Board index ‹ Assorted Bible Questions

[Newbie]

Most clinically apparent miscarriages (2/3 - 3/4 in some studies) occur during the first trimester. The NIH report that "around half of all the fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant."

My question is simply, "Why, God? Why?"

[jimwalton]

The article in wikipedia you referenced (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriag ... _trimester) also said, "Chromosomal abnormalities are found in more than half of embryos miscarried in the first thirteen weeks." Is it possible that the human reproductive system is meant to succeed at reproduction and survival of the species, and God has built into it a default mechanism, so that if there is too much abnormality, the body disposes of it early?

Now, I also recognize that many zygotes/embryos/fetuses with abnormalities make it all the way to birth, but it's just possible that a whole lot of heartache is spared because of the miscarriages, even though miscarriage can bring a lot of heartache all by itself.

[Kazoo]

This kind of makes God sound like a eugenics/master race Nazi Brave New Worlder.

[jimwalton]

If you swallow food that is tainted, you spend the night throwing it up. The body has that mechanism programmed for survival. It's a device of protection, not of elitism. If a bug flies in your eye, your eye tears up to flush it out, and if it's still in there, through the night it will create mucous to flush it out. This is a safeguard intolerance, not bigotry intolerance. That the human body has a certain amount of capability to detect problems and avert the consequences isn't an act of Naziistic discrimination, but one of protective safeguarding.

[The Village Master]

> God has built into it a default mechanism

It almost seems like the default mechanism is an abnormality. Why would so many of these zygotes/embryos/fetuses have these abnormalities in the first place?

[jimwalton]

It seems to me that normality is the default mechanism, since we define "normal" as the state in which we find the majority of people. Therefore "normal" is what usually happens, which is the default mechanism. As to why there are so many abnormalities, the human creature is a very complex organism, having billions of ingredients that have to coincide for "normality" to occur. I happen to be of the opinion that it's pretty spectacular that so many of us end up "normal," given the possibility of so many potential derails. The abundance of anomalies only speaks to the plethora of choices as the human zygote/embryo/fetus develops, and all of the ways a mother, nature, or circumstances can interfere with the process to create a "defect". Clearly health and "normality" are the default, with a built in mechanism to miscarry most of the "abnormalities".