Showing You That Embryos Do Not Have Same Value As Human Beings

I have often enjoyed the power of these thought experiments produced by Andy Schueler here at ATP. I thought I would make a post of it. If you ever have an abortion / personhood debate elsewhere, please signpost them to this piece.

Here are some little scenarios that should lead you to properly question the idea that embryos and fully fledged humans have the same value, and perhaps the same rights.

1. You are in a burning fertility clinic and you can either save the fifty-year-old janitor who lies unconscious on the floor, or you can save a box with a hundred human embryos ready for implantation, you only have the time to save one. Do you, or do you not, choose the box and let the janitor die? Would it change your answer if I multiply the number of embryos in the box by 10? Or by 100?

2. Similar to #1, but now you have to actively destroy the box with the human embryos yourself (instead of just passively letting it burn in the fire). Imagine you are carrying the unconscious janitor and the box with the embryos blocks your way, flames are all around you and you can only move forward by kicking the box to the side right into the fire. Would you kick the box into the fire to save the janitor, yes or no?

3. Your only way out of the burning fertility clinic is through the parking garage. You have the keys for two of the cars that are parked there – an old company van that has a cooling box with a human embryo ready for implantation in it, and your brand new shiny $250,000 Porsche. You have no special connection to the embryo (i.e. this is not an embryo derived from an in vitro fertilization of one of your wife's eggs and the two of you have been trying for years to have children without success or something like that – it´s just one of many embryos derived from IVF of some egg and sperm donors you don´t know). The company van is farther away than your Porsche, and getting to it poses a very small but non-negligible risk of dying (let's say about an about 1 in 10,000 chance). Which car do you pick, knowing that the other one will be destroyed by the fire?