You get this question sometimes in a debate with an atheist: what if a fertility clinic was on fire, and there was also a five-year-old trapped in the building along with all the frozen embryos? Doesn't it make more sense to save the five-year-old? I suppose it is in service to some nebulous idea of "consciousness," that human rights are to be attached only to those who are conscious, and frankly, able to defend themselves. But let us posit a few things in the scenario. First, I will posit that the individual in the scenario only has the capacity to save one person. Furthermore, the five-year-old is equally vulnerable; that is, if you don't help her, she'll die, as certainly as all the embryos. There might be some aspect of our decision-making that says, "if I don't urgently assist the embryo to remain frozen, shortly after we escape from this situation, that person may die anyway," but it is a true no-win scenario, in the crucial fact that a person will die. And many will die. Therefore, the only completely unacceptable option would be to do nothing. It would be acceptable and commendable to save the five-year-old. It would also be acceptable and commendable to save one of the embryos.
Meanwhile, we are forgetting that human beings would die, regardless of any choice. It wouldn't be a hard case, if there were not tragedy attached to it. That's exactly why "double effect" ethical reasoning exists: in a true no-win scenario, one has to make the best of the terrible situation, according to one's own capacity to do good.
The reason why direct, intentional abortion is unacceptable in various medical nightmare scenarios is that one intends to kill the unborn child. If a mother chooses not to treat her cancer, knowing that she will die if she does not, in the hope of saving her child yet born, by giving her a chance to live, she's a hero. Isn't it still commendable to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others? But the logic of all elective abortion scenarios is that those who sacrifice themselves for the sake of that vulnerable other are the fools. I might describe that with certain words, but "heroic" would not be among them.
Even the doctor who consents to treat the woman with cancer, knowing with an almost near-certainty that an unborn child will die is not in the same moral position as a doctor who aborts the child, and then treats the cancer. The doctor in the first scenario here does not intend to kill the child. In fact, she hopes that somehow, the child may live, unlikely as that may be.
In the end, when we think about all these challenging ethical scenarios--some of which are quite real--we must ask ourselves about the meaning of our own lives. If the world is meaningless, and truly so, none of these ethical scenarios have any resonance whatsoever. In a consistent nihilism, every possible ethical choice would be the same morally: it would be of no account.
I still think that everybody should give the various incarnations of Star Trek a look. Though its creator Gene Roddenberry, was something of an "optimistic atheist," whatever that means, his television shows did explore real ethical challenges. This is so even if the writers of various stories did not see the best answer--or present the best answer--as the solution to the problem.
I can recall one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation which is endlessly fascinating to me. The scenario is similar to the one I began with in this post.
The young ensign, Wesley Crusher, was taking an entrance exam for Starfleet Academy. One of the tests was called the "psych test," where the administrators would discover your deepest fear or weakness, and devise a scenario to measure your response in a crisis. This is somewhat similar to the vaunted "Kobayashi Maru" command crisis scenario, from the original Star Trek films. In any case, the test designers knew that Wesley's father had died on a mission, because of a command decision by his commanding officer. They had also known that Wesley feared making a decision in such a no-win scenario. They fabricated an explosion in another room, and presented Wesley with the opportunity to only save one of two men who were trapped in the apparently fatal situation. One man was unwilling to accept Wesley's assistance, because of fear. Wesley saved the other man, presuming that all three of them would die, if he did not choose. The true answer to this, and to my original scenario in this post, is that you do what you are able, and lament the rest. We don't need to play "gotcha" games, because real life is tragic enough. People have to make these tough decisions every day; I don't know if scoring points against supposedly ignorant theists is worth giving flippant answers to hard questions. In addition, lurking in the background of all these debates are unquestioned assumptions about meaning and purpose. What is a person? What are people meant to do? What would be contrary to the human design, and to the human purpose? Those are bigger questions than many of us realize, and some of us may find that we're not actually ready to answer them. God's existence--or the alleged lack thereof--is just a funny curiosity to some. Maybe something you talk about for fun over sandwiches in your college dorm. For my part, it is an urgent question every single day: What is my purpose? What do I intend to do today, to help me fulfill that purpose?
If there is no purpose to the lives we lead, what really does it matter, if I happen to believe in some cosmic daddy in the sky? If we have no purpose, I might as well die, as soon as my circumstances or others fail to bring me pleasure in the measure that I determine. To put a crass point on it, this is why a good number of the existentialists killed themselves: optimistic nihilism doesn't exist. Once you run out of the capacity to convince yourself that existence is a trip to the carnival, there doesn't seem to be much point in hanging around.
I suppose I should say something hopeful, to wrap it up. It's just this: I believe in a good God, who created me, and all that we see. Whatever horrific suffering I may endure from now until the day that I die, I believe that he'll make it up to me. This is what St. Paul meant when he said, "for I consider that the sufferings of this present life are nothing, compared to the glory that will be revealed to us." If that's even partially true, then bring it on.
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