Abortion

[aleph_0]

Ayn Rand often argued an extreme case for abortion, which ran along these lines:

A fetus is--living or not, thinking or not--dependent upon the mother and could not live independently, outside of the mother. Because no being ought to be responsible for another being, the fetus has no rights.

However, if no being ought to be responsible for another being, then parents ought not to be responsible for their children.

If we are to retain the argument from dependence, then, the premise "No being ought to be responsible for another" needs revision. Either a qualification needs to be placed on which kinds of beings ought to be free from responsibility, a qualification is needed on the kind of responsibility, or a qualification is needed on the kinds of things one is responsible for--or some combination thereof. And then there needs to be a justification for these qualifications.

[softwareNerd]

Could you provide a reference to where Rand said that?

[DavidOdden]

Ayn Rand often argued an extreme case for abortion, which ran along these lines:

A fetus is--living or not, thinking or not--dependent upon the mother and could not live independently, outside of the mother. Because no being ought to be responsible for another being, the fetus has no rights.

Could you summarize Rand's position and argument on abortion, using quotes from Rand?

Could you provide a reference to where Rand said that?

Hey, I just said that!

[aleph_0]

I cannot find a Rand quote--the only books I have with me are OPAR and Return of the Primitive, and the rest are approximately 1,000 miles south. I have found "A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born," from (http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?news_iv_...&security=1). I have found, in OPAR, "Just as there are no rights of collections of individuals, so there are no rights of parts of individuals--no rights of arms or of tumors or of any piece of tissue growing within a woman, even if it has the capacity to become in time a human being... Rights belong only to man--and men are entities, organisms that are biologically formed and physically separate from one another. That which lives within the body of another can claim no prerogatives against its host." (Page 357 of the 1993 Meridian publication, or under the chapter "Government", section "Individual Rights as Absolutes")

Hence, by the above, if a man were to find out that a parasite living within him had consciousness and free will, he would have the right to remove the parasite. And if a man were a patient in a hospital, only to wake and find that his liver had been connected to a sick man, and that disconnecting from the sick man would kill him, the patient would still have the right to disconnect.

Granted all of this, yet still assuming that parents have a responsibility to their children, we need a criteria for deciding when that responsibility begins. First, it seems, the responsible person needs to have created the being or have created the being's need directly. Second, the being needs to be physically independent. There may be something else I'm missing, but I think this is exhaustive and accurate.

Given that it is, or given some added criteria, why do these criteria imply responsibility?

I'll keep looking for direct quotation online.

[KendallJ]

I though the fetus not having rights came from the "a potential life is not an actual life" argument, rather than from dependance.

[aleph_0]

I think there are two arguments, and I'm separating one of them out because I take the other to be largely uncontroversial. The argument from dependence is a stronger argument which, if true, could justify partial-birth abortions.

[DavidOdden]

I cannot find a Rand quote--the only books I have with me are OPAR and Return of the Primitive, and the rest are approximately 1,000 miles south.

So I'm curious, then, on what basis did you arrive at your conclusion about her position?

One thing I often suggest to people, apart from buying the CD and not being dependent on the physical books, is looking at Richard Lawrence's Objectivist Reference Center. [uh, holy crap. I don't know what happened; it seems to have been recently taken over by crapola].

[aleph_0]

I arrived at the conclusion from the other books, which I don't have with me now, though this OPAR quote is quite illustrative. If we cannot agree that the sentiment were held by Rand, we may at least discuss it as held by Peikoff.

As for buying the CD (audio?), I have a lot of other stuff to buy and not nearly enough money for it. Besides, I had assumed people would be familiar with the relevant material--I believe the core of it in "Of Living Death" in The Voice of Reason.

[softwareNerd]

I agree with Kendall. Just from memory, Rand's objection was always about rights being attributed to a potential human. The OPAR quote above appears consistent with that. I don't see how one can assume -- from that quote -- that if two men someone became intertwined, one could morally let the other die, regardless of context. I think there's a good case to be made that special rules are required in the case of twins who are joined for life.

[intellectualammo]

I believe the core of it in "Of Living Death" in The Voice of Reason.

From "Of Living Death":

This leads us to the encyclical's stand on the issue of abortion, and to another example of inhuman cruelty. Compare the coiling sentimentality of the encyclical's style when it speaks of "conjugal love" to the clear, brusque, military tone of the following: "We must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth." [14, emphasis added.]

After extolling the virtue and sanctity of motherhood, as a woman's highest duty, as her "eternal vocation," the encyclical attaches a special risk of death to the performance of that duty—an unnecessary death, in the presence of doctors forbidden to save her, as if a woman were only a screaming huddle of infected flesh who must not be permitted to imagine that she has the right to live.

And this policy is advocated by the encyclical's supporters in the name of their concern for "the sanctity of life" and for "rights"—the rights of the embryo. (!)

I suppose that only the psychological mechanism of projection can make it possible for such advocates to accuse their opponents of being "anti-life."

Observe that the men who uphold such a concept as "the rights of an embryo," are the men who deny, negate, and violate the rights of a living human being.

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body? The Catholic church is responsible for this country's disgracefully barbarian anti-abortion laws, which should be repealed and abolished.

From The Ayn Rand Letter, "The Last Survey Part--1":

Not every wrong idea is an indication of a fundamental philosophical evil in a person's convictions; the anti-abortion stand is such an indication. There is no room for an error of knowledge in this issue and no venal excuse: the anti-abortion stand is horrifying because it is non-venal—because no one has anything to gain from it and, therefore, its motive is pure ill will toward mankind.

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a "right to life." A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable.

One method of destroying a concept is by diluting its meaning. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone's benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.

A man who takes it upon himself to prescribe how others should dispose of their own lives—and who seeks to condemn them by law, i.e., by force, to the drudgery of an unchosen, lifelong servitude (which, more often than not, is beyond their economic means or capacity)—such a man has no right to pose as a defender of rights. A man with so little concern or respect for the rights of the individual, cannot and will not be a champion of freedom or of capitalism. (For a full discussion of the issue of birth control, see my article "Of Living Death.")

I loved reading and quoting from Andrew Bernstein's "The Philosophical Basis of a Woman's Right to Abortion" pamphlet from the ARB, but I had lent it to a girl in class two summers ago, and after that I never went back to the class...but he did use the word "biological parasite" in referrence to the fetus.

Here's one beauty of a site Abortion is ProLife.

*edited to add link to Bernstein's pamphlet/audio on abortion

Edited March 6, 2007 by intellectualammo

[Solid_Choke]

I agree with Kendall. Just from memory, Rand's objection was always about rights being attributed to a potential human. The OPAR quote above appears consistent with that. I don't see how one can assume -- from that quote -- that if two men someone became intertwined, one could morally let the other die, regardless of context. I think there's a good case to be made that special rules are required in the case of twins who are joined for life.

Does this mean that if a child is old enough and could survive if taken out of the womb it is no longer a potential human but a fully human being?

[DavidOdden]

As for buying the CD (audio?), I have a lot of other stuff to buy and not nearly enough money for it.

The CD is a text (plus program) version of all of Rand's publications, plus OPAR. My view is that it's the bottom-line of serious interest in Objectivism (unless you have a supernatural memory or decades of time). I understand that money is finite; still, if you want to make a claim about Rand's position, I think that it would be useful to actually have a searchable object that tells you what (not literally everything, but close) she said. Her position was spelled out in "Of Living Death" (The Objectivist, 1968).

So I guess I'd find it easier to take your position seriously if you were to take the question of Rand's view seriously. It's true that someone might do your work for you. The approach that I think would be most effective, in your case, is to simply admit to your ignorance and ask others for enlightenment. By phrasing the matter as a question, in asking what Rand's position was, and why, you avoid the situation where someone gets annoyed at the fact that you assume a particular reason for Rand's position, and then try to do something with that assumption. If you had actually looked at Rand's argument, you would probably have avoided the rather simple mistake that you committed in your post (namely, making stuff up), and that would have been better all around.

[mrocktor]

Does this mean that if a child is old enough and could survive if taken out of the womb it is no longer a potential human but a fully human being?

If it is taken out, it can survive. It, therefore, is a potential human being - until it is taken out.

[intellectualammo]

If it is taken out, it can survive. It, therefore, is a potential human being - until it is taken out.

And when the umbilical cord is clipped and cut.

someone gets annoyed at the fact that you assume a particular reason for Rand's position, and then try to do something with that assumption. If you had actually looked at Rand's argument, you would probably have avoided the rather simple mistake that you committed in your post (namely, making stuff up), and that would have been better all around.

I'm glad you've addressed this. I'd like to add that this isn't the first post that this has happened with him...

[softwareNerd]

Does this mean that if a child is old enough and could survive if taken out of the womb it is no longer a potential human but a fully human being?

I think "could survive" is pretty fuzzy, because even a 6 month old kid can't survive on its own. So, the "could survive" line runs the risk of morphing into "can grow into, if given the right care". A non-human being that "can survive" and grow into a human being does not have rights, because it is not a human being. The essential question is: what is it? From what I can tell of Rand's argument, that was her focus.

In all such cases, there is going to be a borderline: when does it stop being violet and become indigo? The law has to draw as sharp and objective a line as possible. Personally, I would support a legal line drawn at the point when the baby has been born and separated from the mother's body; but, that's my personal opinion and I do not know of Rand drawing such a line.

[Mimpy]

Does this mean that if a child is old enough and could survive if taken out of the womb it is no longer a potential human but a fully human being?

This is a great question. I was wondering this myself about partial-birth abortion. It seemed to me that if the child could survive without the mother, then the mother shouldn't be allowed to terminate the pregnancy. But reading the posts in this thread have further clarified the matter: only if the child is physically dependent of the mother would it have the right to live. A fetus in the eighth month could certainly live without its mother, but while it is in her uterus, she gets to decide what to do with her own body. Any other alternative would violate the right of an actual life and instead give the right to a potential life.

Cool.

Edited March 6, 2007 by Mimpy

[aleph_0]

I agree with Kendall. Just from memory, Rand's objection was always about rights being attributed to a potential human. The OPAR quote above appears consistent with that. I don't see how one can assume -- from that quote -- that if two men someone became intertwined, one could morally let the other die, regardless of context. I think there's a good case to be made that special rules are required in the case of twins who are joined for life.

I believe the citation above shows two interwined arguments. Peikoff tacitly calls a fetus a part of the mother. Perhaps, however, you might argue that he claims the following: Because the fetus is part of the mother and physically dependent on her, it cannot be called a human being, and as an enthymeme no human being can have an obligation to non-human beings, and so the mother has no obligation to the fetus. Even so, this only confirms what I wrote above, namely, that those beings which may be the subject of responsibility must be restricted.

The CD is a text (plus program) version of all of Rand's publications, plus OPAR. My view is that it's the bottom-line of serious interest in Objectivism (unless you have a supernatural memory or decades of time). I understand that money is finite; still, if you want to make a claim about Rand's position, I think that it would be useful to actually have a search-able object that tells you what (not literally everything, but close) she said. Her position was spelled out in "Of Living Death" (The Objectivist, 1968).

So I guess I'd find it easier to take your position seriously if you were to take the question of Rand's view seriously. It's true that someone might do your work for you. The approach that I think would be most effective, in your case, is to simply admit to your ignorance and ask others for enlightenment. By phrasing the matter as a question, in asking what Rand's position was, and why, you avoid the situation where someone gets annoyed at the fact that you assume a particular reason for Rand's position, and then try to do something with that assumption. If you had actually looked at Rand's argument, you would probably have avoided the rather simple mistake that you committed in your post (namely, making stuff up), and that would have been better all around.

I admit, it would be nice to have an easily searched database of Rand's work. All the same, I've got bigger fish to fry right now. This topic is something I've been considering in passing, and I think I've got enough from OPAR here to claim this is--at the very least--an argument Peikoff makes and, by extension, associated with Objectivism if not a kind of official Objectivist canon.

I deny ignorance because I remember reading Rand making this argument. All the same, I admit ignorance in this way: I do not know where she made this argument, and since I cannot cite it, I officially withdrawal my claim that she made it until I can find citation (or, if someone else wants to do this, they may, though I never supposed or implied it to be anybody else's responsibility). You have no more justification to say that I am making things up than if I claimed that the American Industrial Revolution began with the railroad industry, but could not find where I had read it since I had assumed everybody would at least be vaguely familiar with this fact, and so officially withdrew my claim even if I unofficially maintain its truth.

Nice try, though. Now back to the topic...

[Edit: Added a point of relevance to the analogy at the end.]

Edited March 10, 2007 by aleph_0

[softwareNerd]

I think the key quote from Rand is this (from what has been quoted in an earlier post, above):

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living (or the unborn).

In addition, during a question-and-answer session after a Ford Hall Forum lecture, 1974, Rand said the following:

...I'd like to express my indignation at the idea of confusing a living human being with an embryo, which is only some undeveloped cells. (Abortion at the last minute -- when the baby is formed -- is a different issue.) The right to abortion is the right to get rid of some cells in your body, ... ... The basic principles here are: never sacrifice the living to the nonliving, and never confuse an actuality with a potentiality. A "unborn child", before it is formed, is not a human, it's not a living entity, it has no rights.

[aleph_0]

As I said, none of this is in contention.