A question for the pro-life members of MN

[SemperIdem]

The biggest argument always boils down to “taking a life away, acting like God”.

So - how does IVF sit with you? Are you anti it, because it is “acting like God”. Are you for it because acting like God to create a life is somehow fine whereas taking one away is not?

Do you understand that many IVF pregnancies are high risk and may ultimately require medical management aka abortions?

I’m firmly pro science and think access to both abortions and IVF is a wonderful thing, for avoidance of doubt.

One never sees protests outside fertility clinics and I wondered why.

I used to be "pro life" . I worried about whether babies in the womb, a foetus, had a soul. Even when I was in my first marriage, 2 kids, I had a coil fitted and worried in case an egg was fertilised, but lost because of the coil. Too much thinking maybe.

Now, in my later 40's, I'm more concerned with trauma, poverty, and other reasons women might find themselves in a position where they have an unwanted pregnancy. I don't think I could have gone through a termination myself, although maybe in the right/wrong circumstances I would have.

What I do know for sure is I'd support my daughter and daughter in law in any choice they made, without question. I'm here for them.

I was replying to Xenia saying what 1.3bn Catholics think and as you have proved yourself she was wrong, not all Catholics think one thing and it isn't true to say 1.3bn Catholics are aginst abortion or IVF.

I'm old enough to remember the older women whispering in the 1960's about the nuns who were raped in the Congo who had abortions allowed by senior members of their order and the church. The thing that made me uncomfortable about that was not the abortions but an uncomfortable feeling that the babies being mixed race played a part in it, of course I don't know if that was part of it but it just disturbed me.

Of course we need all that but it doesn't change the fact that some women state that having an abortion was a traumatic experience for them. Obviously it isn't for everyone but everyone has a right to their own experience. We can't shut women down if their experience isn't what we want to hear.

You do realise that IVF generally includes embryo selection which results in embryo destruction don't you? That's the same as abortion

Because it is highly irregular to do what your friend did. IVF is very expensive and has a low success rate. The general process is to do everything to improve outcomes which means fertilising several embryos not just one and thus generally results in the destruction of embryos at some point. Not sure why this is confusing to you.

Although I’m not against abortion altogether, I do feel that a late term foetus has more of a right to life than an adult child abuser.

Rather than calling me a troll, if you disagree, explain to me why you think I’m wrong.

@deedledeedledum , @Toddlerteaplease is a paediatric nurse, so very probably. Apparently there are embryo sparing types of IVF (frozen or donated).

If ‘God created the technology to allow IVF to happen’ why didn’t he also ‘create the technology to allow abortions to happen’ ? Why is one technological advancement God’s will and another Man’s?

I don't understand the purpose of comparing a late term foetus to a child abuser

What the heck? Where did this ginormous, ridiculous and irrelevant straw man come from?

Late stage foetuses vs child abusers?

Jog on. That’s a reach and half. Watch you don’t strain yourself.

The fact that a technology exists doesn't mean we should use it, whether you are basing that on God or secular morality.

We have an international ban on using advancements in cloning on humans for moral reasons.

Abortion is a tool. It isn't pro-science to use it in every possible imaginable scenario. Different people have different moral stances on where it is right to use it, with the vast majority falling somewhere in the middle, which is why that is where our law is.

I think the reality is principles and morals are often put to one side when they become inconvenient

? @hangonsnoopy. I think we are talking at cross purposes. I wasn’t arguing against medical ethics. I was merely asking why that particular poster considered one procedure to be a god given technological advancement and (presumably) the other is not? I get the religious connotations of creation vs destruction but the poster discussed purely in terms of ‘technology to allow’, so I’m confused how that circle is squared.

I'm pro choice but I find the whole discussion fascinating from a philosophical point of view.

I'm an atheist and generally all about science but the one thing I can't square in my head is where our consciousness comes from? So, I'm me. Right. Now, if I'd been aborted, would my consciousness just not exist? Would my consciousness end up in another human being?

Not a view I express irl, but I'm against fertility treatments...one reason is overpopulation. The other reason is I just cannot fathom how consciousness would work if we make human beings in an artificial way....not sure if that makes sense.

I don't think it can be true.

Blastocysts often have low viability and so it would be completely unethical for a clinic to implant one that is unlikely to be successful, rather than destroying it.

I agree that maybe clinics can choose to fertilise an egg one by one and see viability that way before implanting, but the idea of "embryo sparing" IVF is nonsensical.

Sorry, Lynn, not disagreeing with you, just quoting the general debate you were participating in.

I am more saying 'God has made it possible through science' doesn't answer any ethical questions, even in terms of creation, or believers would be agreeing to cloning for the purposes of creating new life.

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying @hangonsnoopy

consciousness as far as I can understand it comes from the brain alone. Say for saying so i suffered a horrific brain injury although I may be still be alive I would cease to be me.

If you were aborted you would have no brain to experience consciousness with. I am pro life but not on the ground an embryo in conscious or even has any right to life. I just personally wouldn't have an abortion barring any health complications for me or the baby or rape or something but anyway it shouldn't be up to me or anyone what someone else can do with their own body/health.

Nor is putting a dog to sleep when it’s the right thing to do, but we still acknowledge that it’s taking a life.

I believe that us women should have the right to abortion like I said, but we do need to own it and accept what it is.

Nope. This analogous only vaguely works if you agree that life begins at conception, which is where the contention lies.

Bloody autocorrect. This analogy

I’ve never met a pro-lifer who wasn’t a ginormous hypocrite in one way or another. And that’s because it’s really about misogyny, not preserving life.

I am pro life but not on the ground an embryo in conscious or even has any right to life. I just personally wouldn't have an abortion barring any health complications for me or the baby or rape

You sound pro choice to me.

I generally think access to safe abortion causes less harm than no access. Still, had it been available, neither my mother, I or my children would be here. Perhaps it's irrelevant to the pro choice argument, but I don't think our lives have been to those we have met. As a philosophical point, who can say whose life is better not lived?

I wouldn't be here either if abortion had been available to my grandmother. Nor my siblings, nor my father.

It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant to the reasons why women need to have access to safe abortion.

I was agreeing with you @ancientgran

Why would I highlight the things needed to reduce abortion and help women continue a pregnancy, if I thought it was never associated with trauma..?