Ask a Bible college Student

[LadyForCamus]

You're against IVF, CL?  That makes me sad.  A good friend of mine and her husband are DESPERATE to start a family.  She's had several embryo transfers without success.  It breaks my heart, because she wants to be a mother so badly.  For some women, IVF is the only path to motherhood they may ever have.  [emoji853]

I'm against the lives that are lost as a result.

I think of it this way...she is giving life a chance that would have never had a chance without the procedure. As a mom, it makes me a little sad too, to think of their little embryos that didn't stick. But then I think, if she can carry just one of those to term that's a person who would have never been otherwise. And they get to be parents, and love a child. Why just let all those eggs be released, wasted, for nothing, if one could end up being their precious child? They may lose embryos trying, but if they don't try, they lose EVERY embryo that could have ever been.

[Catholic_Lady]

Again, it's about culpability. You didn't deliberately kill people when you did IVF, and neither was that even your intended outcome. You did nothing illegal and you don't even believe they were human beings. All this context greatly diminishes culpability and separates you from someone who goes out and murders people. While I believe it's just as tragic that they died as anyone else, I don't believe your role in it is anywhere equivalent to, say, a mass murderer.

As for how long a person should be in jail for doing it if it was illegal? I don't know. It's hard to say when we live in a world that doesn't value unborn human life in the same way. Aborting a baby, for example, doesn't make someone a bad person like murdering their neighbor does. Not because the life is any less sacred, but because of culpability. Because in our society they are not viewed as human beings in the way they should be. So people who get abortions are just doing what is normal and accepted in our society. They aren't criminals and they aren't bad people.

Perhaps really far down the future when society values the lives of the unborn and views them in the same way as born folks, the punishment should be the exact same. But while it doesn't, it can't be. Because we're just not there yet and so culpability isn't the same.      

Why are you now bringing society's view into this?  I'm asking what you think.  How our society views it is irrelevant.

Here's the thing, if you want to be consistent in your views, I did deliberately kill people.  The doctor straight up asked us what we wanted to do with the remaining embryos.  The choices were to keep them frozen(expensive), donate them for research or discard them.  We chose to donate them, meaning they would eventually be destroyed.  If you believe those are humans, I knowingly sent people to their death.  I am as culpable as any other murderer.  Do I deserve life imprisonment for that?

Like I said, you didn't actually think they were people. You think they are just lumps of cells no different from cells that shed off our bodies every day. I think you are a decent person and I imagine if you had thought they were people you would never have donated them to be experimented on and later destroyed. For the 4th time, I do not think you deserve life imprisonment.   

As for why I keep bringing society into this, it's because I'm talking about personal culpability. Which plays a huge role in whether or not I think a person is deserving of going to jail, which was the question you were asking me. If you can't understand that in the way I have already explained it, then I don't know what else to tell you. We may just have to leave it as is and move on.

[LadyForCamus]

Why exactly do we have two threads on different topics derailed into discussing abortions now?

Lol, I love you, Abaris. But, sometimes you remind me of a crotchety old man. [emoji39]

[vorlon13]

Curmudgeonly plays a little better instead of crotchety there.

Takes longer for it to sink in, and therefore with the expected shorter attention span, there is less chance of a negative response.

[Catholic_Lady]

No, I'm just sorry their siblings aren't here with them.

Well, if it was up to you, IVF would be illegal, correct?  You believe people shouldn't be allowed to use the process, correct?  My children would never have been born without it, therefore, you believe my kids should have never been born.

I'm starting to get the feeling you haven't really thought the logical consequences of your beliefs on IVF and embryos through...

As I have said. It's not that I think IVF should be illegal, in and of itself. It's that I think the other embryos need to be handled with more dignity and humanity. Surely our civilized society can come up with a better alternative for them. The way it's done right now, with discarding the unused embryos left and right, shouldn't be done. But that doesn't mean I'm against the concept itself being legal, or that I would ever say IVF kids should never have been conceived. Just that their brothers and sisters should have been treated with more dignity as well.    

See, this is the interesting bit. I say the "left over" embryos from IVF need to be handled with more humanity, and get crap. Min comes in and says more babies should be aborted and no one bats an eye.

[Catholic_Lady]

I'm against the lives that are lost as a result.

I think of it this way...she is giving life a chance that would have never had a chance without the procedure.   As a mom, it makes me a little sad too, to think of their little embryos that didn't stick.  But then I think, if she can carry just one of those to term that's a person who would have never been otherwise.  And they get to be parents, and love a child.  Why just let all those eggs be released, wasted, for nothing, if one could end up being their precious child?  They may lose embryos trying, but if they don't try, they lose EVERY embryo that could have ever been.

It's not the embryos that didn't stick that's the problem. Not sticking is a natural death and that's just what happens sometimes with trying to conceive. It's the ones that never get a chance in the first place and just get discarded like trash. Those are human beings.

[LadyForCamus]

Heh, yeah I know I answered for him. Sowwy!

And well, he/she may die before getting the chance to mature enough to take the form of a person ..

Wait, are you talking about an embryo or Emzap?

*spits out drink*

[Rosie_Rivets]

Well, if it was up to you, IVF would be illegal, correct?  You believe people shouldn't be allowed to use the process, correct?  My children would never have been born without it, therefore, you believe my kids should have never been born.

I'm starting to get the feeling you haven't really thought the logical consequences of your beliefs on IVF and embryos through...

As I have said. It's not that I think IVF should be illegal, in and of itself. It's that I think the other embryos need to be handled with more dignity and humanity. Surely our civilized society can come up with a better alternative for them. The way it's done right now, with discarding the unused embryos left and right, shouldn't be done. But that doesn't mean I'm against the concept itself being legal, or that I would ever say IVF kids should never have been conceived. Just that their brothers and sisters should have been treated with more dignity as well.    

See, this is the interesting bit. I say the "left over" embryos from IVF need to be handled with more humanity, and get crap. Min comes in and says more babies should be aborted and no one bats an eye.

WHY should left over embryos be treated with more "dignity"? What purpose would that serve?

[LadyForCamus]

I think of it this way...she is giving life a chance that would have never had a chance without the procedure.   As a mom, it makes me a little sad too, to think of their little embryos that didn't stick.  But then I think, if she can carry just one of those to term that's a person who would have never been otherwise.  And they get to be parents, and love a child.  Why just let all those eggs be released, wasted, for nothing, if one could end up being their precious child?  They may lose embryos trying, but if they don't try, they lose EVERY embryo that could have ever been.

It's not the embryos that didn't stick that's the problem. Not sticking is a natural death and that's just what happens sometimes with trying to conceive. It's the ones that never get a chance in the first place and just get discarded like trash. Those are human beings.

Unfortunately, as Faith No More mentioned earlier, part of IFV is creating more embryos than you need in order to get a small handful of potentially viable ones. But, the embryos that get discarded are the ones that were likely never viable in the first place. And if they were never conceived in the first place, they would just be eggs released...never even given a chance to become anyone.

[vorlon13]

As I have said. It's not that I think IVF should be illegal, in and of itself. It's that I think the other embryos need to be handled with more dignity and humanity. Surely our civilized society can come up with a better alternative for them. The way it's done right now, with discarding the unused embryos left and right, shouldn't be done. But that doesn't mean I'm against the concept itself being legal, or that I would ever say IVF kids should never have been conceived. Just that their brothers and sisters should have been treated with more dignity as well.    

See, this is the interesting bit. I say the "left over" embryos from IVF need to be handled with more humanity, and get crap. Min comes in and says more babies should be aborted and no one bats an eye.

WHY should left over embryos be treated with more "dignity"? What purpose would that serve?

Indeed.

This is a difficult topic for me to not weigh in on. 


Scripture definitely provides comfort and solace in these cases and for some reason people are conditioned by religious 'leaders' (who think they know better than God) to ignore the words so plainly printed in their Bibles. Unensouled tissue is just that, unensouled tissue.  God has ordained a living human being is perfectly described as a human form WITH the breath of life.  From God's nostrils to the nostrils of the believers, the immortal soul is conveyed, and no amount of misstating His holy truth is ever going to change that.

People are hurting, and their hurt is compounded by incomplete knowledge of His word, and that is a result of unscrupulous religious charlatans that cannot be bothered to crack open their Bibles and simply look at the Word and tell their flocks the truth.