> I think there is a high percentage of chance that the zygote will self terminate.
There is. The figure that sticks in my head, off the cuff, is that something like in the neighborhood of a quarter or a third of pregnancies end so soon that the woman doesn't even find out she's pregnant -- a miscarriage is mistaken for (and in some ways actually is) a period.
If you want to know how I feel about this, I feel roughly the same as I do knowing that there are wars and oppression and disaster occurring in far away countries in which lots of people die. It is how the world is, and I can't change it. I didn't know those people, but it's tragic.
Turning to personal experience, I have detected an early miscarriage or two of my own. One I wasn't expecting and wasn't sure about, and it felt to me a bit like as if I came upon a dead stranger in the street. Tragic, if distant. One I was expecting and was sure about, and I mourned like the lost baby I felt it was -- she has a name and a grave.
> That makes people who have difficulties to have kids serial killers no?
I don't think so. The law recognizes a difference between trying to kill someone (murder) and accidentally killing someone while not specifically trying to (manslaughter). I think the law is right on this point, and intent matters. There's a funny and fuzzy line here -- manslaughter surely becomes more murderous as you raise the probability, right? Where's the line? I would say that morality is not so simple that you can place the line at, for example, 30% odds. If justice were something computers could do, we wouldn't need judges -- laws would be sufficient. ;) I would say more seriously that judging this sort of situation is a hard and human thing to do, and that philosophers with their pocket calculators tend to miss the point.
I would also say, in the case of trying to conceive, that living is so wonderful that it is well worth a chance of death, even if that chance is quite high. People even as adults generally believe life is worth risk, even extreme risk, and I see giving that chance -- risk and all -- to someone else as a kindness.
> I mean, my aunt had 19 zigotes implanted before she carried one to term, shouldn't this be illegal?
People who share my perspective are generally very uncomfortable with IVF. I certainly am, and would never do it myself. I think if my view were common, it probably would be illegal. But I can't claim this is well settled even within that community.
To be very clear, I don't intend to persuade you to agree with me. I was responding to the above poster who was incredulous that anyone could hold this belief. I do, and I know people who do, and I know communities that do, and you might be surprised by how many people it is, if you think it should be zero.
> Also, doesn't that makes people waiting to have kids (thus increasing the chance of early termination) immoral?
I would say no. And I would also say that the question gets at a deep, deep disagreement that I have with what seems to be a very dominant philosophical viewpoint.
You see, you seem to regard a chance of death as so important that it dominates all other calculations, and decisions must be made optimizing nearly exclusively on that variable. If the chance of a pregnancy being viable is 80% a this age and 70% at that age, it is actually immoral to try at that age.
The perspective I hail from sees this way of thinking as monomaniacal and unhealthy and perhaps a bit narcissistic. Trying too hard to optimize mortality is really beside the point -- everyone dies. You can't change that. And if you want to impact people in a positive way, you should do so writ large and awesome -- not fretting about how many toes you step on. By all means, be careful! But obsessing over that isn't good.
I see living a vibrant human life as much more important than being able to prove your negative impact on your neighbors was optimally minimal to three decimal places. In fact, I think that if you focus on that to such a degree that you neglect the awesome things you're supposed to be doing with your life, you've missed the point of living -- and that in itself is a great sin, tantamount to suicide. By all means, be careful not to hurt people! But making this a central focus out of a fear of judgement sacrifices too much on other axes. I would say that a life characterized by a fear of wrongdoing will always pale compared to a life animated by love. (I would also, paradoxically, say that a life animated by love will actually do a better job of not hurting people, at the end of the day -- both because it is generally more careful and makes better tradeoffs when it is less careful). I suppose that is one way to spell some of the magic of the gospel -- a dependence on grace is a secret key to righteousness because without it you don't have permission to fail.
One peculiar difference is that my way of viewing the world sees a big difference between statistical, unintended death and intentional murder. Paradoxically, I don't have a problem with declaring war, even though you know that statistically speaking innocent people will die, while I do have a problem with intentionally committing murder for a strategic advantage in the same war. I don't even care about the numbers at all -- the first could be a million and the second could be one, and I'd still care about the second much more. I don't care much about numbers and I care a lot about intent.
It is interesting to note that my worldview is Christian and therefore ancient -- forged in a very different world than this one. In the ancient world, infant mortality was high, regular mortality was high, and health care was nonexistent. It is easy to see how working too hard to shave points off of public mortality would have seemed pointless in such a world -- if you are lucky enough to have your life and health, do something with it! That was certainly the take of the ancients on the situation.
It is easy to see how the ancients might agree with me that working to improve public health is cool and all, if that's your calling, but that obsessing over your impact on your neighbor's health is kind of narcissistic and pointless. He's going to die of something else, and likely sooner rather than later, and in the mean time you've wasted your life -- which is precious and since you are lucky enough to have it, you have an absolute responsibility to do something!
The moderns don't see it that way. Since everyone's going to be healthy and long lived, small impacts are worth obsessing over. And somehow paradoxically, since life isn't such an unusual gift, wasting yours isn't a big deal.
Curiously, it's the ancients I disagree with in thinking murder's a big deal. While the Christians certainly thought so, many, many, many cultures saw the murder of the weak, poor, or infants as just... not a big deal. Certainly the Roman culture that Christianity was born in practiced routine infanticide, which the Christians rejected as ghastly.
The ancients held the view that since life was cheap, murdering a few people here and there was no big deal. I (and the moderns) strenuously disagree. The moderns hold the view that since death is rare, slight statistical increases are worth obsessing over, and since life is long and routine, wasting yours on such trivia is no big deal. I (and the ancients) would strenuously disagree.
I happen to think that's because my viewpoint is timeless and correct. ;) But one thing it certainly isn't is modern.