Some guy called Patrick Tomlinson tweeted what he considered to be proof positive that the “life begins at conception” crowd are hypocrites. Briefly, he proposed a situation where a pro-lifer is trapped in a burning fertility clinic and can rescue only a five-year-old child crying for help or a frozen box labeled “1000 Viable Human Embryos.” Which would you choose? The child, of course. GOTCHA! You don’t really believe life begins at conception. Ba-da-bum.
Matt Walsh skillfully and logically took his silly hypothetical to pieces. Just one paragraph of his article:
“It doesn’t matter how I value them personally. It’s their intrinsic value that matters. I value my family over your family but your family has the same intrinsic value. I’m making the decision based, as I said before, on emotion. I can see the child. I hear him crying. I’m looking him in the eyes. I grab him. It’s instinct. But there’s also some logic to it. I don’t really know how many of those embryos are still viable and whether they’ll ever be implanted and given the chance to develop. Again: this calculation WOULD NOT justify killing the embryos under any circumstance, but it would justify my decision to save the child instead. By the way, if it were a five-year-old and a 70-year-old in there, I’d save the five-year-old. If it were a five-year-old and Patrick Tomlinson in there, I’m still saving the five-year-old. Sorry, Pat. But does that mean Pat’s life has less value? Does that mean I could crush his skull and suck his brains out with a vacuum hose? No, it just means that my emotional impulse leads me to the child, not the pretentious pro-abortion dude who spends his time posing disingenuous hypotheticals.”
Tomlinson responded to Walsh’s response: “Oh Matty. If only I gave a shit what you think.”
Wait, what? Didn’t he specifically ASK pro-lifers to respond to his hypothetical?!
Walsh pithily responded with this.
Another tweeter added the cymbal crash with:
“It’s like watching Batman solve the Riddler’s puzzle, and the Riddler’s subsequent tantrum afterward.”
LOL!
Sources:
- Walsh’s entire response to Tomlinson’s hypothetical is worth reading.