Murderers! We're All Murderers!

infertile, murder, tiller, abortion, sex, egg, sperm, pregnant, prochoice, prolife,
(Except you infertile people. You're free to go.)

In the wake of the murder of Dr. Tiller, and subsequent closing of his clinic, I thought I would mention something about the "life begins at conception" meme. (I believe it was PZ Myers who said this first. I'm just riffing off of it, because it really can't be said enough.)

"Life begins at conception" is an incorrect statement because of the word begins. The use of the word begin implies that prior to this beginning, whatever it was that began wasn't there before the beginning. To put it simply, if I told you that the episode of House we are watching began at 8:00 pm (EST), you would correctly assume that prior to 8:00, this episode was not airing.

Saying that life begins at conception implies that there was no life prior to conception. So what are sperm and eggs, dead? Eggs do just float around, but have you ever seen a sperm? Busy little suckers, aren't they? Don't exactly look unalive to me.



A more correct statement would be that life continues at conception, if you happen to equate the potential for things with the things themselves. (Which is like regarding a canvas and some paint as great art, but whatever.)

If you're being intellectually honest, and you actually do believe that life continues at conception, why aren't you up in arms about the billions and billions and billions of "lives" being lost every day? Every month during a woman's cycle, an egg is released from one or the other of her ovaries. If she doesn't get pregnant, that egg dies. Why aren't the "life continues at conception" people crying "murder!" over that. I would be a murderer about 120 times over.

You know why they don't say that? Because if they did, they would have to insist that every girl have sex with the intention of getting pregnant from the moment she got her first period (though at that point, she would already be a murderer). Which would mean insisting that 9 year old girls have sex.

What about men? They're even more prolific murderers. Each ejaculation contains millions of sperm, millions of little lives. If those sperm don't combine with an egg, they die. Well, you might say, that's why I'm against masturbation. Sorry, no. Even if a man impregnates a woman, only one of those sperm continues on. The other million or so die.

That's right, even a successful pregnancy results in death. Lots of death.

Clearly, the only way to prevent such wanton slaughter is get one man to ejaculate two or three times, castrate that man, and all other men on the planet, then use the sperm, one by one, to impregnate every woman every time they produce eggs, including 9 year old girls.

Any suggestions as to which man we should use?