Answering the Pro-Choice Thought Experiment

About this sermon

So everyone’s talking about a tweet posted by Patrick S. Tomlinson. See it here: https://twitter.com/stealthygeek/status/920085535984668672 In his tweet he lays out what he seems to think is an irrefutable pro-choice argument and it has gone viral. The setup is that he’s been posing this bullet proof question to pro-lifers for 10 years now and nobody can answer it. So, without even knowing what the argument or the question is, we’re already super intrigued. If you’re a pro-lifer, you’re probably thinking, OK, what is… maybe I’m the one pro-lifer that can answer it. If you’re a pro-choicer, you’re probably thinking, great, now I’ll finally have the argument to end all arguments and put those pro-lifers in their place. He points out that the question he asks them, creates an either-or dilemma that pro-lifers refuse to answer because, as he says, it destroys their arguments. Ironically, there has been no shortage of pro-life thinkers who have responded without any hesitation to answer the question. I’m doing it right now. So, this whole claim that pro-lifers refuse to answer this question doesn’t strike me as very credible. The scenario he describes is one in which you’re in a burning building which also happens to be a fertility clinic. As you run to escape, you notice a 5 year old child in a room in one corner and in another corner you see a “frozen container labelled 1000 viable human embryos”. For some reason, you only have time to save one. Which one do you save? He says that in a decade of arguing with pro-lifers he has never gotten a straight answer and “never will”. It’s amazing how many responses he did get and how quickly people started to complain that he blocked them on twitter. So, the thing I’d want to first point out about his “argument” is that it’s not an argument, it’s an hypothetical analogy. Now, analogies are useful in philosophical rhetoric, because we can use them to try to test our logic in a hypothetical real world scenario but they can’t serve in place of an actual argument. Arguments are built out of premises and conclusions, so if we want to approach his question logically, we have to try to tease out the actual logic since he didn’t do that for us. So, here’s the logic that I’ve gathered from it. He’s saying that in a life or death scenario where you have to make a choice between saving option a) and saving option b), whichever one you choose proves which one has more objective moral value. Ok, now that we understand the logic, let’s go back to the analogy because that’s what analogies are good for. They help us test our logic. If his logic is valid, then we should be able to preplace options a and b with anything we want and if we do so, we should end up with logically and morally consistent outcomes. If we find that the outcomes are absurd, then that’s a strong indication that the logic, is also absurd. Unfortunately for Patrick S. Tomlinson, you don’t have to think about it for very long to see how it becomes absurd. I’ll offer you an example. Let’s say option A) is my 5 year old child and option B) is your 5 year old child. Who do I save? Now, I’m sorry, this is nothing personal against you or your child, but I’m going to save my 5 year old child and this is in no way proof that my 5 year old child has more intrinsic moral value than your 5 year old child. I’m sure your 5 year old is great… I just like mine more. Try it again, let’s say it’s my 5 year old vs. three sleeping seniors in wheelchairs that can’t get out on their own. Again, I’m probably going to save my kid. That doesn’t prove that my one child has more intrinsic value than the three other people. The only thing this proves is that I’m biased and motivated by more than moral or logical principles. I’m also motivated by EMOTIONS which are incredibly powerful. And this is the great irony of his series of tweets. After he’s lifted the curtain on his bullet proof analogy, he quickly moves on to a hostile rant against pro-lifers accusing them of only ever offering emotional manipulation in place of logical argument because they simply want to control women. What’s more emotional then this crazy hypothetical life or death dilemma that none of us will ever find ourselves in. You don’t think your argument is emotionally charged? That’s all the analogy serves is to stir up an emotional reaction. I think it’s important for us to continue to have conversations about abortion and whether your pro-life or pro-choice or undecided, lets find better talking points to rally around than tweets like this. Please comment with your ideas about the video and if you find it interesting, please share it and subscribe. Twitter: https://twitter.com/briankeepsworth Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brianholdsworthmedia Business: https://www.holdsworthdesign.com