has just been told that her pregnancy didn't continue past the first week or so and a woman who is told that her child has died a week before birth. And does anyone seriously think she'd save a couple of frozen zygotes as opposed to that baby if it had been born?

No. Of course not. No sane person would think that. And that tells you all you need to know about how we perceive the difference between a child and a few frozen cells.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Like I replied in another post, you won't know what the value of the embryos are to the couples. It might be their last chance for children. If that is true then yes you have kill off their children. The embryos are alive in scientific definition so they are not just property. You might not like how they define a child but those embryos will definitely grow to be humans therefore a life. This accident just snuffed out these lives.

Let the courts decide the outcome.

There is no question that the destroyed embryos had potential emotional value (they could be just leftovers) the only legal question is "dead child" or "destroyed property".

 

[IceJad]

Way to go avoiding the question! Which you surely know is exactly the same as giving the answer.

How is this avoiding the question when the premise of the question is unclear. Burning building with a child and an embryo together? What are the conditions they are in? Both are important from a moral stand point. From a practical stand point if you can reach both at the same time then it's no effort to lift both the petri dish and the child together. Is the child locked in a room you can't access? If the petri dish locked in a fridge you can't access?

When you put hypothetical scenarios it has to make some sort of logical premise. Else the scenario falls apart. You are looking for a simple answer. If that is the case just ask the question: between a child and a zygote which you value more?

Then in terms of importance I'll put the child before the zygote. But that doesn't mean the zygote is worthless just less than the child.

I can give a better moral conundrum scenario. Say you're cliff climbing with your teenage son and your wife. Both tettered to you by a safety line. Both suddenly slipped and are unable to reach back to the face of the cliff due to a protrusion in the cliff. You're unable to hold on to the combine weight of your entire family. Neither have the strength to safely decent to a safe point. Falling means certain death due to the height. Your grip is failing by the moment. One has to be cut loose to ensure 2 to be saved. You can't be the one to fall as you're the one holding on. Who would you choose? Is it your choice to choose?

 

[RileyG]

There is no question that the destroyed embryos had potential emotional value (they could be just leftovers) the only legal question is "dead child" or "destroyed property".

A frozen embryo can be considered property? What if it isn't viable?

 

[RileyG]

Huh? What have you got against couples making babies?

To some, IVF makes human life look disposable. They find it immoral, or in other words "playing God."

 

[Hans Blaster]

A frozen embryo can be considered property?

Of course. What do you think is invoked if one is stolen?

What if it isn't viable?

Then it is clearly worth a lot less. Probably zero.

 

[RileyG]

Of course. What do you think is invoked if one is stolen?

Then it is clearly worth a lot less. Probably zero.

It's just a very interesting thought, that's all. I never thought of embryos as property, that's all.

 

[Hans Blaster]

To some, IVF makes human life look disposable. They find it immoral, or in other words "playing God."

Creating life to be nurtured and cared for is immoral and "playing God"? SMH.

 

[RileyG]

Creating life to be nurtured and cared for is immoral and "playing God"? SMH.

No. Creating life outside of normal means (ie sexual intercourse) is considered "playing God" to some.

 

[Hans Blaster]

No. Creating life outside of normal means (ie sexual intercourse) is considered "playing God" to some.

I still find that weird. The ways people twist things in their mind...

 

[IceJad]

There is no question that the destroyed embryos had potential emotional value (they could be just leftovers) the only legal question is "dead child" or "destroyed property".

That is for the courts to decide based on the circumstances of the couples. For me if it's my wife's then I'll go for "dead child". For that is what the procedure is meant to give us. Our hopes are pinned on the embryo. It's one thing to accept the risks and chances of the procedure, it's another to have an accident unrelated to the procedures.

 

[comana]

No. Creating life outside of normal means (ie sexual intercourse) is considered "playing God" to some.

I wonder if those who believe that also believe other types of modern medical intervention involving, transfusions, implants, pharmaceuticals, etc are also playing god? Just curious.

 

[RileyG]

I wonder if those who believe that also believe other types of modern medical intervention involving, transfusions, implants, pharmaceuticals, etc are also playing god? Just curious.

No. They aren't playing with the lives of others. Essentially what you mentioned does not involve the life...or if you prefer, potential life, of others.

 

[Bradskii]

Then in terms of importance I'll put the child before the zygote. But that doesn't mean the zygote is worthless just less than the child.

Wasn't hard, was it. We treat a child as being more valuable than a few cells. There is a considerable difference. They aren't the same. They are different. One is not the other.

Need I go on?

 

[o_mlly]

Is a blastocyst a person? Obviously not. And a fertilized egg isn't even that. It's a zygote. It's a human zygote. And it's alive. But it's just a zygote. Not a child.

Inventing scientific sounding words and applying them to a child-becoming-an-adult in order to morally justify murder is obviously nonsense. How far could such a mentality go?

When Does Human Life Begin? | Psychology Today​

​

The life of an animal organism, obviously, begins at conception. But human life begins only at the moment that the animal has a mind. In some very fast developers, this can happen before the age of one year; in a large majority of cases, this happens between two and three years of age.​

​

So, according to this line of thought, one could murder the "child-becoming-an-adult" up to age 3. But wait, some contend that many "children-becoming-an-adult" leave the human race in their teenage years so murdering them is OK too.

 

[KCfromNC]

That doesn't seem to be a concern with this administration anyway, Next.

Maybe, but that can be handled a different way. Next.

Same as above, since they won't be educatable. Next.

I guess my prediction of simply trying to change the subject when confronted with the actual consequences of such a ruling was pretty much dead on.

Murder is a theologically based law.

No it isn't. Next.

 

[KCfromNC]

So, if the couple decides they no longer want the embryos that are stored, are they allowed to have them "destroyed" or do they have to pay storage fees until both the father and mother are dead? Then after their death, who continues to pay the fees thereafter, their heirs or does the IVF facility need to store them for free indefinitely?

Maybe the embryos end up in foster care until someone adopts them, just like any other child? And if no one does, they end up being supported by government assistance until they turn 18. And probably end up on SSDI after that given they can't work. More big government GOP actions leading to an expansion of the welfare state.

 

[o_mlly]

We treat a child as being more valuable than a few cells. There is a considerable difference. They aren't the same. They are different. One is not the other.

Need I go on?

Yes, but first kindly abandon the fallacy of your circular reasoning above. "Because we treat them differently proves that they are different, Nope.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Inventing scientific sounding words and applying them to a child-becoming-an-adult in order to morally justify murder is obviously nonsense.

Really? Child-to-adult is a well occupied name space we have "teenager" (or "teen") and "adolescent". There is the biological transformation call "puberty" to describe the process. I'm not sure why you mention "child-becoming-an-adult" and claim people are justifying killings, because no one is. What a pointless deflection.

How far could such a mentality go?

When Does Human Life Begin? | Psychology Today​

​

The life of an animal organism, obviously, begins at conception. But human life begins only at the moment that the animal has a mind. In some very fast developers, this can happen before the age of one year; in a large majority of cases, this happens between two and three years of age.​

​

So, according to this line of thought, one could murder the "child-becoming-an-adult" up to age 3. But wait, some contend that many "children-becoming-an-adult" leave the human race in their teenage years so murdering them is OK too.

First of all, 3-year olds are still children and not anywhere near "becoming adults" (unless you are going to use nonsense language and say they are all "slowly dying" because most of them only live another 80 years or so). Infant, toddler, youngling, etc. We've got words for 3-year-olds.

As for your "mind formation" infanticide (fantasy) slippery slope what are you going to call these? "8th-trimester abortions" "very late term abortions" "post-birth abortions". If you are really worried about these and the fuzzy nature of the mind development timing there is a very clear developmental transition that could be used as a cut-off that would guarantee that no offspring with minds were terminated -- birth.