Lovely. Add a bit of coffee grounds and you'll have some dandy compost.
Any embryo that is not embedded in a woman's womb is not viable, in today's world. It is possible, even likely, that the issue will arise someday but it hasn't yet. it isn't likely to arise within my lifetime nor, I think, yours. Perhaps in our children's but I'm skeptical of even that. Not viable to full term. Possibly as spare parts but not as a new, complete individual.
Transplantation of embryos might become possible, but I wonder who will get to decide which have to be saved. What if no host can be found? What if the biological mother's not comfortable with having her genetic offspring raised by someone else? A bit irrational, perhaps, but no more so than insisting that a 6 week fetus has legal identity and moral rights.
Yes, yes, I know. She "should" have thought of that before having sex, right? Should. According to some. Because the putative rights of a clump of cells are more important than the freedom and happiness of a living woman. Right.
The fact remains that the effect of your proposal would be to remove the moral choice from the individual woman by legislation. I've no problem with the principle, as you know, but I just don't see the need in this instance.
Once again, the point isn't the viability at the beginning, it is actually working towards a different goal.
And BTW, right now they can remove an embryo and implant it in another woman. It isn't 100% successful, but it certainly can be done. The next step is to work toward an outside incubation process, I certainly think that there is a good chance that it too can be done in time.
Yet instead we work toward one goal only, end that life, and call it choice.
At least allow for the attempt to be made to further science. It even has the added benefit that the embryo that dies in such an event could easily, and without all the added negatives, be used in stem cell research if those who made the choice to practice this and advance science offered it.
I have made no insistence that a fetus has "putative" rights, that is you attempting to give me an opinion. I think it is more moral to work toward extending rather than ending life, true. But it certainly isn't the central reason behind my position. I believe that we can advance a science that in the end would give an amazing actual choice to the mother rather than the truncated, kill it or keep it that we currently have.
Then you continue on into some inane, "should have thought of that" argument that I never once propounded. This is a classical straw man argument.
I know it is easier to argue against your presumption (yes Dixie, it is the right word) rather than my points, but it isn't a legitimate refutation of my position because it simply doesn't even address it. It addresses some other opinion that wasn't expressed.
Also, addressing the "freedom of the woman", it would be exactly the same for her. In my proposition it includes the right of the mother to reject the fetus and allows for another the chance to accept it. Often people wait years upon years to gain adoption of a young child at birth, no longer would they have to wait so long. We'd have to work to remove the stigma of adoption in society, make it more accessible, including to homosexual partners, and cheaper.
True there would be issues with this, as there are with the current system, but we can always work with the change rather than this oddly conservative view of yours that we must not change one iota of this current system.
