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

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