[hypertele-Xii]

If you hit an animal with your car, do you leave it to bleed out because it isn't a person and thus can't be vulnerable?

We don't agree that an unborn fetus isn't yet a person. I was deconstructing your logic. I think a person is created the moment sex cells fuse. Sometimes I even think about the hypothetical potential of a person and what they'd want me to do, such that they could one day exist and tell me.

My use of the word 'murder' is for dramatic effect to emphasize my beliefs. I concede that it's an opinion counter to the current laws, and thus technically incorrect. Still gonna call it that though.

[Timon3]

> If you hit an animal with your car, do you leave it to bleed out because it isn't a person and thus can't be vulnerable?

I would treat an animal I hit with my car very differently from a human, since I'd call an ambulance for a human, but would bring the animal into an animal clinic myself. Would you not call an ambulance for a human, or would you call an ambulance for an animal? Which one is it?

> I think a person is created the moment sex cells fuse.

Are you trying to do anything about IVF clinics? If I were to follow your standards, that would be way worse for me, since IVF clinics produce a big surplus of inseminated eggs. Every couple might kill multiple "babies" instead of just one.

> My use of the word 'murder' is for dramatic effect to emphasize my beliefs.

Could you try to refrain from doing so for our conversation? I'm going to take what you write literally since I assume you're writing in good faith, so misrepresenting your own positions is just going to hurt the discussion.

[hypertele-Xii]

> [...] since IVF clinics produce a big surplus of inseminated eggs. Every couple might kill multiple "babies" instead of just one.

True, but at least they do so unintentionally and in the pursuit of creating life. It's still kinda bad, especially if the woman needs IVF because she put off her motherly duties for so long she can't concieve naturally.

A woman getting an abortion is doing so intentionally and in the pursuit of her own convenience. In my opinion that should be criminal negligence, so I call it murder. That's not a misrepresentation of my position, that's what I actually believe. I know current laws disagree. That doesn't affect my position. Laws have been so very very wrong before, too.

So we agree that things that aren't persons can be vulnerable, but we disagree on the degree of vulnerability. Is my understanding correct that in your opinion a human being with a functioning brain is by definition more vulnerable than any other kind of life? So you equate vulnerability with degree of consciousness, presumably due to its ability to comprehend pain and injustice?

[Timon3]

> True, but at least they do so unintentionally and in the pursuit of creating life.

That's not true, they do so fully intentionally. That's what should make it way worse than abortion: they create babies just to kill them! Why does it matter that it's in the pursuit of life? Or could it be that you dislike abortion for other reasons than you previously stated?

> A woman getting an abortion is doing so intentionally and in the pursuit of her own convenience.

And a woman getting IVF is doing so intentionally and in the pursuit of her own family wishes. Imagine if every family sacrificed dozens of children to receive their newborn. Why are you not fighting against this monstrous horror?

[hypertele-Xii]

> That's not true, they do so fully intentionally. [...] Why are you not fighting against this monstrous horror?

Nobody goes to an IVF clinic intent to kill babies. Everyone goes to an abortion clinic explicitly to kill babies. IVF could be attempted one life at a time. What you're describing is a cost-cutting measure, a technical implementation detail of the clinic, and who said I'm not fighting against it?

> Why does it matter that it's in the pursuit of life?

Killing in the pursuit of life is less worse than killing in the pursuit of death.

[Timon3]

> Nobody goes to an IVF clinic intent to kill babies.

Everyone goes to an IVF clinic knowing they'll kill multiple babies in the process. How can this be acceptable to a single person?

> IVF could be attempted one life at a time. What you're describing is a cost-cutting measure, a technical implementation detail of the clinic, and who said I'm not fighting against it?

You didn't say anything against it so far. So based on your statements it would be okay to abort babies to save the mothers some money, right? After all you find IVF acceptable, where they kill babies to save money?

> Killing in the pursuit of life is less worse than killing in the pursuit of death.

Really? Does the law say that? Is it generally okay to kill people if you also create new people?

[hypertele-Xii]

> Everyone goes to an IVF clinic knowing they'll kill multiple babies in the process. How can this be acceptable to a single person?

Knowledge =/= intent. And I bet most people going to IVF don't know the process involves killing viable babies, unless and until they are informed of it at the clinic. Regardless, it's definitely not the intention, but an unnecessary side-effect. If I had to peruse IVF, I'd take my business to an ethical clinic that doesn't do such cost-cutting, just like I buy ethical food even though it's more expensive. Factory meat is torture and murder for me as well.

> You didn't say anything against it so far.

Factually incorrect. Me, two days ago [1] in reply to you, about killing babies in IVF process: "It's still kinda bad".

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35882796

> Really? Does the law say that? Is it generally okay to kill people if you also create new people?

A very good and complex question with ethical dilemmas and conflicting precedent.

The simplest case is that of self-defense and defense of others. If suspect A is threatening to murder victim B, it's largely accepted that killing suspect A to preserve victim B's life is a necessary evil, especially if victim B is a pregnant woman.

According to the old unwritten Custom of the Sea it was accepted until 1884 that shipwreck survivors were forgiven for killing and eating each other to pervail. Mignonette The case of R v Dudley and Stephens (1884 14 QBD 273 DC) convicted two sailors to six months imprisonment for murdering and eating their unconscious crewmate to survive, which de facto set the practice antiquated and illegal.

Consider the maternal–fetal conflict of an unconscious woman in childbirth with complications lethal to both herself and the baby, doctors able to save one but not both (somewhat common trope in media). My understanding is that the husband gets to decide which of them dies by choosing who to save, and conventional wisdom says to save the baby at the mother's expense. My cursory search provided poor information so I don't know.

From a practical and moral standpoint I consider this an analogue of the trolley problem, and posit that yes, of course an act of killing is less worse if it additionally results in a new life (or saving of existing one(s)). That's the natural precedent for predation.