atheism and children

[Catholic_Lady]

I just got as far as the bolded part. Nope! That's not what I said.

Sorry, but to move further in the discussion it's important that we actually listen to what the other says. Please reread what I wrote in my response post to you.

Insane/mentally ill or not, if an instigator is coming after you, trying to kill you (or someone else), you have the right to exert as much force as is necessary to stop them. If that amount of force results in their death, it is tragic but not immoral IMHO.

^^-- This is exactly what you said. That it is an acceptable action to kill someone who might kill you (I say might because if they actually kill you then the point is moot) even if they are an innocent. That you can use as much force as necessary to defend your own life from this innocent even if it results in their death.  You say that this is a tragic but not immoral action.

I AGREE WITH YOU ON THIS.

Everyone has the right to defend their own life against a threat that might kill them.

The thing is, I extend this to pregnant women too.  A woman has the right to defend her life against a pregnancy that will kill her if it continues even if it means DIRECTLY aborting the embryo. I don't understand the arbitrary line you are drawing when you say that you can abort if you don't DIRECTLY kill the embryo, that you have to go through the rigmarole of a possibly unnecessary surgery to end a pregnancy that could be ended by taking some pills.

And I don't understand why you would categorize the death of an innocent as "tragic but not immoral" (which, again, I agree with you about) but then say conception divorced from sex and taking place in a petri dish by doctors IS immoral.

I don't understand it.

I just think saying "you can kill someone who might kill you" sounds very different from saying you have the right to exert only as much force as is necessary to stop someone who is trying to kill you. The former is not how I would describe my views on this, as it sounds much more liberal and merciless than the latter.

What I believe is that if someone is coming after you with a knife, for example, and you can stop them by knocking them out, or running away and calling the cops, you should do that. But if the situation is such that the only way you can stop them from killing you is by shooting them, if your shot kills them, I don't think that's immoral on your part. Though it should be the absolute last resort. But yes, the idea is to always try to preserve life.

I don't think this is the same scenario as an embryo implanting on the Fallopian tube. The baby is not an instigator who is trying to kill you, while the person viciously attacking you is, regardless of whether they would be deemed innocent by reason of insanity or not. They may be innocent for reason of insanity as far as the law and jail time is concerned, but they are still not innocent of trying to kill you. The same cannot be said about an unborn baby, fetus, embryo, or whatever you want to call him/her.

Since I think one innocent human life is worth the same as any other innocent human life, I can't support killing one to save the other. If there is a problem involving the pregnancy, a doctor can try to do whatever they can to treat whatever the problem is. If the treatment ends in the unintended death of the mother's child (such as removal of a damaged tube), that's not immoral. But if the baby is specifically targeted to be killed, I do find that immoral. One is an unintended consequence/side effect, the other is a direct intent to kill another person.