Abortion

[JMeganSnow]

You start by arguing that the embryo is a separate being, and is essentially a parasite until it can sustain it's own life. But, that dependence continues to apply to born children, up till about 3-4 years old.

Except that a 3 year old child doesn't live inside another person's body; a baby is dependent upon someone's actions in order to survive, but it is not dependent upon their body. You can give a baby to someone else who voluntarily chooses to care for it. You can't give a fetus to someone else.

Please read the rest of this thread. You haven't brought up a single new argument that hasn't been countered MANY times.

[FeatherFall]

I'm going to stop right here. This is the crux of the argument. "The right thing to do" is defined as that which is moral. If an act is "the right thing to do" it is the moral thing to do. You are obligated to perform the moral. Therefore, you are morally obligated to save the child.

Actually, what is moral in such a situation is not always to keep the "child" (more accurately, zygote/embryo/fetus). It is dependent on the context of the mother's values.

You start by arguing that the embryo is a separate being, and is essentially a parasite until it can sustain it's own life. But, that dependence continues to apply to born children, up till about 3-4 years old.

...

There is nothing that fundamentally changes in the baby by being born. It passes through the birth canal, it's head is likely misshapen, to reform later, but nothing really changes in the child. That it passes through the birth canal is irrelevant too, as I'm sure a caesarean section counts. And as they are separate entities, it's not about spatial location. The crux then must be the viability of the embryo. The embryo is viable from about 5 months.

No, the crux is whether or not it is capable of independent action, which can't happen until it is biologically separated from the mother (through a very risky birthing process, natural or surgical). Check out what I wrote again,

The zygote/embryo/fetus is an entity that, by its nature, can't act independently to pursue its goals; it is wholly dependent on its host. The only rights that govern it are derived from the host. Once it is a separate being, capable of independent action, its mother assumes legal responsibility for it until it is capable of independent survival.

The bold portions are important. Before birth, the fetus has no rights; it is the property of the mother, with all of the essential protections of the rest of her property. After birth, it becomes a child and begins the independent action of breathing, eating and laying the building blocks of concept formation. It isn't until this point that it has rights that must be protected by the person responsible for making it.

I think the suggestion to read the rest of the thread is a good one.

[volco]

individuality means that it can't be divided. If the fetus has rights, then the mother loses hers. the thin line is called te umbilical chord. end of the question.

[intellectualammo]

I thought that I'd point out what Dr. Peikoff has said in his latest podcast when he addresses a question about 4:15min into the podcast, about the acquisition of rights upon birth, and when that point occurs:

[when it's]out of the womb, the umbilical cord has been cut, it's now a separate entity. Until that point, it has no rights.

This is what I've argued before in this thread from a biological standpoint. Until the cord is clamped and cut, it's not an independent entity, because of the blood flow that still occurs between mother and fetus.

Edited October 24, 2008 by intellectualammo

[RationalBiker]

This is what I've argued before in this thread from a biological standpoint. Until the cord is clamped and cut, it's not an independent entity, because of the blood flow that still occurs between mother and fetus.

I think I've argued that being a very objective distinction as well.

[Hazmatac]

So does that mean it's okay to kill the baby after it came out of the womb before it's umbilical cord is cut off?

[hunterrose]

No?

[Jake]

Perhaps a better distinction is when the newborn begins breathing on its own. That's the point at which it no longer requires the mother's blood for oxygen.

[DavidOdden]

Perhaps a better distinction is when the newborn begins breathing on its own. That's the point at which it no longer requires the mother's blood for oxygen.

Well, Peikoff was clear in what he said (though I disagree with his statement), and indeed his criterion is objectively clear. The problem is that there is a period after the child has been expelled from the womb when it no longer depends crucially on imported oxygen to survive, but may still be receiving oxygenated blood from the placenta. This blood is non-essential because the infant has the capacity to breathe on its own, it simply may not have started (of course, we're talking about a few seconds after birth). Although "no longer requires" is the criterion most tightly connected to the core moral question -- is that a separate being? -- it is also difficult to objectively assess.

[prosperity]

Note: Please familiarize yourself with the Objectivist position on abortion before participating on this thread. A good starting point is the Abortion article on the Objectivism Wiki. - GC

I find the views of certain members of The ARI, such as Peikoff and Brook, on the topic of absortion to not be rational. I will brefly here present my pro-life, objectivist standpoint and invite anyone who cares to to try and find a contradiction in my arguement.

The views of Peikoff, and likely many other objectivists, is that people are only endowned withe rights of a human beings after they are born. Before conception, it takes an act of will to create a fetus. A fetus will develop into a rational human being unless another act of will is responcible for the termination of that fetus. The fact that the life exists within the body of another is irrelevant. In the near future we will be able to allow a fetus to develop entirely outside of a human body, this does not mean that person is not human because they where never actually born in the traditional sense. As a correlary it is also clear that very little is different about a fetus/human being in the moments before it is born and those immediately afterwards.

I say then that assigning a fetus the human right to life only 'after it is born' is being arbitary, and hense, not rational.

As there is no objective measure for consiousness aside from human/non-human I say that stating any cutoff between when a fetus is endowned with the rights of a human other than conception is unreasonable.

When you are able to choose your values, morality applies to you. So the question is: can the fetus choose to live or die - i.e. to be born?

That will answer the question as to whether a fetus has any rights.

[AllMenAreIslands]

... When you choose to consent to the sex, you also choose to consent to the consequences. Even potential ones. You can't go to Vegas and lose your money, only to ask for it back.

From Rand...

As a rational man, you must accept the consequences of your actions. Even the potential consequences.

"Accepting the consequences of pregnancy" does not necessarily mean bringing a child into the world. Dealing with the pregnancy by having an abortion engenders consequences too - for example, dealing with one's thoughts & feelings after the procedure. After having had an abortion, one might years later experience regret or sadness at having had the abortion. Those are all consequences to be dealt with and which a woman should consider at the time she learns she is pregnant.

[Jake_Ellison]

DrSammyD posted this to a topic (on the Objectivist view on the responsibility of parents) which I believe has been answered fully there. (basically, parents are responsible for their actions- creating a human with no ability to survive means they have to help him survive. Just as creating a dangerous virus makes you responsible for helping everyone to survive against it, if no one has that ability. You created the situation in which a life is in danger, it's your responsibility to sort it out.)

However, this post is related to the issue of abortion, so I took the liberty to answer it here.

It either is or is not cognition that rights are derived from. If they are not derived from mans ability to think, then what is it? It then has to be derived from potential to think. If you say it's one of these, you have to accept that abortion is right and abandoning babies is right, or neither are right. If you don't think it comes from one of these things than you are patently not an Objectivist. That is the basis for all Objectivist ethics, cognition. I say it is Cognition, and therefore have no responsibility to those without it. If someone doesn't value that newborn, it is altruism in it's purest form to say that they are responsible for it. We already accept abortion, what is so wrong with infanticide that makes you so queasy about it. I'm sure you think I'm sick, but I'm only taking it one logical step further. Telling them they can dump their babies in the dumpster is exactly the same ethically as saying they can have an abortion. If I would have said they should get an abortion 80 years ago, I'd get the same reaction you think I'd get now with the dumpster.

Why is it so hard to understand what is? In other words contemplate the defining characteristics of a thing?

1. A fetus is a part of a woman's body: it receives its nutrition from that body, through her bodily functions, and it could not exist independently of that body. If you take the rest of the woman out of the equation, that fetus stops being what it is, it loses its identity. (just as a kidney or a heart loses its identity in the same event: it goes from being an organ performing a function to being a piece of flesh)

Surely, you have to admit that this is what defines a fetus: its dependence on the rest of the woman's body.

2. An infant is, in essence, a man: something which exists independently of other men, capable of learning. ( on its own no less - someone made a point that children learn language on their own for instance) Like every man, it has a right to life, derived from its capacity to reason. (not ability, and not potential: capacity)-by capacity I mean that sometime, in its (independent) life-span it will reason, without ever becoming something else metaphysically.( by joining with something else, or absorbing something else into itself, which would then turn this new thing into a man. - the way a fetus operates)

3. A monkey is a monkey: independent of other monkeys, but with no rights, because it has no capacity to reason.

4. A chair is a chair, because its function is to have men sit on it.

5. A table is a table because its function is to have things kept on it.

For instance, you could have an armless chair, which is taller than a coffee-table, and yet one is a chair, the other is a table, as defined by their function. I hope this 4./5. example illustrates measurement omission enough so that you won't reply with the same argument on the difference between a fetus and an infant.

[DrSammyD]

1. and 2. are the problems I have. A fetus no longer completely requires the woman. We now have things like test tube babies. It is now completely possible for a fetus to live with out the mother. Babies require milk from their mother, but now we are able to get milk from somewhere else. Again the problem with this reasoning is that biologically, the concept of a fetus is that it is human regardless of a host, much like a tapeworm is still an individual tape worm, regardless of a host. There is however one thing that the tape worm and the fetus have that allows us to kill them, a lack of cognition, and that is definitely part of their concept, is that they are not cognitive; Something that a newborn also has.

Any way, again by your reasoning, we would never be able to use living embryos for scientific experiments. They would fill the definitions that you have for a living human.

You seem to think that as soon as the umbilical cord is broken, that it becomes a human with rights. But if that were true, when ever you disconnected a fetus from the mother, it would suddenly have rights, and you'd have to reconnect it again because now there is another obligation to it to ensure it survives, something no other human has.

Edited December 13, 2008 by DrSammyD

[Jake_Ellison]

I'd love to focus on the difference between a fetus and an infant some more, because that is the basis of your point: you don't see the difference.

A fetus no longer completely requires the woman. We now have things like test tube babies. It is now completely possible for a fetus to live with out the mother

1. We do not have test tube babies. We have test-tube embrios, and we have artificial insemination. What we don't have is an artificial womb from which a human comes out, without ever being inside a woman. When you'll point me to that happening, I'll be happy to discuss it (doubt it would change anything though). Until then it's a product of fantasy, which doesn't apply to reality any more than God does. So please, stop with that, for now.

2.

"Again the problem with this reasoning is that biologically, the concept of a fetus is that it is human regardless of a host"

That's a matter of opinion, an invalid one at that.(since you're not bringing any knowledge to the table, you're just challenging the scientific fact that a fetus is not the same as a human, without being an actual biologist, qualified to do that, based on new evidence)

The key in the "concept of a human" is exactly that it doesn't have a host. That's where objectivism derives all its ethics from: the independence of the individual.

A human is not defined by the lump of tissue that forms when the sperm fertilizes the egg, it is defined precisely by its ability to exist independently.

"There is however one thing that the tape worm and the fetus have that allows us to kill them, a lack of cognition, and that is definitely part of their concept, is that they are not cognitive; Something that a newborn also has."

Alright, now we are getting at issue number two. What defines a human, metaphysically. You are saying its the fact that they are cognitive: I can of course dispute that very simply, by saying that you're still human when you're sleeping, even though you're not cognitive. Aren't you? Another example would be you in a temporary coma: not cognitive, still human.

Why? Because you have the capacity to be cognitive: it can be expected that you'll wake up, without becoming a different entity first.

Here's Aristotle to back me up:

"Now 'why a thing is itself' is a meaningless inquiry (for—to give meaning to the question 'why'—the fact or the existence of the thing must already be evident—e.g., that the moon is eclipsed—but the fact that a thing is itself is the single reason and the single cause to be given in answer to all such questions as why the man is man, or the musician musical, unless one were to answer, 'because each thing is inseparable from itself, and its being one just meant this.' This, however, is common to all things and is a short and easy way with the question.)"

Here's the same thing, interpreted by English speaking scholars:

"To have an identity means to have a single identity; an object cannot have two identities. A tree cannot be a telephone, and a dog cannot be a cat. Each entity exists as something specific, its identity is particular, and it cannot exist as something else.An entity can have more than one characteristic, but any characteristic it has is a part of its identity."

What you are suggesting is that the characteristic of a 1 year old Albert Einstein (that he is really stupid) changes his identity. That one temporary characteristic, his current stupidity, changes his identity, which is that he is Albert Einstein, with everything that entails, all his characteristics (at one point in his life, he has goofy hair, at one point he is the greatest physicist, at one point he is sleeping and completely inactive). This idea, that his current ability to think or reason- this one characteristic- changes his identity, defies Aristotle's law of identity.

You seem to think that as soon as the umbilical cord is broken, that it becomes a human with rights.

Nop, I said no such thing. I said choosing abortion is fine. Abortion is chosen in the first three months, and you're not aborting a functional human, you're aborting a lump of flesh. I think a fetus gets its rights when it has the ability to exist without his mother's body. (I'm not a biologist, that's for them to figure out.)

But if that were true, when ever you disconnected a fetus from the mother, it would suddenly have rights, and you'd have to reconnect it again because now there is another obligation to it to ensure it survives, something no other human has.

Reconnect it how? You are ignoring reality completely in this sentence. A child is a human being precisely because it doesn't plug into another human being for its existence. It exists independently.

Rights are a political issue, they don't change the metaphysical identity of something. We are talking about the parents' responsibility to deal with the political (I guess most people would say social) consequences of their decision to bring a human being, with political rights, into the world.

[DrSammyD]

I'd love to focus on the difference between a fetus and an infant some more, because that is the basis of your point: you don't see the difference.

1. We do not have test tube babies. We have test-tube embrios, and we have artificial insemination. What we don't have is an artificial womb from which a human comes out, without ever being inside a woman. When you'll point me to that happening, I'll be happy to discuss it (doubt it would change anything though). Until then it's a product of fantasy, which doesn't apply to reality any more than God does. So please, stop with that, for now.

OK, fine, I'll stop with that for right now. But I will say that development of technology should never actually have an impact on a moral question. If you ever did develop the artificial womb it would continue to be moral according to my definitions, but not to yours.

2.

That's a matter of opinion, an invalid one at that.(since you're not bringing any knowledge to the table, you're just challenging the scientific fact that a fetus is not the same as a human, without being an actual biologist, qualified to do that, based on new evidence)

The key in the "concept of a human" is exactly that it doesn't have a host. That's where objectivism derives all its ethics from: the independence of the individual.

A human is not defined by the lump of tissue that forms when the sperm fertilizes the egg, it is defined precisely by its ability to exist independently.

A fetus is most definitely a human. One of the defining characteristics of humans is that all of them have at one point had hosts. To say that while it has a host it is not human, but after it no longer has a host it becomes human is the same exact thing as saying if you are less than 3 feet you are not human, but if you are over 3 feet you are. It is completely arbitrary. It is not a chicken, or an elephant, and yes while it is a parasite, to say that it is not human is like saying that a tapeworm is not a tapeworm when it is actually living inside someone, and is only a tapeworm once it is outside of the body. There is no sense in saying this. It is human, it's just a human fetus, not a human child, or a human adult, but human none the less.

Alright, now we are getting at issue number two. What defines a human, metaphysically. You are saying its the fact that they are cognitive: I can of course dispute that very simply, by saying that you're still human when you're sleeping, even though you're not cognitive. Aren't you? Another example would be you in a temporary coma: not cognitive, still human.

Why? Because you have the capacity to be cognitive: it can be expected that you'll wake up, without becoming a different entity first.

I will accept your capacity to think as part of the definition. Obviously there are people who can think but do not, you are right.

Here's Aristotle to back me up:

"Now 'why a thing is itself' is a meaningless inquiry (for—to give meaning to the question 'why'—the fact or the existence of the thing must already be evident—e.g., that the moon is eclipsed—but the fact that a thing is itself is the single reason and the single cause to be given in answer to all such questions as why the man is man, or the musician musical, unless one were to answer, 'because each thing is inseparable from itself, and its being one just meant this.' This, however, is common to all things and is a short and easy way with the question.)"

Here's the same thing, interpreted by English speaking scholars:

"To have an identity means to have a single identity; an object cannot have two identities. A tree cannot be a telephone, and a dog cannot be a cat. Each entity exists as something specific, its identity is particular, and it cannot exist as something else.An entity can have more than one characteristic, but any characteristic it has is a part of its identity."

What you are suggesting is that the characteristic of a 1 year old Albert Einstein (that he is really stupid) changes his identity. That one temporary characteristic, his current stupidity, changes his identity, which is that he is Albert Einstein, with everything that entails, all his characteristics (at one point in his life, he has goofy hair, at one point he is the greatest physicist, at one point he is sleeping and completely inactive). This idea, that his current ability to think or reason- this one characteristic- changes his identity, defies Aristotle's law of identity.

You are trying to have your cake and eat it too. On one hand you say that part of Einsteins Identity is his hair, and his capacity to think or reason at different times can not be separated from his identity before he actually has that as part of his identity, and yet at the same time that when he was a fetus he did not have as part of his identity the capacity to think. This is nonsense. You do not have anything as part of your identity before you actually have it. You can only have it after or during. It is only once you have the ability to cognate that you actually say you have it. It is not part of the tables identity that it's leg is broken two days before it's leg actually is broken. Therefore the ability to cognate is not also with a newborn or fetus before it actually does.

The fact that given enough time and energy the new born will be able to cognate and therefore should be given rights, is the same as saying the fact that a fetus will be able to think and there fore should be given rights. Even if you don't accept that a fetus is it's own human, you can't deny that it is the same as saying a fetus will become it's own human, and then given enough time and energy will be able to cognate and therefore should be given rights.

Nop, I said no such thing. I said choosing abortion is fine. Abortion is chosen in the first three months, and you're not aborting a functional human, you're aborting a lump of flesh. I think a fetus gets its rights when it has the ability to exist without his mother's body. (I'm not a biologist, that's for them to figure out.)

By saying lump of flesh, you neglect that there is the function of becoming an adult human. Is that not also the function of a child, working at becoming an adult human. The child left alone would not function to survive, and depends on another human for survival. The same is true of the fetus. Both are not fully functioning, it's just to the empirical question of how not fully functioning that differentiates between the two.

Reconnect it how? You are ignoring reality completely in this sentence. A child is a human being precisely because it doesn't plug into another human being for its existence. It exists independently.

Rights are a political issue, they don't change the metaphysical identity of something. We are talking about the parents' responsibility to deal with the political (I guess most people would say social) consequences of their decision to bring a human being, with political rights, into the world.

Fine, not necessarily reconnect, but give it some means to survive, just as you have to give it to the newborn. But I won't talk about this part any more as stated before

Edited December 13, 2008 by DrSammyD

[Jake_Ellison]

A fetus is most definitely a human. One of the defining characteristics of humans is that all of them have at one point had hosts. whether that is a machine or not is irrelevant. To say that while it has a host it is not human, but after it no longer has a host it becomes human is the same exact thing as saying if you are less than 3 feet you are not human, but if you are over 3 feet you are. It is completely arbitrary. It is not a chicken, or an elephant, and yes while it is a parasite, to say that it is not human is like saying that a tapeworm is not a tapeworm when it is actually living inside someone, and is only a tapeworm once it is outside of the body. There is no sense in saying this. It is human, it's just a human fetus, not a human child, or a human adult, but human none the less.

You are very confusing. First, you are using "human" as a noun, "a fetus is a human", then you argue the fact that "a fetus is human", but here "human" is an adverb. Later, in "it's just a human fetus" it's an adjective. A woman's liver is "human" too. It doesn't make it "a human".

I'll let you think it through, I'm not going to answer this any further.

Here's a sixth definition though, if you insist:

6. Tapeworm: a worm and a parasite, which lives inside a body.

In light of the above definition, please stop referring to tapeworms that are outside the body. They can't exist in reality, except as dead bodies, quickly decomposing. Human beings on the other hand can and do.

In your next argument you bring up the fact that a fetus is human, and in fact use the word "human" constantly, and I have no idea what you mean by that now. I decided to first let you clarify what you mean by "a human", "human" and "its own human" before I answer those points.

[AllMenAreIslands]

...

1. We do not have test tube babies. We have test-tube embrios, and we have artificial insemination. What we don't have is an artificial womb from which a human comes out, without ever being inside a woman. When you'll point me to that happening, I'll be happy to discuss it (doubt it would change anything though). Until then it's a product of fantasy, which doesn't apply to reality any more than God does. So please, stop with that, for now. ...

May I address this point? I think the same issues will apply to test-tube babies as apply now to fetuses carried in the normal way. The person who takes on the responsibility of nurturing the fetus is the one who gets to make the decision on whether to carry it through to term. A pregnant woman has to decide that issue in terms of keeping the fetus in her body, while an individual who is nurturing a test-tube fetus would be paying for the electricity to keep the artificial womb functioning, and arranging for the nutrients that are being fed to the growing embryo/fetus, etc.

So, I think the same rules would apply. Just as a pregnant woman should retain the right to abort a fetus that isn't developing normally, so the individual taking on the responsibility of paying for the upkeep of an artificial womb should also.

And that brings us to the basic issue of WHY rights begin at birth. It is to have continuity of protection and to avoid any use of coercion or initiation of force. In the case of a natural pregnancy, the "contract" as it were is between the unborn and the mother. The unborn's views can be taken as a Yes for being born. To be rational, both parties must voluntarily agree to the transaction of the pregnancy. Hence the mother must voluntarily agree to carry the child to term. Once born, the infant is all but helpless. However, at that point, the infant acquires its right to life. The mother no longer MUST be responsible for its upkeep. She can seek and find another willing to take on those responsibilities lawfully. But neither she nor the adoptive person/guardian can have the right to cause harm or kill the infant. Its right to its life is now protected in law.

That's my two cents.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I am not sure I'd go with this contract model for the pregnancy (except purely as an analogy), but I think you are right about the test tube baby (future) issue.

[AllMenAreIslands]

I like the contract model because it enables us to cover a lot more of the issues. For example, the father's view on the matter. A man who wants to keep the child would be one vote for Yes. And if he does not want the child, then the responsibility of caring for it when it's born would be the woman's alone.

Likewise, if a woman elects to go through with the pregnancy but in the 7th month learns that it's not developing properly, then she should retain the right to change her Yes vote to a No vote.

My reason for saying that the unborn is deemed to be a Yes vote is to answer the anti-abortionists who insist that the existence of a fertilized egg trumps everyone else's rights. If each party to the transaction is deemed to have a 'vote' on the matter, then the unborn is just one vote, and its vote alone isn't enough to sway the matter in its favor. There must also be at least the vote of the mother, or one day perhaps we will see that the vote of the owner of an incubator or other artificial womb will be able to step up to nurture the zygote/embryo/fetus through the stages of pregnancy.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

No, the fetus has NO vote whatsoever. It has no rights, it has no right to vote.

Your contract model concedes WAY too much to those who maintain a fetus has rights.

[Jake_Ellison]

Why are you being silly, AllMenAreIslands? First off, why are you giving the father a vote on what happens in a woman's body?

Are you saying that you're entitled to a child from a woman, just because you had sex with her? Because if I do your math, taking the automatic Yes vote from the clump of cells, adding the Yes vote from you, the poor woman gets outvoted of her own body.

What is with this voting nonsense? We are trying to have a discussion on individual rights, ethics etc. from an Objectivist (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) perspective. Where are you getting the voting from? What, in her philosophy, did you interpret to allow for your solution?

[AllMenAreIslands]

I see your point, Steve. I just know I haven't gotten ANYwhere arguing that the fetus has no rights. My approach is to say that in a rational world, any transaction requires the voluntary agreement of ALL parties. Without the mother's agreement, the transaction cannot go forward.

Why are you being silly, AllMenAreIslands? First off, why are you giving the father a vote on what happens in a woman's body?

Are you saying that you're entitled to a child from a woman, just because you had sex with her? Because if I do your math, taking the automatic Yes vote from the clump of cells, adding the Yes vote from you, the poor woman gets outvoted of her own body.

What is with this voting nonsense? We are trying to have a discussion on individual rights, ethics etc. from an Objectivist (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) perspective. Where are you getting the voting from? What, in her philosophy, did you interpret to allow for your solution?

The point of raising the father's viewpoint is this: if a man does NOT agree to caring for the child once it's born, then isn't it wrong to force him to even if he states categorically that he doesn't agree to bringing a child into the world?

If the woman can categorically decide to abort (and I agree that she has that right) then the father ought to be able to weigh in at the moment that pregnancy is known to be happening.

I am not advocating "majority wins" in this scenario. All "votes" as it were must be Yes in order for the pregnancy to continue. However, if the father votes No, the mother has the option to override his vote and carry through with the pregnancy. But should she have the right to force the father to contribute to the care of the child once it's born? I say no.

Edited December 13, 2008 by AllMenAreIslands

[Steve D'Ippolito]

You may not have gotten anywhere arguing the fetus has no rights. Have you been very careful to argue that it is not a human being? *That* is the premise of the "pro-lifers" that is *rarely* attacked by the pro-legal-abortion crowd. They simply talk about the woman's right to choose, STOP. That right would be trumped by the right of a fetus to live, if the fetus had rights, which it would if it were a human being.

It's very simple--as long as the "pro lifers" can put "It is not a choice, it is a child" on a bumper sticker and no one makes the argument that it is not a child we will lose this argument, over and over. And your contract model implicitly concedes that it is a child.

[Jake_Ellison]

Ok, that's a valid question, AllMenAreIslands.

He still doesn't get a say on whether there's gonna be an abortion (that's strictly the woman's business, since it's her body), but if the pregnancy was not planned (he did not try to get the woman pregnant), and after he found out about it, he expressed his desire to have the abortion, then the baby would be the woman's alone. (She's the only one who actually made the choice to bring the baby into the world.)

The biological father, in this case, is just a sperm donor, he made no choice to bring a baby into the world. Then the biological father would not count as a father, he would lose both his rights and his obligations as a parent.

However, that's not the same thing as him getting a say over a woman's body, and of course the fetus is not a human being, has no rights, opinions desires etc.

Edited December 13, 2008 by Jake_Ellison

[AllMenAreIslands]

Ok, Steve. I will amend that part of it in my thinking. The fetus does NOT get a vote.

And Jake, I do not advocate that the man should have the right to compel the woman to either have an abortion or keep the child. I do think that being realistic, some women will take the father's view into account. But it's not something that should be legislated. It's a case-by-case, individual decision-making process. Or should be.

Edited December 13, 2008 by AllMenAreIslands