X-Message-Number: 15187 Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 00:46:57 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Failure to Produce Offspring Lee Corbin, #15171, says ... >... I submit that we should regard each human >life as quite valuable, I agree, >and praise those (who we call parents) >who rescue people from non-existence. But I don't agree that making a person rescues that person from nonexistence. The multiverse idea, to which I subscribe, provides that any given person, instantiated in some finite construct, *must* come into existence over and over, and this must follow no matter what any one person or persons may do either for or against. Of course I can feel gratitude to my parents for the hard work they did in giving rise to and raising me. But I feel no moral obligation to follow in their footsteps. I can contribute in other ways to what I see, overall, as a good thing, namely, the human community, which I hope to see develop into a community of immortals. > In other words, abortion >is bad because someone doesn't get to live---but it's not quite >as bad as failing to conceive in the first place, for which a >lot of us are guilty. > No, again I disagree. Not creating a life is not as bad as destroying one that is already here, assuming we are talking about a sentient creature. (Not all abortions are of sentient creatures, however.) If my parents hadn't made me, yes, I wouldn't be here, but I would, once again, be somplace else, if the multiverse idea is correct. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15187