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Pro-Lifer Dilemma

Crazytree

Thinker
C
Joined
Mar 5, 2006
Messages
148
You are in a house that is on fire. In one room is a two-year-old child. In another room is a petri dish with 5 viable embryos.

You only have time to get to one room in time.

Which do you save?
 
The embryos. That's five lives saved, not one.


(PS. What is a 2yo child doing in a house that has embryos in a Petri dish???)
 
Do you really believe that you would save the embryos?

Or are you just being snarky
 
Crazytree said:
You are in a house that is on fire. In one room is a two-year-old child. In another room is a petri dish with 5 viable embryos.

You only have time to get to one room in time.

Which do you save?
Click to expand...

I just read about this particular ethical dilemna in something recently. Where was it? Anyone else know? Pharyngula? Hank Fox? Local newspaper columnist? Gee..

p.s. The 2-year-old. No question.
 
Crazytree said:
You are in a house that is on fire. In one room is a two-year-old child. In another room is a petri dish with 5 viable embryos.

You only have time to get to one room in time.

Which do you save?
Click to expand...
I like it. Very good.

In the spirit of Zep, Sophies Choice, let 'em all die.
 
Abbyas said:
Do you really believe that you would save the embryos?

Or are you just being snarky
Click to expand...
It's so TOTALLY unrealistic and contrived as an "ethical dilemma" that it deserves a totally snarky answer. Which I gave.

Sophie's Choice is an ethical dilemma. This isn't.
 
Zep said:
It's so TOTALLY unrealistic and contrived as an "ethical dilemma" that it deserves a totally snarky answer. Which I gave.

Sophie's Choice is an ethical dilemma. This isn't.
Click to expand...
Sophie's Choise was a movie.
 
Zep said:
It's so TOTALLY unrealistic and contrived as an "ethical dilemma" that it deserves a totally snarky answer. Which I gave.

Sophie's Choice is an ethical dilemma. This isn't.
Click to expand...
Hey, don't get snarky with me. :D

It's great for those who believe life begins at conception because few if any would seriously consider the embryos.

Sophie's Choice was meant as a joke.
 
Smart_Cookie said:
I just read about this particular ethical dilemna in something recently. Where was it? Anyone else know? Pharyngula? Hank Fox? Local newspaper columnist? Gee..
Click to expand...

Ronald Bailey, a contributor to _Reason_, used a similar example (but that was quite some time ago). It's not exactly a novel thought experiment.
 
In one room there are five 90-year old terminally ill cancer patients. In the other there's a healthy 2-year old. Who do you save ?
 
RandFan said:
Hey, don't get snarky with me. :D

It's great for those who believe life begins at conception because few if any would seriously consider the embryos.

Sophie's Choice was meant as a joke.
Click to expand...
:D I took it as such!

It's just that the OP was so...what can I say...ridiculous. It's setting up a totally surreal situation in complete isolation, then demanding some ethical decision based on that. Honestly... :rolleyes:
 
You are in a house that is on fire. In one room is a two-year-old child. In another room is a used condom with a gazillion viable sperm cells.

You only have time to get to one room in time.

Which do you save?
 
Hypotheticals like this are used all the time in ethics courses. Had many similar ones in my legal ethics course.
 
They should try using real examples instead. Ed knows there are plenty of them: abortion, race, religion...
 
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