Thank you for the reasonable post, Brain. Let me ask you this: What do we have to lose/gain by considering a thirty second old embryo human?
I am not sure what you are asking. I wanted to explain that conception itself was not a good threshold, and to illustrate the point I deliberately chose a time span so short that I could be absolutely certain there is no value at all in the embryo. I would say abortion is fine much later than that, but I didn't really want to argue that just yet.
Brain: I think you're misunderstanding my point. I realize that It's A Wonderful Life is a drastic oversimplification, but the truth is, that's basically how it works. I believe that at least 95% of people contribute positively to society, and I think that the more people in society, the better.
But that is
also a drastic oversimplification.
First, resources are bounded and do not scale linearly with the number of people. These can be the resources available for a family or an extended family. These can be resources available for a village, a city or a whole country. Usually, you want to add new humans in contexts where resources can support them, or there mere existence will be a burden. More humans is not inherently better. You don't want to raise ten kids on a meager salary in a shitty house. You don't want to see a baby boom in the middle of a famine.
Second, as I have explained, 100 abortions do not mean 100 less human beings on the planet in the long term. Many women have abortions because although they want children eventually, they don't want children
now. By getting an abortion, they can focus on their studies or on figuring out where they want to go in life, thereby making their impact on society more positive. And it's not actually at the cost of any life: they will have children
later. Abortions often just postpone the addition of a new life (and if there was no abortion, there would be no new life later).
That's not all: if women can abort, some of them might be less careful about protection, meaning that technically, if abortion was disallowed, they would not actually have gotten pregnant. So there is no loss there. In addition to that, having the option to abort can actually make women feel safer about having children, because they can change their mind. Abortion does not necessarily lower the amount of life in the long term, it is just so,
so much more complicated than that. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. You can hardly know for sure.
Third, humans have a limited capacity for caring (about 100 people, give or take). As disturbing as that might sound, the "people who would enjoy your kid's life", in order to love him, have to love others less. The girlfriend he would have had will just love someone else (perhaps better). His best friend will be best friends with someone else, and so on. It's like removing a drop from the ocean, whatever void it leaves will be filled instantly. Socially, having more people is neither better nor worse. On average, you add a small caring capacity but you divert the same amount.
