Somewhere Else

 

All of my posts thus far have been somewhat long and in-depth, but with two midterm exams last week and some things in my personal life exploding, my brain isn't functioning at full capacity right now. So this post will be shorter in an attempt to help my mental state. The on-brand part that Janet is referring to? The fact that every couple of weeks I get too stressed to function and my brain runs away to somewhere else. Anywhere else, really.

Anyways. Bioethics.

The discussions this week start off with chapter 7, which is on impaired babies and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Again we're referencing the personhood debate and looking at what qualifies a human as a person, and what qualities of life are worth fighting for. 

There are several interesting cases in this chapter, though the main cases that had long-term effects on the considerations of disabled children were the Infant Doe case in 1982 and the Baby Jane Doe case in 1983-84. These cases were highly publicized and the media was very involved. This brings up the question of media ethics as well. How much bias do the media introduce? And is it ethical for them to be reporting on these cases? And if so, how much information should be available to the public?

The main ethical issues cited in this case are selfishness (referring to the potential parents of a child born with severe disability or impairment), personal versus public cases (referring to the debate between keeping this a decision of the parents and getting others involved), abortion versus infanticide (referring to the arguments between the abortion of a fetus and the death of an infant after birth), the personhood of impaired neonates (self-explanatory), various kinds of euthanasia and what the definition of euthanasia covers, degrees of defect (referring to the child), and wrongful birth versus wrongful life (again, self-explanatory). 

There were good points raised about all of these potential ethical dilemmas in the chapter, I always appreciate the full discussion by the author (Pence). The most interesting one to me from this topic though was the idea of wrongful birth versus wrongful life. It's important to think about the definition of harm and the concept of good, considering both baseline harm (requires an adverse change in someone's condition) and abnormal harm (someone is injured by being brought into existence with some defect that could have been avoided by taking reasonable precautions) (Pence 184-185). Total harm in the law is then called wrongful life, the case in which the lives of some babies are so miserable that their existence implies and revolves around harm (Pence 185). 

I don't really have answers for any of the questions raised. It is possible that if I had additional brain space I would, but for now I'm going to let it simmer and continue to think over this as I work toward finding my own opinions. 

Until then, my thoughts will probably be (mostly) somewhere else.

Textbook reference:

Pence, Gregory. Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases. 9th ed., McGraw Hill, 2021.

Category 55 Emergency Doomsday Crisis

 

I would be lying if I said that this week's topic was easy for me. The first five chapters/sections/blog posts I didn't really struggle with what to write about or have to debate too seriously where I stood on the issue. But the reading today pushed me to question some things. Which isn't entirely a bad thing! That's what the point of this class is anyway, to challenge our positions and ethics and start thinking about ethical and moral questions in different ways and develop as scientists and people. But yikes, this one is a doozy. 

Chapter 6 of Medical Ethics is on embryos, stem cells, and reproductive cloning. It's an interesting topic to say the least. It continues the discussion of the rights of embryos and potential personhood, which is one that we've been carrying for a couple of weeks now. It also introduces the science of stem cell research and cloning, which I don't have trouble with for the most part. It's when the questions about the ethics of allowing people to use cloning for reproductive purposes came up that I started to question where I stood. We'll get to those questions a little later, but I do want to talk first about some of the other topics that were discussed in this chapter.

Let's jump first into the rights (or supposed rights) of embryos. The chapter starts off by talking about a couple of cases where couples opted to freeze embryos instead of implanting right away for various reasons and about court cases that followed. In these cases, the courts decided that a parent could not be forced to have a child that they did not want or were not ready to have. This goes back to reproductive rights and parents' right to choose whether or not they want to have a child, and I agree with the courts' decisions. The author (Pence) also went on to discuss the fact that millions of frozen embryos exist around the world, losing viability the longer they stay frozen. And that's if the parents assume responsibility for them and respond when the clinics ask them what they want done with these embryos; which was the case when some clinics in the US had problems with power and their freezers, and wasn't the case when a clinic in England attempted to contact couples without success and ended up getting rid of 2/3 of the embryos frozen at their clinic (Pence 152, 155). The argument stands that human embryos do not have human form and cannot experience pain before 14 days (Pence 153). So is it really a human that is being casually disposed of? Or is it just genetic information and the potential for personhood that is being tossed? Or do we care? If we let the embryos gradually degrade in a freezer, is that more or less ethical than getting rid of the spare embryos? Or is there even such a thing as spare embryos? Should we allow research on these embryos? Should we allow embryos to be created specifically for research? Where do we draw the line?

The book includes several arguments for and against all of these questions, and it definitely makes for some interesting thoughts and/or discussion. For example, some think that treating an embryo as valuable because of its potential can be refuted by a reductio ad absurdum, which shows that implications of an idea are absurd and cast doubt on the idea itself (Pence 154). Also, if embryos are persons, then creating embryos for IVF in general and freezing them for later use, pre-implantation genetic diagnoses, medical research, IUDs, and Plan B would all kill persons (Pence 154). At the same time, when no particular woman (or person) has a legal responsibility to gestate or carry frozen embryos to term, it's hard to argue for the rights to life of a frozen embryo. There is a significant amount of potential contradiction here, and some cognitive dissonance -- which Pence dubs "a philosophical difficulty" (Pence 154). 

As far as research goes, blocking funding for embryonic stem cell research and making it illegal was, according to Pence, "a major tragedy" (Pence 156). And that I agree with. The United States has the scientists and resources to dedicate toward research that could be critical in relieving suffering for people afflicted by serious genetic, chronic, and fatal disorders/diseases. Research involving human cadavers has gone on for decades, and as long as respect is maintained for the subject, most people do not have an issue with this kind of research. Research on immortalized stem cell lines from human embryos has the potential to do the same amount of good that cadaver research has done, and as long as a similar level of respect is maintained, there shouldn't be a battle or legislation blocking it. 

Now to the conflict of the week, reproductive cloning. There are a lot of ethical issues and questions surrounding the cloning of animals (starting with Dolly the sheep in 1997), let alone humans. Questions surrounding cloning being against the will of God, denying a person the right to a unique genetic identity, cloning being unnatural and perverse, the right of an open future and the choices they would get to make on their own vs being pushed in a certain direction. This reminds me of a book that I read back in middle school, The House of the Scorpion. In this fictional, futuristic story, the main character is a clone of a drug lord who has been around for much longer than should be physiologically possible because he continues to have clones birthed and then he takes their organs for himself. Which is obviously unethical and highly problematic, but is also a good demonstration of what media have done with the idea of cloning humans. In general, I don't have any issues with the potential future possibility of an additional way for people to have children (via cloning). For me the question is more of if cloning would then be considered "elitist" and would lead to increased inequality, and if that were true then doesn't IVF also fall under that question? I think that people should have the right to choose to reproduce, and that those who are unable to conceive a child "naturally" should have other options. I just don't trust people to always have the best of intentions, and don't personally love the idea of a wider gap between the rich and the poor and the creation of dynasties of "superior" humans. 

So, again, I don't have all of the answers. But for some reason this week that caused more conflict for me. I know it's probably not to the level of a "Category 55 Doomsday Crisis", but it's cause for me to stop and think more about reproduction and inequality and what the future of the world may look like.

Textbook reference:

Pence, Gregory. Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases. 9th ed., McGraw Hill, 2021.

What's My Motivation?

Last week we discussed abortion and a woman's right to choose. This week, we continue talking about pregnancies and parental decisions, but in a slightly different way. 

For some, finding out that they are pregnant can be shocking or joyful news.

While other couples try for years without being able to conceive.

Chapter 5 of Medical Ethics brings us to assisted reproduction, multiple gestations, surrogacy, and elderly parents. I think that this is an interesting topic, and it's definitely one that has come up more often in the last few years because of scientific advancements. I've heard people refer to IVF and genetic testing jokingly as a science dedicated to making 'designer babies', and even though that is an ethical consideration for the future, that was not the original intent of assisted reproduction. According to the textbook, after a year of trying for pregnancy, about 1 in every 11 married couples cannot conceive a child (Pence 119). (Side note, I think it's interesting to note that most women get blamed for couples' infertility even though men account for roughly 50% of infertility. Long live the patriarchy. /s) So, for heterosexual couples seeking children, it makes sense that after trying to conceive naturally, they would turn to scientists and medical professionals for advice and/or assistance. 

The first successful pregnancy that began in vitro, or "in glass", was carried by Lesley Brown, a woman who had damaged fallopian tubes from previous ectopic pregnancies (Pence 119). Before this success story, there were years of questionable experimentation and 100's of failed attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF). Although it took several decades of unsuccessful research, IVF is now a viable option for couples experiencing infertility. Today, IVF looks much different than it used to, involving hormone treatments and thousands of dollars spent every cycle. Another interesting statistic that is worth mentioning, is that only 5% of pregnancies today conceived by assisted reproduction techniques (ART) come from IVF (Pence 122). The other 95% come from procedures such as egg stimulation and injection of concentrated sperm, among others. 

While assisted reproduction is a positive thing and has allowed for over 7 million babies worldwide as of 2018, there should be certain regulations in place (Pence 122). Many couples choose to take ovulation stimulating drugs, such as Clomid, to stimulate the ovaries to release many eggs at a time. While this increases the chance of successful fertilization, it also increases the chance of a pregnancy of multiples. While twins, and sometimes triplets, occur somewhat regularly, multiples are often born prematurely and are three times as likely to be severely handicapped at birth (Pence 128). The probability of having a child who is impaired varies directly with the number of embryos allowed to gestate (Pence 128). Therefore, because nutrients and oxygenated blood in the uterus are in short supply, most doctors recommend selective reduction of all but one or two embryos (Pence 128). In the case of IVF, an embryo (or two) can be selected and implanted in the mother's uterus. In other forms of assisted reproduction, there should be restrictions in place that keep parents from attempting to have high-risk multiple births. By selecting one or two embryos to carry full-term, the mother reduces her overall risk during the pregnancy, as well as the risk of the embryos and her future children. 

Another ethical consideration when it comes to assisted reproduction is older parents. By using eggs of younger women, as well as introcytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), people can also have children at  much more advanced age than was ever possible in the past (Pence 129). While this could be good for women in their 30's and 40's, at what point should the line be drawn? What is in the best interest of the child? How likely is it that the elderly parent will be around until the child turns 18? Should it be legal for a person of any age to bring a child into the world? This is a relatively new argument, but I think it's one that is worth discussing. If we are talking about the potential harm to a child, I don't think that women over 60 should be bringing newborns into their families as their own. 

There are so many other ethical questions and considerations when it comes to assisted reproduction, but I don't have the time to write about them all. It's interesting to consider the implications of commercialization of assisted reproduction, if it's ethical to pay for adoption vs donated games vs IVF vs other methods, or even the screening of potential embryos for genetic diseases. I plan to get a Master's degree in genetic counseling, so this last one is a topic that I'm sure I will be learning about and discussing for years to come. All things considered, as an ethical debate this one again boils down to a person's intent and the motivation behind their actions. Are they seeking assisted reproduction in order to have as many children at once as they can, or are they simply looking to have a child who will live a full and healthy life? I know this is a complex issue, and it's not one that I have personal experience with at this point in my life, but anyone considering ART of any kind should first consider their motivation in seeking it.

Textbook reference: 

Pence, Gregory. Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases. 9th ed., McGraw Hill, 2021.

The Eternal Shriek

I realize that the title for this blog post isn't entirely appropriate, but I needed to stick with my theme of The Good Place episode titles, so this is where we're at for today. In all honesty, I wasn't going to write a blog post tonight for no other reason than I didn't want to, but that wasn't a good enough reason for my Type A, perfectionist brain so here we are. Thanks, brain. 

A better title for this post could be 'The Eternal Shriek (or not?)', because again we're talking about making a decision to end what could be considered a life. Chapter 4 in the textbook discusses abortions and the legal and ethical arguments surrounding them. When I first thought of bioethics my first thought was "right, so abortions and genetic testing, and other things". A similar discussion happened earlier today when I mentioned to my roommate that I was working on a bioethics reading, she said, "Oh, so do you talk about abortions and stuff?" All this to say that abortion is an issue/topic that most people are at least somewhat familiar with and understand to be an ethical issue. 

Abortion, like so many other biomedical ethics issues, is very easily aligned with a slippery slope. The chapter opens with an account of the Kenneth Edelin case from the 1970s, not long after Roe v. Wade was decided. In the Boston City Hospital, there were researchers performing experiments on to-be-aborted fetuses using the reasoning that since they were going to be aborted anyway, it didn't really matter. This logic is almost identical to the logic used by Nazi researchers and doctors during WWII when they used people in their concentration camps for medical experiments before killing them. The difference here is mainly that the experiments performed during the 1940s in Nazi Germany were on people who had been born and were determined human beings with lives of their own, and the experiments being performed at the Boston City Hospital were not. This raises the question of personhood and what defines a person. What is a person? Do we go with Mary Anne Warren's definition and agree that, "to be a person is to be able to think, to be capable of cognition" (Pence 99)? Or does the definition fit more along a gradient? If we choose to accept the criteria presented by Warren, then does the cognition argument also fit for elderly patients, those with dementia, and/or those in a persistent vegetative state? If not, maybe we should go with the argument of pro-life champions who claim that, "when sperm and egg meet and merge genes, a genetically unique individual is created" (Pence 101)? It's another complicated issue. And like every ethical debate, it's not one where there is a perfect answer.

A few months ago I watched the documentary AKA Jane Roe that follows the story of Norma McCorvey, ]the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. The documentary went into a lot greater detail on the case than this chapter in the textbook, and discussed religious issues, personal issues, and other circumstantial details. I really didn't know much about the case before hand, but I would definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested. In 1973 the Court decided that  a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy up until the point of the fetus's viability, or about 24-28 weeks. This definition has been upheld by many cases that have followed it, and often is the reference for making legislative decisions involving abortions and abortive rights. 

While I understand the arguments against abortion and can see why an embryo could be determined a life, I think it is far more important for choices to be available to pregnant women. Again, it comes back to the control of care and control over your own body that I've discussed in past blog posts. Also, just because I can understand the justification of being anti-abortion does not mean I understand or condone the actions of some activists and the violence of many anti-abortion protests and movements. Even before abortions were legal, before contraceptive options and "plan B" were available, women were seeking abortions. Only they were often performed in ways that were dangerous and often led to further complications and/or death. Legalizing abortion has greatly increased the safety of these women, whether the pregnancies are ectopic, risky, the result of a rape, nonviable, or whatever the reason may be for the woman to be seeking an abortion. Contraceptives have also greatly decreased the number of abortions every year.

I'm not saying that a woman should always seek an abortion, nor am I claiming to have the right answer on this. But when it comes to personal medical care of a competent patient, their needs and desires should be valued and must be heard. There are many scenarios that can be considered when discussing abortions, I just don't have time to include them all here. But feel free to leave a comment and I'd be happy to chat about things with you! Ultimately, I believe that a woman should be able to make decisions regarding her own medical care that allow her to be in charge of her own body. The potential for life that a fetus may have is worth considering, but unless that fetus is declared viable and can survive outside of the womb it does not have the full rights of a human being and an abortion cannot be equated with murder.

*disclaimer: I recognize that there are people who have uteruses and biologically female organs who do not identify as women. In using the term 'woman' in this post, I am referring to biologically female humans who have the capacity to become pregnant and carry an embryo/fetus and am not seeking to use discriminatory language in any way.

Textbook reference: Pence, Gregory. Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases. 9th ed., McGraw Hill, 2021.

What We Owe to Each Other

Ethics, bioethics, and medical ethics in particular, have never been about what humans can take from each other or the power that we hold over each others' lives. The answers to ethical questions fall more under the consideration of what is humane, and what we owe to each other. 

The content in chapter 3 of our textbook focuses on comas, and the ethical discussions that surround a patient in a coma. This topic, like so many others, is incredibly complicated. After a person suffers some trauma and they become comatose, at what point are they considered deceased? At what point do you pull the ventilator and/or feeding tube(s)? Or will they wake up and resume a semi-normal life 5, 10, 15 years from now? Do we owe a person a compassionate death by letting them go, or  is providing food and water to patients "the ordinary care that all human beings owe each other" (Pence 82)? Is a life worth living/prolonging if the remainder of their time will consist of physical and emotional pain for them and their family, a series of tubes, and massive medical bills? Is letting a person's body die considered merciful or harmful? What is it that we actually owe to each other, and who gets to make that decision?

While I have drawn my own conclusions, it would be sufficient to say that there will always be more questions and what-ifs when it comes to human life.

Whether or not it is feasible for a comatose person to return to a functional life often depends on the events that led up to them becoming comatose. If they experienced anoxia (lack of oxygen in the brain) for a prolonged period of time, or they have been declared "brain dead", then their state of unconsciousness is much more likely to be irreversible. Even when this is the case, there is still a great deal of variability between individual cases and a perfect standard may never exist. According to the authors of the textbook, the fact that anyone comes out of a long-term coma is crucial to any discussion about the topic, because it changes the course of a diagnosis from "certainty to probability" (Pence 75). This changes the emotional state of things, because instead of getting closure knowing that a patient has no chance of recovery, in most cases there is a very small chance that some degree of recovery is possible.

Without an "advance directive" or a living will that states what a person wants if/when they are in a critical physical condition, the decisions and pressure to answer all of these unknown questions often fall to family and physicians. There are issues with advance directives, as well. Many people are unable to accurately predict their own future preferences, as the SUPPORT study showed, and there is evidence that individuals designated as the decision-maker in critical situations often do not accurately predict the wishes of previously competent (but rendered incompetent by an accident/trauma/etc.) patients (Pence 83). 

So...what? It's complicated, I suppose. I don't have all the answers. If it were me, would I really want to be let go? I think so. I don't want to be a burden to my family, friends, or future spouse. But if I were in that situation, is that really what I would want? I don't know that there really is a way to know. If there was no chance of my brain returning to its normal functioning state, I would not want to be kept here. I don't want to suffer endlessly, or cause any of my loved ones to suffer either. I guess that's what it comes down to then, is that ultimately we owe each other a chance at life, but if that isn't possible, then we owe each other a chance at less suffering.

Textbook reference:
Pence, Gregory. Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases. 9th ed., McGraw Hill, 2021.

Chidi's Choice

 

For week 2 of bioethics, we're looking into requests to die. The chapter we were asked to read in the textbook was long, but offered interesting background on some of the arguments surrounding past cases and legislation in countries (and US states) where physician-assisted death is legal. This is a difficult issue, and isn't one that is often discussed. Not that it needs to be part of everyday conversation either, but maybe it would be less taboo and easier to talk about if it were brought up more often than just in a collegiate bioethics course. 

Before diving into my thoughts about the ethics of physician-assisted death, I want to address something that I see as a major error on the part of the publishers of the textbook. There was a section in this chapter that spoke explicitly about various methods of suicide and what can happen as a result of an unsuccessful suicide attempt and/or the state of the survivor after a suicide attempt. This chapter, or that section at the very least, needed to have some sort of warning. Any mention of suicide can be incredibly triggering for anyone who has had suicidal thoughts/ideation or who has survived an attempt. I knew that the chapter was going to discuss medical cases and the ethics behind physician-assisted death, but there was no warning as to the depth of the discussion about personal suicide attempts and methods. I have received professional training in suicide prevention and it was still difficult for me to read. 

Moving past that blatant error...

When it comes to heavy and potentially convoluted ethical questions, there is a lot to consider. 

I'm going to highlight here some of the information presented that I agree with. My initial stance on this issue hasn't really been shifted after reading the chapter, but rather I saw it strengthened by some of the arguments presented in it. 

One overarching theme of the chapter is that of consent and autonomy. Jean Davies is quoted as saying, "[just as] rape and making love are different, so are killing and assisted suicide" (Pence 49). If you actively take away the life of someone who did not ask for it, one could argue that you have taken away that person's right to choose and right to life. But where this issue is different, as the above quote suggests, is in the consent given. To that, we can add that it should be informed consent. Margaret Battin claims that physicians don't discuss end of treatment/end of life options with dying patients (Pence 44), which also takes away their ability to actively choose what they want their care to look like. And at the end of the day, it is the patient alone who fully understands the pain (physical, psychological, etc.) that they are experiencing. The biggest issue under the umbrella of making autonomous decisions then, is whether the quality of life is acceptable to the person who is living it, and the fact that that decision can only be made by the person who is experiencing it (Pence 43). 

This is not something that should be available to everyone in every case, but that could be utilized to end or prevent suffering in terminal patients. If it is extended as an option to every patient deemed legally competent, it quickly becomes an extreme case of the slippery slope argument. What is the value of one life? And what life, or lives are worthy to be lived? If a physician can justify the killing of one patient (or letting them die), then where is the line drawn between them and the next patient? What is the reasoning used here? In empirical slopes, the claim is made that when a moral change occurs, the ability to reason and maintain once strongly-held standards will be lost. A conceptual slope is based on the idea that once a small change is made in a moral rule, other changes will soon follow because, "reason demands consistency in treating similar cases similarly" (Pence 51). Either (or both!) of these slopes could come into play when considering the issues surrounding physician-assisted death, which is why arguments concerning human life must be taken seriously.

The title of this post is "Chidi's Choice" so that it fits within the theme of using episode names from "The Good Place" as titles, but ultimately, every person should have the ability to make a series of choices and have control over their care. Physician-assisted death is not something to be treated lightly or a procedure, or power, that should be abused or run unchecked. Rather, it should be considered as an option for terminally ill patients who desire to have more control over their treatment and choices for the end of their life. 

Textbook reference: 

Pence, Gregory. Medical Ethics: Accounts of Ground-Breaking Cases. 9th ed., McGraw Hill, 2021. 

Everything is Fine

 I honestly have no idea how to write a blog post. Or keep up on a blog. So this will be an experiment unto itself. I don't mind writing though, I've kept a journal on and off for the last 10 years or so. Who knows? Maybe this will be good for me. I don't pretend to be the expert on anything, and this blog will likely be me attempting to make my ramblings appear logical and well-thought through, but if nothing else, it will be a compilation of my thoughts on bioethics. At times (like today's post) it will probably become deeply personal, but other posts will likely be more objective and focused on facts. All that being said, here goes nothing.

The name of this blog, "Bioethics: This is the Bad Place", comes directly from the fact that I spent the last two weeks of summer binge-watching NBC's "The Good Place". One of the main characters in that show is a moral philosophy professor, and much of the show's premise is centered around the characters striving to become better people based on the principles of ethics. For anyone who hasn't seen the show, it takes place in a version of the afterlife, where there is a Good Place and a Bad Place. One is Utopia, and the other is a place of endless torture. Bioethics is probably a combination of the two, but because it is my tired brain speaking tonight, we are in the Bad Place. So, welcome! Everything is fine.

When it comes to ethical questions or dilemmas, I often feel a little overwhelmed. Ethics...is it really worth all of the mental strain? As a scientist, I want a concrete and complete answer! There should be a right answer to every question, right? Apparently not. Sometimes there is no right answer, and sometimes there are multiple right answers. That's what makes ethics so difficult, is the fact that you can debate issues from both sides and make logic-based arguments to build any case. 

But! There are issues with logic, too. These are often referred to as logical fallacies, or problems that come up in arguments and logic. There are endless everyday examples of logical fallacies; they're everywhere you look. A common logical error is appealing to feelings and upbringing. While feelings and background are important and can contribute to personal identity, emotions and personal feelings do not justify an ethical position. 

For example, I was raised in a deeply religious family and the idea that people who were not religious were somehow "less than" was ingrained in my mind. In addition to this, I was taught that heterosexuality was "right" or "correct", and being gay was wrong. So, when I first had suspicions that I was gay, I did everything I could to suppress them. Because that wasn't the way I was raised, those thoughts/feelings/etc. were wrong, and therefore they couldn't exist or be right in any way. Over the last year or so, I've been struggling with religion as well. Double whammy. The cognitive dissonance at times for just one of these was difficult, but the combination of the two? Overwhelming. And in my mind, the logical pathway was to invalidate my own thoughts and feelings and focus on the feelings of my parents and my upbringing. Obviously this wasn't going to be comfortable or last long-term, especially for someone with a scientific mindset. If there was a problem, I am going to fix it! Or at least find a way for myself to exist with less dissonance. So, my life looks much different now than I ever expected it to. I have a girlfriend, I haven't been to church in months, and I'm happier than I've ever been. I've found a way through my personal upbringing, and while it has a lot to do with my personal feelings, my path to get to this point was based on actual facts, science, and the stories/experiences of others telling me that in no way do feelings equate logic. It could be argued here that I am replacing my parents' feelings and thoughts with my own, and while that is somewhat the case now that I have my feet under me, it definitely has not always been that way. It took extensive research and looking for solid logic for me to be able to see through the cloud that was created by my upbringing and feelings towards both anyone who wasn't actively religious and anything involving the LGBTQ+ community. That's the power of real logic (and also where this particular logical fallacy causes problems), that truth (or relative truth) can be found when there are reasons to justify a position instead of just feelings.

When it comes to bioethics, medical ethics, etc., personal beliefs and upbringing are often attached to the issues. IVF, abortion, adoption, physician-assisted death, and so many other issues are often argued over using nothing but personal beliefs, even though there are scientific resources available. When it comes to ethics and arguments, leave feelings out of it! Otherwise, this really would be the Bad Place.