Asymmetrical Information

Sorry, this doesn't fly. If you have unprotected sex say 100 times, we can treat it as a near certainty (which is what I think you meant rather than "inevitability" -- inevitables are by definition unavoidable) that you will end up creating a zygote. If you use effective birth control those 100 times instead, you are effectively eliminating that inevitability. The result is still one less fetus.

How about fertility clinic embryos?

I'm a bit puzzled as to how you can reconcile your eloquently-expressed recognition of the fact that parents have responsibilities toward their children, and your willingness to give social sanction to mothers' decisions to fatally renege on those responsibilities toward their offspring in-utero.

But, Matt, contracepting doesn't target an existing human for death. It merely severely reduces the likelihood that an as-of-yet hypothetical human being will come into existence.

There's a world of difference between refraining from making a new person, and snuffing one once you've created him.

A fetus isn't inevitable for two reasons. First it may spontaneously abort, as happens in a number of cases (20-30% iirc.) Second, because the woman can choose to abort it. (This doesn't need to be a violent, medically assisted abortion. An anorexic diet will cause spontaneous abortion in most cases.)

This is not a circular argument; fetal development is simply not inevitable. To contrast, the progress of time is inevitable, independent of all human choices.

Fetal development is likely, not inevitable. Likewise, given unprotected sex, fetal development is likely but not inevitable. In terms of mitigating probable fetal development, birth control is not meaningfully different than abortion. (The statistics might show different numbers, but the principle, seen in terms of potential, is the same.)

The abortion issue boils down to one thing, either the fetus is a person or it is not. To say it has the "potential" to become a person is irrelevant.

"There is a difference between sperm swimming towards an ova, and a complete and fully functional set of human DNA."

Well, yes. The difference is a few molecular combinations. My skin cells have fully functional human DNA, what of it? It's still just a skin cell, and a zygote is still jstt a zygote.

"There is a difference between taking action against a single specific potential baby, whose DNA blueprint is already written and under construction; and preventing the conception of any of a few million potential DNA combinations, of whom the fetus you are aborting was only one, improbable, combination."

Again, there is a difference but there is no reason why that difference should matter. In one case, we know which DNA blueprint we are stopping from development, in the other we don't. Either way, not baby is born, no person ever develops. What does it matter if we know their DNA or not?

DNA molecules are just a molecules. They can't support the ethical importance you are trying to assign to them. It comes across as a kind of molecule superstition or idolatry.

Christina,

What is the difference? The two scenarios are equivalent in terms of the number of persons prevented from coming into existence. This strikes me as sort of an abortion broken window fallacy -- focusing on the redily visible costs of a policy while ignoring the unseen intangible costs.

I also reject the insistence that a fetus is a person on semantic grounds. Calling a fetus a person is like calling a seed that's barely just begun to sprout a flower. It just doesn't work. Concepts are fuzzy, but people who use this rhetorical tactic are obviously overextending this one beyond its peoper use. Can we not just acknowledge that a fetus is a fetus and exists in its own fuzzy mental and ethical category between agenthood and objecthood?

I'm not shilling for one side or the other in the legal argument over abortion, I just object to bad arguments.

Also, even if we agree in arguendo that existant fetuses have greater moral weight than hypothetical ones, this still doesn't save Jane's argument. Her reason for rejecting the "potential person" argument simply replaces "potential" with "certain to be a", but doesn't actually argue with the assertion that a fetus is not yet a person. Presumably because she's too smart and intellectually honest to try to make that sort of stretch.

Matt: you're wrong on two counts.

Over the course of a year, the average couple having frequent unprotected sex has a much smaller than 100% chance of conceiving a viable pregnancy. Assuming that once every three days is not an unreasonable goal for a young and fertile couple, your numbers don't hold.

Second, you're completely missing the distinction I'm making between potential and actual. It's not perfectly logical, I grant, but then humans aren't, and if you want to get down there in the dirt and argue philosophy, I guarantee you that I can catch you insisting on some logically unprovable assertion--say, "liberty is good"--within five minutes. I am saying that there is not a smooth continuum from sperm to 20-year-old, but rather that there is a major discontinuity the occurs at conception, which makes using contraception 100 times much less bad--in fact, to my mind, not really bad at all--than aborting one fetus.

To go back to the drunk driving example, someone who drives drunk 100 times will almost certainly kill someone. Why, then, do we not treat them like murderers when we catch them, given that we know that people who drive (really) drunk are likely to do it 100 times if they do it once? Why, for that matter, do we treat attempted murder differently from murder?

Boo: by the time women know they are pregnant, and are preparing to abort, the likelihood of miscarriage is pretty low, particularly among the young fertile women who are the most likely to get abortions.

It seems to me that we are talking about games of probability here. Putting aside the question of whether a fetus is a person, and accepting the fact that a baby *is* a person, the probability of a fetus becoming a baby currently is about 80-85% (miscarriage rates are about 15-20%, lower for younger women, higher for older).

If you focus only on potential babyhood (which sidesteps the fetus is person question) then you have to acknowledge a sex act in the absence of birth control also has a probability of babyhood. The best data I can find indicates that the odds of conception for a couple that is reasonably sexually active (2-3 times a week) for a year is about 85%. This gives a probability of babyhood for a couple that is sexually active for a year of 72.25% (85% chance of conception, 85% chance of birth)).

So how big is the difference between eliminating an 85% probability of babyhood vs eliminating a 72.25% probability of babyhood? The probability of babyhood prevented by abortion is only 20% greater than the probability of babyhood prevention from using birth control for a year.

Please note, I am not advocating *against* birth control or aborting here, just trying to bring the discussion back to real data. I think your *perception* of the certainty of birth from pregnancy is exaggerated, and your *perception* of the probability of the birth of a child from not using birth control is lower than reality.

Jane,

According to the FDA the pregnancy rate over a year for a sexually active couple using no birth control is 85%.

It is a biological fact that a fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. Even Peter Singer (the famous/notorious utilitarian who advocates legalized infanticide up to age 1 or so) concedes as much.

One of the biggest logical fallacies of the pro-choice movement is that they conflate being a "person" with being a "human."

Personhood is a philosophical distinction. You can define personhood to be anything that you want it to be. But you can not define human to be anything that you want it to be.

So how big is the difference between eliminating an 85% probability of babyhood vs eliminating a 72.25% probability of babyhood? The probability of babyhood prevented by abortion is only 20% greater than the probability of babyhood prevention from using birth control for a year.

quadropole has some serious misapprehensions about the simple mechanics of gametic reproduction.

Given the declining oil reserves and our HIGH dependence on oil for agriculture, there won't be enough food in the near future (20-40 years) too support 6.5 billion people. Farmers, as a matter of necessity, will be forced to roll back practices to pre-oil or severely reduce oil consumption ways.

I think forcing people to have more children (anti-abortion) is an evil evil hardship that we will be putting on our children. Studies have shown that upwards of half the earths population will perish due to the lack of food and water. If you consider abortion to be murder, then ask yourself this: Would you rather have them die at the hands of starvation or before they can even feel, think, and be?

Right now, nearly ALL arable land that can be used for farming is being used for farming. That land usage WITH oil supports us billions (and still people go starving). The use of oil (fertilizer) increases crop output by 2 times if not more. That is going away in any newborn's lifetime.

PEAK OIL is coming. be warned. Ever since we started using oil we started running out. It is inevitable. 84 million barrels a day less every day. And the environmental destruction, I won't even go into. There may not even be a planet left when our children are grown. The rate of species loss is equal to the rate of less at the last great extintion. Us humans are in some deep sh*t.

But we have TV; and politicians will put the problem off for the next administration. So we are ok. no? Are we insane? The world thinks so.

AT

Please correct my flaws in understanding.

Jane,

"Over the course of a year, the average couple having frequent unprotected sex has a much smaller than 100% chance of conceiving a viable pregnancy. Assuming that once every three days is not an unreasonable goal for a young and fertile couple, your numbers don't hold."

See quadropole's comments and his FDA link. He's already covered this. It's your numbers that aren't holding.

"I am saying that there is not a smooth continuum from sperm to 20-year-old, but rather that there is a major discontinuity the occurs at conception, which makes using contraception 100 times much less bad--in fact, to my mind, not really bad at all--than aborting one fetus."

Take some sodium and take some chlorine and pour them down seperate drains. Then take some more and mix them to make sodium chloride, then pour the mixture down another drain. What is the difference between these two scenarios? (NB: no appeals to vitalism or souls allowed.)

"My skin cells have fully functional human DNA, what of it? It's still just a skin cell, and a zygote is still jstt a zygote."

A zygote is a unique example of its specie. A human zygote is a unique human entity. A skin cell, on the other hand, is simply one cell of an organism. The differences are visible microscopically, and become manifest over time.

"The two scenarios are equivalent in terms of the number of persons prevented from coming into existence."

No, because contracepting keeps sperm and ova from coming together, just as abstaining keeps sperm and ova from coming together. Nobody comes into existence.

But with abortion, a new human entity has already come into existence. Abortion then kills that entity, which had already been created.

An artist who rejects ideas in his mind without ever painting them destroys nothing. But if, after putting paint to canvas, he then throws the results into the fire, he has destroyed his handiwork. Preventing conception by whatever means, be it abstaining or wearing a condom or keeping the ova from ripening, does no harm to any human entity. But abortion destroys an already created entity.

Matt, a fetus is potentially a newborn, but it is already a fetus, just as a newborn is potentially a todder and a toddler potentially an adult.

Every human being ever conceived eventually dies, so to argue that there's nothing "certain" because the fetus might die prior to birth makes no more sense than applying the same logic to a toddler on the grounds that he might not survive into adulthood.

Christina,

"But with abortion, a new human entity has already come into existence."

*chomp* Stop right there. You're committing rhetorical sleight of hand with this "human entity" business, and I object. I take it you're defining a fertilized egg cell as a "human entity," but this seems like a pretty big conceptual stretch. Most fertilized egg cells fail to implant, so are you saying that most "human entities" die before anyone even knows that they existed? What exactly is the mysterious essence of humanhood you're appealing to here?

"An artist who rejects ideas in his mind without ever painting them destroys nothing."

This also makes no sense to me. Getting a great idea but then failing to act on it until you've forgotten it is analogous to failing to save important work on your hard drive and then having your machine crash. Of course something significant has been destroyed.

quadropole, I had gone through life with the incorrect notion that women either are or are not pregnant. Thank you for revealing the truth to me, that all women are each 72.75% pregnant all the time.

I think were we may be running into problems here is that Jane, in her previous post, sought to mount an argument for why abortion was bad while at the same time sidestepping the 'is a fetus a person' argument. I for one do not wish to have the 'is a fetus a person' argument (it's tiresome as neither side really makes headway on the other).

The problem with Jane's argument for why abortion is 'bad' without having to discuss fetus personhood, is that it applies nearly as well (as I mentioned via data above) to birth control as to a fetus.

When this is pointed out, a great many people (including it would appear Jane) seek to counter the 'birth control is nearly as bad as abortion under the restrictions of your last argument' point by bringing in a 'special status' of a fetus point. Unfortunately that point quickly decends into an argument about the personhood of the fetus, which we where seeking to avoid having.

Apologies to all if I'm simply thick and missing some cosmically important point somewhere along the line.

The "the fetus might die anyway" argument for justifying abortion doesn't work, and isn't consistent with our laws regarding homicide. Consider a famous case from California in the late nineteenth century: A man is walking down the street and sees his worst enemy lying in the street, dying from a mortal gunshot wound. He is overcome by rage and shoots the dying man between the eyes, killing him instantly. The man is arrested and charged with murder. At trial (before a judge--no jury), the man freely admits his actions but defends himself thusly: "Your Honor, he had but a few moments to live in any event." The judge looks the defendant between the eyes and replies grimly: "And he was as entitled to those few moments as any of us are to our given span of years. Guilty." If that is how the law of homicide works--and it is, to this day--how can it be an argument for the permissibility of abortion that a fetus *might* die from natural causes before coming to term if left alone?

Matt, every human eventually dies. To argue that you're not human until you pass some developmental milestone after which you have a certain probability of survival is nonsensical because ultimately, none of us survives.

Matt, let's try again.

Mozart dies young. Think of all the music that died with him! All the beautiful works that were never composed! But those works never existed. Mozart took to his grave only the potentil for those works.

Had Salieri snuck into the Mozart home during the funeral and burned all of his rival's compositions, he'd have destroyed actual works.

A fetus exists. Clearly something is being destroyed, else abortion clinics wouldn't have the pesky problem of getting rid of the little dismembered corpses.

So, Matt, if we posit a country in which there is a 28% infant mortality rate in the first year, does this mean that babies are not then people until after their first birthday? (There have been cultures like this.)

When people reach age 95 and their annual mortality rate gets above 20%, do they stop being people?

And can you kill these *specific* non-people with impunity, just because they had a theoretical chance of dying higher than x%?

There is a clear difference between preventing the forming of a zygote or the implantation of one, and killing one once it has implanted. They are acts of commission against a theoretical possibility, omission/commission against a (unknown and previously theoretical) real entity, and then commission against a specific known real entity, respectively.

(The word "entity" is used in the above to avoid arguments about what constitutes "personhood".)

I am saying that there is not a smooth continuum from sperm to 20-year-old, but rather that there is a major discontinuity the occurs at conception, which makes using contraception 100 times much less bad--in fact, to my mind, not really bad at all--than aborting one fetus.

Are you saying that the difference between a zygote and a twenty-year-old is more significant than the difference between a zygote and a sperm/ovum pair?

Jane:

You're still not addressing the one really important question. Why does it matter that a zygote or fetus has the potential to become a person, or that its "DNA blueprint is already written and under construction?"

Why should we be concerned with any question other than whether a fetus is a thinking, intelligent individual?

Because if that was the only thing that mattered, it would be legal to kill people who are in a coma, even if they are expected to eventually recover.

I think this whole line of argument is a red herring. Why should it matter how one chooses to define a fetus which is gestating within a woman? What ought to matter is whether or not a woman is sovereign over her own body. The American citizen (and libertarian) in me thinks that she is sovereign over her body and consequently gets to decide for herself.

Why should it matter how one chooses to define a fetus which is gestating within a woman?

Because if a fetus can be considered to be a human being--whether from the point it becomes a fetus (or before), or at some point later in the pregnancy--it would logically gain rights that attach to persons under the US Constitution and under similar systems of laws in other nations. This wouldn't mean that abortion would be necessarily be banned, but it would require a balancing test of some kind, just as the right of self-defense requires balancing the constitutional right of life of two or more individuals based on the actions of the respective parties. Pretending that the problem doesn't exist is dishonest and that dishonesty is one of the greatest weaknesses of the pro-choice movement.

A parasite can't make legal claims on a host.

Ariel: estoppel.

"Why should we be concerned with any question other than whether a fetus is a thinking, intelligent individual?"

"Because if that was the only thing that mattered, it would be legal to kill people who are in a coma, even if they are expected to eventually recover."

No it wouldn't. A person in a coma is a thinking, intelligent individual, even if he's not thinking right this minute. Same goes for a person who's sleeping. His brain has all the attributes of personhood, but it's temporarily powered down.

An embryo, on the other hand, hasn't got a brain at all. It's no more a person than my left hand is. Now it might grow a brain and thereby become a person, but there's a big difference between a brain that's powered down and a brain that doesn't exist.

Ken:

A baby is thinking but not intelligent, no more than a cow or a dog is. I see you'd have no problem with throwing all of them in the wood chipper.

"Women must control their own bodies!" Give me a break. Society is constantly telling people what they can and cannot do with their bodies. That's what laws do. Women have some responsibility for their babies, even in utero. The limits of that responsibility are debatable, but not its existence.

"Why should it matter how one chooses to define a fetus which is gestating within a woman? What ought to matter is whether or not a woman is sovereign over her own body. The American citizen (and libertarian) in me thinks that she is sovereign over her body and consequently gets to decide for herself."

This, and similar comments, entirely miss Jane's point: She's discussing whether abortion (other than to preserve the life and health of the woman) is moral or immoral. She's already conceded that abortion, whether moral or not, should be legal. Just because we have the legal right to do something does not make that course of action or inaction laudable or praise worthy.

In the case of abortion as a form of birth control, abortion is immoral because it springs from our most selfish and least ennobling emotions. It is immoral because it cheapens our respect and reverence for life and thereby coarsens our society and weakens our families. In this abortion is companion with a host of fellow travelers that are legal but should not be celebrated or even welcomed. Strip clubs are legal in most of our communities. Prostitution is legal in parts of Nevada. Pardon me if I prefer that my daughters not work in either industry or that I'd prefer my son not be a patron of such establishments.

David Walser,
Stump speeches carrying SUCH a strong whiff of sanctimony about strippers, tarts and your pursed-lipped hopes for your own children in these matters do not exactly advance the argument.

Jody - Thank you for your well intentioned pointers on effective debating technique. Perhaps, in addition to telling me that I failed to move the ball down the field, you might also suggest how I could have better accomplished my goal. Should I have better accomplished my purpose if I used a tad less sanctimony such that it's aroma would not have so strong? Or, are you saying that sanctimony is entirely inappropriate in a discussion about what is and what is not worthy of moral approbation?

Is "sanctimony" the term that you meant to use? My dictionary defines the word: "Feigned piety or righteousness; hypocritical devoutness or high-mindedness." That would seem to be an in apt term in this context, unless you mean to suggest that I do not, indeed, find the things mentioned in my prior post immoral and that I am a patron of strip clubs and brothels. I hope, since we have never met, that was not your meaning. If, however, you meant by "sanctimony" an "overly judgmental" tone, I will admit to being somewhat nonplussed. How does one express a belief that something is morally wrong without sounding judgmental?

In defense of my original post, I think my point was clear: Many of the comments were focused on the question of whether or not abortion should be legal while Jane's point was that abortion is immoral. To illustrate that what is immoral is not always illegal, I cited two examples of legal activities many, if not most, would agree are immoral.

David,
I was using "sanctimony" as a synonym for a display of high-mindedness - not - in any way at all - hypocrisy.
I waved my finger at you for not advancing the debate because the "legal but morally intolerable" argument against abortion becomes muddied by hauling in prostitution and strip clubs - neither of which involve the status of a fetus.
The "pardon me" trope irked, too.
But that's just a personal niggle.

I'm jumping in late, but I've noticed that people are still conflating personhood with humanhood, and zygotes with skin cells. Biologically that makes no sense. It is settled biological fact that an unborn fetus is a human being. It is noteworthy that the famous utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer admits as such.

For those who are unimpressed by an appeal to authority (biological fact, not Peter Singer), here is a decent definition of life that explains why a zygote is a human being and skin cell is not:

a living thing is anything that has an internal blueprint of itself (i.e. DNA), and the intrinsic capacity to build itself based upon that blueprint. Abortion supporters tend to overlook the �intrinsic building capacity� aspect of the definition of life. For example, they often bring up toenail clippings and discarded skin or hair cells because they have DNA and yet are non-persons. But toenail clippings also lack the intrinsic building capacity. Sperm and unfertilized eggs are also frequently mentioned in the abortion debate. They are non-human for a much simpler reason - they have only half a set of DNA. But a fertilized egg is alive: It has the full set of DNA and the intrinsic ability to build itself from the blueprint of its DNA. A fertilized egg relies on the mother for nourishment but it does not need the mother for either genetic material or the building process. Those are internal to the fetus.

http://www.irrationalknowledge.com/11-10-2005/pro-life-i-personhood/

"...abortion is immoral because it springs from our most selfish and least ennobling emotions. It is immoral because it cheapens our respect and reverence for life and thereby coarsens our society and weakens our families."

I must agree with David's point, adding that here we seem to be judging intent rather than action, motives rather than consequences. The consequences of abortion vary according to your point of view and regard for the unborn, whatever you choose to call it. That is, the consequence of abortion is either mere aborted tissue or loss of human life, depending on who's watching and how they regard what has been taking place in the uterus.

How strange that something so easy to analyze physically defies definition, and yet the intangible and private motives for having an abortion are so much easier to pass judgment on. I agree with David's assessment; it is primarily a selfish act even if only insofar as it protects the physical self - which we have a right to do. And because of that, I am suspicious of mine or anyone else's vehement defense of that right vs. the right of something (a fetus) that creates so much controversy. I haven't had to do it, so I have no ground to judge. But it's hard to take those who aren't suspicious of their own motives on this issue very seriously.

"A baby is thinking but not intelligent, no more than a cow or a dog is."

Of course a baby is intelligent. It's also ignorant. There's a difference.

Also, there's a hell of a lot of difference between a brain that's halfway developed and almost entirely untrained and one that is completely, utterly nonexistent.

It all comes down to the brain. The rest of the body could be completely discarded and replaced, given the right technology, with no harm to the person.

"I'm jumping in late, but I've noticed that people are still conflating personhood with humanhood"

I'm trying to deconflate them. There may be bona-fide people living elsewhere in the universe, but they're not the least bit human. And embryos without brains may be human beings, but they aren't persons. An embryo may deveop into a person. Hell, it might develop into two persons! In fact, two embryos might develop into one person... was someone killed in the process?

"and zygotes with skin cells."

Zygotes are just as much people as skin cells are.

A fetus is not inevitably a person. What we call an abortion is more accurately called an induced abortion. There are in fact spontaneous abortions or miscarriages which occur, as well as still births. Thus it is not inevitable that a fetus will become a "person", assuming of course, that you don't already believe it is one from the moment of conception.

Um, Ken... What kids of messed up headless embryos do you have? ;) Ok, it depends on the stage of development. Embryos have complete brains, with detectable brainwaves, around 7 weeks after fertilization, or at 9 weeks of development. That's still firmly in the "embryo" stage, and certainly when plenty of people think abortions should be legal. About a month or less after a woman finds out she's pregnant, generally.

And they're humans, too. I mean, they're not bananas or cows. They are humans. Right number of chromosomes. Right genes. All that good stuff.

"Embryos have complete brains, with detectable brainwaves, around 7 weeks after fertilization, or at 9 weeks of development. That's still firmly in the "embryo" stage, and certainly when plenty of people think abortions should be legal. About a month or less after a woman finds out she's pregnant, generally."

Then we should require that she get off her ass and get one before that stage, or suck it up and give the kid up for adoption. Surely a few weeks isn't too long to make up her mind. Hell, she should have made up her mind about this long before she even started having sex.

Sell emergency contraception over the counter. Birth control pills, too, while we're at it.

Ken -

there is a difference in degree in the intelligence of a child and that of an adult which is more than just a matter of "ignorance". However, the bigger moral problem with your argumetn is that there exist humans with severely damaged brains, who are likely not any more intelligent than an animal we'd consider moral to kill for food. Terri Schaivo was an extreme case, but there are cases where the damage and impairment is not quite so severe, yet the human involved is no longer "intelligent", and not likely to become so again. Is it moral to kill such humans? (Remember, that even in the case of Terri Schaivo, death was caused by ceasing to feed and hydrate Terri, not by injecting her with poisons to stop her heart.)

"So why am I not against abortion? Because I don't want to put the state in the business of compelling women to donate their bodies for gestational purposes, any more than I want to get the state in the business of preventing people from saying cruel and devastating things to their spouses."

But we do let the state prevent spouses from killing each-other. We also would not allow a mother to kill (using her body I would assume is required for this) a baby.

My take on the morals regarding the "woman's right to control her body" thing is this - I grant that no woman should have to unwillingly serve as an incubator. However, that does not equate to a "right" to a dead baby.

If the woman wishes to stop being pregnant, and the baby is viable or near viable, then society has a right to demand that the method be used that results in the maximum chance for that child to live, consistent with the health of the mother.

Once the child is viable, it is (or can be defined as) a person with a right to live equivalent to the mother's, a right of health equivalent to the mother's, and so on. Society does have the right to agree (which is what laws are) what the tradeoffs between the rights of the two individuals involved are.

Oh, and Ken and Eamon - please read up on myelinization and child development. A human child doesn't have a "completed" brain until roughly age 6. A baby isn't just "ignorant", it's incomplete and under construction.

Psychological studies show clear and distinctive changes between birth and 6. So, you can "scientifically" claim that a child isn't a "person" until age 6, and that a 1-year-old baby isn't "inevitably" going to become a person either. Some die of natural causes. So what?

It's hilarious, but even in feminist circles no one ever asks a pregnant woman, "How's your fetus?" Or consoles someone who just had a miscarriage, "I'm so sorry you lost your fetus."

Meanwhile, on the law side, I think Roe is a reasonable compromise that the Supreme Court was irresponsible in forcing on the country. That's my 2c.

Brad, you said:

"I think forcing people to have more children (anti-abortion) is
an evil evil hardship that we will be putting on our children.
Studies have shown that upwards of half the earths population
will perish due to the lack of food and water. If you consider
abortion to be murder, then ask yourself this: Would you rather
have them die at the hands of starvation or before they can even
feel, think, and be?"

So how do you build a viable future?

Surely part of that of the solution would be holding positive
feelings towards human cultures that are not exponentially
exploding?

And if you don't have that attitude just how is it that expect
to solve this problem?

I'm pretty sure that the native birth rate of the U.S. is
below replacement. In fact I imagine if you look at certain
sectors it's actually imploding. And certainly there are many
other countries that are even worse off, where the birth rate
is low enough that a dramatic population decrease seems an
inevitable part of their near future.

So if you're concerned about population explosion why are you
preaching to these people? They are already dying.

What's that I hear? You want them to die even faster.

How do you deal with cloning then? It is inevitable that cloning technology will progress enough to be able to "clone" humans one day. Does that mean that every human cell, with its complete set of chromosomes and DNA, is equivalent to an embryo?

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