Summary

Defends embryo selection against “murder” accusations. Argues reproductive choice always involves selecting among possible futures; technology just makes it explicit.

Key Concepts:

Selection vs Annihilation:

  • Choosing one embryo over another ≠ killing a person
  • Potential lives vastly outnumber actual ones
  • Every reproductive decision forecloses countless possible people
  • Core error: Confusing virtual with actual, imagined with instantiated
  • Possibility ≠ personhood

Absurd Implications of “Murder” Framing: If not actualizing potential life = murder, then so is:

  • Abstaining from sex
  • Choosing different partner
  • Waiting a week to conceive

Making Implicit Explicit:

  • What changed: not nature of choice, but clarity
  • Decisions once vague/passive become structured/informed
  • Ethical discomfort from seeing how choices are made, not from choices themselves

No Moral Neutrality:

  • Not choosing is still a choice
  • Ignorance doesn’t absolve consequences
  • Declining to use knowledge = refusal of responsibility
  • Not eugenics, not coercion—individual agency informed by science

QBU Perspective:

  • All physically possible outcomes occur somewhere
  • Choosing one path doesn’t annihilate others—locates you within particular branch
  • Others continue, just not from your perspective
  • Moral significance: not who you exclude, but which future you take responsibility for
  • Agency in QBU: Not power to erase, but responsibility to steer

Tags

Cross-References

Notes

  • Provocative application of QBU to bioethics
  • Takes strong position on controversial technology
  • Demonstrates how QBU framework changes ethical reasoning
  • Published June 7—highly productive day across multiple domains
  • Consistent with agency-centric ethics and anti-coercion themes
  • Shows willingness to defend technologically progressive positions