Quoth the Rodent Queen, "Squeak."

religiousragings:

In light of some of the weaknesses that were pointed out in my previous analogy, I’m revising it as follows.

Suppose you woke up one day and found yourself attached by tubes to another living thing, and then you are told that this other living thing will die if you disconnect the tubes.  You, however, carry a low risk of injury if the tubes are removed by professionals.  You could easily die if you try to pull the tubes out yourself, however.  You, however, did not in any way want this living thing connected to you.

Supposed that you knew that this possibility was a known risk of being around another person that you love and interacting with this person in a historically normal manner. (The risk was compared to being like that of a sky diver by a commenter, but I feel that it would be hard to improve on this analogy.)  Your selection of people to love becomes limited if you do not choose to interact with them in a historically normal manner.

For a length of time, this other life that you are hooked up to is a houseplant, which then becomes an insect, which then becomes a turtle, and then (at some point close to 9 months) becomes a cute kitten, and then, at 9 months, becomes a full human being.

Please bear in mind that at every stage, even at the houseplant stage, the other living thing is a full POTENTIAL human being.  The houseplant has a 41% chance of reaching the human stage (based on success rates of in vitro fertilization).  If it makes you feel better, you can make the houseplant look exactly like an embryo.

If you are religious, you may try to imbue this houseplant with a human soul.  I am not religious however, and this argument will not work with me.  There is no scientific evidence for a soul whatsoever, nor is there ANY biblical support that a child in any stage of fetal development has a soul.  This contention would be based solely on unsupported opinion.

At any stage, you could lose friends or family if they find out that you have become tethered.  You could also lose your job.  The longer you wait, the greater the risk to your health it becomes.

Would you elect to carry this other life with you until it became a human being?

I suspect that this analogy will be somewhat more contentious than my first, but I strongly believe that it is much more accurate.  :)

~ Steve