May 11, 2006

Every child a wanted child

In the link below, Dawn Eden said this:

There's one Planned Parenthood e-card with which I agree: Every child a wanted child. Every child is wanted by God, who wishes it to have the opportunity to thrive.


The second sentence makes no sense. Dawn believes a fertilized egg is a person -- this is the basis for her opposition to emergency contraception. Yet at least half of all fertilized eggs fail to implant naturally (search in-page for "fail to implant"), ie, God is the only agent responsible for the failure of these eggs to implant. Thus, God has denied over 50% of all "genetically unique [human] individuals" any "opportunity to thrive" whatsoever, over the entire million years of our species' existence.

If you include humans who were killed by natural disasters or disease before the age of 4 or so, I'd bet this number rises above 75% (and, if the 80% high estimate is accurate, it's more like 90 or 95%).

Empirically, there is good reason to say that God only wants a small fraction of humanity to have any opportunity to thrive.

This is one version of the Argument from Evil, and I have never seen a purported refutation of it that is not ridiculously ad hoc. (For example, I have heard that Al Plantinga's 'refutation' is that natural disasters and disease -- and presumably failures of fertilized eggs to implant -- are the fault of demons, whom God has given free will so they can choose whether or not to be virtuous.)

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