4 ms·
You seem to be lacking some understanding of how IVF works. 10 to 20 eggs are extracted, and then an attempt is made to fertilize them with sperm. 70 to 80 per
by nullfield 4y ago
You seem to be lacking some understanding of how IVF works.
10 to 20 eggs are extracted, and then an attempt is made to fertilize them with sperm. 70 to 80 percent of those are successfully fertilized. That's (low) 7 to (high) 16 fertilized eggs. Perhaps 2 to 4 are implanted.
When would you say a child is "conceived"? When the egg is fertilized? When the egg is fertilized but only inside a woman's uterus? After the fertilized egg implants, perhaps?
I don't see how you can say that IVF isn't "murder" of all the fertilized eggs that aren't implanted - unless you try to say that suspending the process by freezing them is okay? - but if it's not "when fertilized" that you claim that "a child is conceived" then we start talking about the actual issue: potential and actual.
An egg has the potential to become a human, if fertilized. It isn't one.
A fertilized egg has the potential to become a human, if it implants correctly. It still isn't one.
An implanted egg that's divided 100 times, and is now 200 cells, has the potential to become a human, if it's fed and nurtured. It isn't one.
"Viability outside the womb" was picked for a reason, but even that permits other people to play the game of "force a woman to provide her body to continue to be used to feed and develop the viable-outside-the-womb baby" or "cut the woman open to remove the viable-outside-the-womb baby" if she doesn't want to continue to feed and develop it.
There's certainly a difference between "legal" and "moral"; a woman who knows she doesn't want to have a child and fails to act to prevent that "potential" from turning into "viable" must still have a legal right to terminate that pregnancy/viable human, but her actions are morally indefensible. By the same token, removing an implanted grouping of 200 cells can't be seen as anything other than cutting off the potential, and doing so as soon as one is aware of the potential and knows that one lacks the desire to end up with a baby is laudable.