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Who's Killing More Babies, Us or Catholics
We argue that the Catholic Church's stance against IVF is counter to both scriptural interpretations and human biology, which imply life begins before conception. We explain how prominent Catholic figures and the Bible itself points to life starting in the womb, not at conception. We also highlight how identical twins and chimeras reveal flaws around the conception argument. Ultimately, we predict the existential threat of declining fertility will push the Catholic Church to accept IVF, allowing many potential lives to come into existence.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Biblical quotes do do a fairly good job of arguing that abortion is murder, but they actually also do a fairly good job at arguing that talking somebody out of IVF is also murder.
So the Jeremiah 1 5 says before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, which implies life begins before. For conception, just as we say, we also believe we can determine truth through investigations of nature and reality. After a sperm fertilizes an egg, that can split. And that's where identical twins come from.
, that would mean the human soul splits. But even more damning than that, human chimeras can also form. This is when two fertilized eggs end up combining together into a single human being if you look historically you look at people like Augustine of Hippo, . Said that the soul enters a developing [00:01:00] fetus, 40 days after it begins developing . Thomas Aquinas had the same view. I didn't realize how recently the Catholic church had made a switch on this issue, I think a lot of Americans, I did know how recently regular Protestants had made a switch on this issue, this was seen as like a weird Catholic thing,
Simone Collins: it's a weird Catholic thing that had only been around for about a hundred years. .
Malcolm Collins: When you look at studies that show that half of all men could be infertile without IVF by 2060, this is really important when you're talking about the future of the Catholic church.
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am so excited to be joining you for today's very, very spicy topic. And it is one that we have avoided going into detail on, mostly because I was like, let's just like not engage with it.
I don't want to create a fight within the pronatalist community or anything like that. And the group that we would be arguing the most against [00:02:00] within this episode are Catholics. And we love, don't worry. We love it. That's actually difficult for me because every religion, I have never. There's, there's no other religion where I have literally, really liked every single person I have ever met from that cultural group, except Catholics.
Catholics, I've literally liked every Catholic I have ever met. And
Simone Collins: yet
have you met an unpleasant Mormon? I'm sorry, but like I doubt that this is
Malcolm Collins: possible. , I, I have met unpleasant Mormons. Oh, that's too bad. Bad. There are some more progressive Mormons, which are really sort of statusy in a way that I find kind of annoying and cringe.
Oh. But generally I like Mormons a lot too. I, I, I'm giving you that. Okay. Okay. But, I've just never personally, and I think it's because I've met less Catholics than I've met Mormons, and that's why maybe I have this perception. Fewer. If you can
Simone Collins: count it, it's fewer, and if you can't, then it's more or less.
Of course, of course. Sorry, I
Malcolm Collins: gotta, you know. [00:03:00] So, so, I am starting that episode, this episode with that, because the other thing I need to admit going into this is I approach Catholicism with a lot of bias against it as a religious group, specifically for, it's an aesthetic bias. It's a bit like if I went to someone and I liked all of t
Published on 2 years ago