Abortion

[TheEgoist]

Get out of the middle of the road, Kelly!

[Randroid]

Sorry for that, I should have provided more details, I apologize. I meant Euthanasia in the sense that someone is on life support, is completely unconscious, and is not "volitional." Would it be moral for whomever was in charge of this type of thing, a family member most likely, to allow a doctor to "pull the plug"?

If a recovery from this condition is not likely and the patient has not expressed that he wants to remain on life support for as long as possible, then yes, it would be moral for whoever is designated "notify in case of emergency" to decide to pull the plug.

[whYNOT]

May I butt in here. This has got to be one of the longest-running threads I've seen! I haven't read all of it,so I'm sorry if I duplicate anyone.

Can anyone tell me any further detail on this recent Gallup Poll (in which the pro-lifers have inched ahead of the pro-choicers, to the tune of 51%).

My questions: a. What proportion of that 51% are male? b. What proportion of that 51% are religious, or in any way believe in a human having a soul?

I will wager that the answers in both cases, are the MAJORITY.

The first doesn't need to be dwelled upon too long - the burden of unwanted pregnancy is heavier on the woman, and they should rightfully have the final say.

The second is, I believe closer to the crux of this complex issue.

For instance, the Vatican's stance against contraception or abortion, is based ( I read somewhere) upon the belief that the second coming of the Messiah can be any time, any place, and so must be protected at all cost. Whew.

But my point is that a pro-lifer does not have to be Catholic ; he,she, just needs to believe in Man's indestructible soul, to have a ready-made cause.

This is an easy decision [ although I can't state strongly enough that abortion cannot and should not be an easy decision for those involved ] for an atheist like myself. So I am firmly pro-choice.

For those who believe that an embryo possesses a soul - no rational debate with them is possible. Their stand point is mystical, their motivation is avoidance of guilt.

[K-Mac]

The fact that someone is male rather than female has no bearing on whether or not abortion is moral.

[SD26]

The second is, I believe closer to the crux of this complex issue.

For instance, the Vatican's stance against contraception or abortion, is based ( I read somewhere) upon the belief that the second coming of the Messiah can be any time, any place, and so must be protected at all cost. Whew.

Never heard that as while being brought up Catholic. If there is a second coming, I believe he's supposed to be coming rather violently and not by birth.

[whYNOT]

Hello K-Mac, The morality of abortion is a fait accompli in my view, and has already been argued on this thread. My point on the general heading of 'Abortion' was to throw more light on the motives and bias of 'pro-lifers'.

Hi SD26, I have just been reminded by my wife that we heard that statement from a Vatican priest in a documentary interview a few years ago. Sorry, no more info.

[themadkat]

May I butt in here. This has got to be one of the longest-running threads I've seen! I haven't read all of it,so I'm sorry if I duplicate anyone.

Can anyone tell me any further detail on this recent Gallup Poll (in which the pro-lifers have inched ahead of the pro-choicers, to the tune of 51%).

My questions: a. What proportion of that 51% are male? b. What proportion of that 51% are religious, or in any way believe in a human having a soul?

I will wager that the answers in both cases, are the MAJORITY.

You may be wrong on the first count. From what I understand it is actually men who are more likely to be pro-choice than pro-life by a slim margin. But most men are not nearly as vocal about it on the pro-choice side because they recognize, correctly, that it's not THEIR choice. Most pro-life people I know are actually women. Also I think men are more likely than women to be "agnostic" on the issue since, again, they're not the ones who think about that choice.

I'm just now coming out of the time in my life, I believe, where the ability to make that call would have been the most crucial to me. If I were to become pregnant now or in the future I would most likely elect to carry to term, but that was certainly not the case 3 or 4 years ago.

[SD26]

Hello K-Mac, The morality of abortion is a fait accompli in my view, and has already been argued o

Hi SD26, I have just been reminded by my wife that we heard that statement from a Vatican priest in a documentary interview a few years ago. Sorry, no more info.

No problem. Sounds like a singular comment from an individual.

[Jake_Ellison]

No problem. Sounds like a singular comment from an individual.

How do you figure? To me it sounds exactly like all the other nonsense the pope wrote himself.

[SD26]

How do you figure? To me it sounds exactly like all the other nonsense the pope wrote himself.

Because it was a statement made by a priest. A priest doesn't develop church policy. And I've never heard anyone while I was a regular Catholic going to Catholic schools ever justify the Catholic Church's stance on abortion being based upon the second coming happening via a birth. If God were gonna bring back Jesus, I think he could figure out a way to get it done without having to concern Himself about abortion, right?

[whYNOT]

............. then again, it may have been a Cardinal. ( me and my hole-y memory ).

[K-Mac]

Best to forget.

[Jake_Ellison]

Because it was a statement made by a priest. A priest doesn't develop church policy. And I've never heard anyone while I was a regular Catholic going to Catholic schools ever justify the Catholic Church's stance on abortion being based upon the second coming happening via a birth. If God were gonna bring back Jesus, I think he could figure out a way to get it done without having to concern Himself about abortion, right?

Not really. From what I hear, He works in mysterious ways (which at times includes asking people to murder their own children), so banning even condoms, let alone abortion, to make sure the Apocalypse goes smoothly, is really perfectly within the bounds of what the Vatican would consider reasonable.

[Uttles]

As soon as one becomes both rational and volitional, so actually much later than birth. However, that point varies from individual to individual, so it is more practical to assume one becomes human at birth. Why then? Because after birth, the baby exists as an independent being. It still needs to be provided for, but after birth anyone can do that. It is no longer dependent on one single person who would have to be enslaved were she unwilling to share her body with it. Birth is the moment when volunteers can take over.

I disagree with this definition of the beginning of human life. Man is a rational animal. Therefore, man is a "man" at the point where his conciousness first becomes active. This study shows that a fetus can "learn" at 30 weeks: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_sh...-research-.html and there have been many more like it (this is just the most recent)

So, if a fetus is conceptualizing at 30 weeks, then it is a rational animal, and therefore a man. Science needs to be used to determine the cutoff point, in my opinion, to determine when a fetus begins to think. Otherwise, we should just go around executing every non-volitional adult, because there are plenty of those around.

[DavidOdden]

Man is a rational animal.

Man is also a separate being; until something gains the status of being a separate person, the concept of rights is inapplicable.

[Uttles]

Man is also a separate being; until something gains the status of being a separate person, the concept of rights is inapplicable.

So then a DNX abortion is OK because the organism is terminated while outside of the womb but the umbilical cord is still in tact, but infanticide is not because the umbilical cord has been cut?

I'm sorry but this just isn't logical.

If life is the standard of value for all of morality, I think it is crucially significant to define when life begins and to have that definition be objective. Something as arbitrary as the fetus' location should not be used in the definition.

Additionally, it's been shown that babies born at 7 months will survive without any specialized care. (Other babies are born even before that but require medical intervention to live) This organism doesn't magically become human 9 months later, it already is. Obviously then, you can't say that a baby in the womb at 7,8, or 9 months is not a man.

I think Rand was 100% right that a clump of cells cannot be identified objectively as a man. Only a rational animal is a man. I don't believe however that we can assign any other arbitrary criteria like "the umbilical cord was cut" or "it can fend for itself." When a fetus becomes a rational animal, it is a man.

[Jake_Ellison]

So, if a fetus is conceptualizing at 30 weeks, then it is a rational animal, and therefore a man. Science needs to be used to determine the cutoff point, in my opinion, to determine when a fetus begins to think. Otherwise, we should just go around executing every non-volitional adult, because there are plenty of those around.

Reason should be used to determine the cutoff point, not just science. Science studies nature, not politics. Politics is separate from natural sciences, but just like science, it needs to be based on reason and logic.

Any cutoff point should be based on both philosophy and science, both the products of reason. What you are trying to accomplish here is completely disregard the concept of individual rights, by appealing to science. There is no science that tells you what is moral, or even how logic works, so you won't come across morality in a biology or physics class.

If life is the standard of value for all of morality, I think it is crucially significant to define when life begins and to have that definition be objective. Something as arbitrary as the fetus' location should not be used in the definition.

You're premise is wrong. "Life" is not the standard of value for all morality, one's own life is that standard of value. According to Objectivism, that is.

I think Rand was 100% right that a clump of cells cannot be identified objectively as a man. Only a rational animal is a man. I don't believe however that we can assign any other arbitrary criteria like "the umbilical cord was cut" or "it can fend for itself." When a fetus becomes a rational animal, it is a man.

If you wish to discuss laws and politics on an Objectivist forum, understand and acknowledge the concept of individual rights as the basis for all politics. Then you'll realize that being physically independent, a single unit capable of existing separately, is essential to being an individual, with rights.

[bluecherry]

Otherwise, we should just go around executing every non-volitional adult, because there are plenty of those around.

If you mean humans who have lost brain function and only survive with machine aid, those humans are not damaging anybody else against that other person's will, they're not leeching off another unwilling person's body to sustain themselves. So long as there's nobody forcing those humans to be kept alive on the machines against the will of the owners of the machines and providers of the electric and such to run it, there's no more excuse to run around killing those humans off than there is to kill off other people's trees. They aren't harming you, and those other people who do have the say over them are taking care of them without violating anybody else's rights either.

Anyway, rights don't function when you've got things tied together. Rights are by their nature freedoms of action from the initiation of forceful interference by those capable of doing so, so if you are incapable of being free about something like that, as in it is physically impossible, you can't have that right. If the fetus is incapable of meeting a requirement of rights it doesn't matter which requirement it fails to meet, it still fails to meet them and so can't have rights. The fetus is incapable of that freedom needing the pregnant person in order to survive, the same does not apply to the pregnant person though. That need that makes it impossible to have rights is a one way street here.

As long as the fetus can't meet the criteria for rights, it is no worse than killing a dog if you've got to to get the thing to stop mangling your leg. If you want to run with it and assume anyway the fetus could be capable of meeting the requirements for rights, the pregnant person would still have the right to do whatever was needed to stop a violation of her rights going on like with any other rights possessing person who started violating her bodily integrity.

If you want to argue about if it is necessary to kill a fetus to end a pregnancy late in the game when it may be able to survive on its own outside the womb rather than just take it out and cut the cord and toss it into the adoption system, that I'll leave for somebody else to answer. I just wanted to address why we don't need to go kill all the brain dead people on life support and why at least the ability to be independent is important in a question of rights, not JUST the capacity for the rational form of consciousness being developed. The fetus before birth has never been independent and can't just make itself independent even when it may be capable of surviving independently, so that may tie in to be arguable for if it should still count as a being incapable of the freedoms that are rights anyway, that it can't get those freedoms until it has become detached.

[softwareNerd]

I disagree with this definition of the beginning of human life. Man is a rational animal. Therefore, man is a "man" at the point where his conciousness first becomes active. This study shows that a fetus can "learn" at 30 weeks: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_sh...-research-.html and there have been many more like it (this is just the most recent)

So, if a fetus is conceptualizing at 30 weeks, then it is a rational animal, and therefore a man. Science needs to be used to determine the cutoff point, in my opinion, to determine when a fetus begins to think. Otherwise, we should just go around executing every non-volitional adult, because there are plenty of those around.

I'm not sure if you have much experience with babies, but for the first year or so, they do not "conceptualize" in any sense of the word.

Of course they "learn", but so do animals and we don't grant animals rights.

In essence, therefore, if you follow your line of reasoning to its logical end, you are making a case that babies ought not to have any rights for the first few months at least.

Edited July 28, 2009 by softwareNerd

[DavidOdden]

If life is the standard of value for all of morality, I think it is crucially significant to define when life begins and to have that definition be objective.

I see: the problem is that you don't understand some of the fine-grained details of Objectivist ethics, especially with regards to rights. The Objectivist ethics does not say that life is sacred. Translated into law, that would mean that man must by law be a carrion-eater. "Life" qua floating abstraction is not the standard of value for morality, it is your life. In addition, Objectivism does not say that legally-recognised rights are exactly the same as a "rational moral code". The abortion issue is a legal one, and the fundamental principle that the law recognizes is that it is man and only man that has legal rights.

The difference between sperm or egg and a man is that man is a man, but sperm and egg are only a potential man. Rights pertain to actual man, not potential man. Whether or not we are to further limit rights-concepts as applying only to rational men, there can be no question that rights pertain only to actual men. Man is not a parasite that lives inside another being.

[Uttles]

OK so more nitpicking of terms, ad hominem attacks, and inventing of arbitrary defintions. I'm still not convinced.

Yes, I said "life" and not "one's own life." I figured that was already well established in this line of discussion.

Like I said before, I'm not "pro-life" or "pro-choice" in the abortion debate sense of the word. I'm anti-murder, and I think that killing a child is wrong no matter where it happens to be located at the time or if it is autonomous. If it's brain is functioning and it could live outside the womb, it's alive and has the right to stay alive.

[softwareNerd]

If it's brain is functioning and it could live outside the womb, it's alive and has the right to stay alive.

You have mentioned three things in the posts above, in defense of fetus rights:

• at some point, it is rational
  
• at some point, it can survive outside the womb
  
• it is alive
  

The first is just not true. However, you have not mentioned it in your recent post, so perhaps you've dropped that line of argument.

The second is very vague, because "surviving outside the womb" is not something a typical baby can do either. From conception to a certain age the type of entity that finally ends up as being a human adult is unable to exist without external help.

We're left with "it's alive", and I guess you'll agree that we don't assume entities that are alive have rights merely because they're alive.

[Aside: David did not misunderstand you about "life" vs. "own's own life". Re-read his post.]

Edited July 29, 2009 by softwareNerd

[Jake_Ellison]

OK so more nitpicking of terms, ad hominem attacks, and inventing of arbitrary defintions. I'm still not convinced.

Yes, I said "life" and not "one's own life." I figured that was already well established in this line of discussion.

It's not nitpicking, you just don't understand the massive, fundamental difference between the two. You proceeded to argue as if "life" was the standard of morality, according to Objectivism.

[nanite1018]

I have not read the entire thread, just the last few pages, simply because it has grown to an unwieldy length.

I agree that a clump of cells is not a man and cannot be said to have rights. A parasitic organism cannot have rights either. Therefore during the first trimester a fetus is yours to do with as you wish. However, at some point around 6 months or so the fetus exhibits human brain wave patterns and is capable of learning on a basic level, and also can survive outside the womb without specialized medical care. At that point, it is for all intents and purposes a baby that just happens to still be growing inside the womb rather than outside.

Now, obviously if the woman will die if the baby is born (naturally or by c-section), then the baby is infringing on her rights (its basically attacking her) and so must be taken care of in the only safe available way, that is by a late-term abortion. But barring that, the woman has known that she was pregnant for months already (no period is a clue for the first trimester, second you get the stomach bulge, no one, or almost no one, doesn't realize their pregnant by 4ish months). As a result, she has decided, consciously, that she wants to continue being pregnant. If she changes her mind after the baby is fully capable of surviving without specialized care outside of her, well then remove the baby via birth of some kind. If she doesn't want it then she can put it up for adoption immediately. That meets her desires, unless she simply wants it dead for whatever reason, in which case her motive is the same as in infanticide and that should be illegal.

Parenthood is a contract essentially, with the child. They come with certain responsibilities and requirements, including providing adequate food and shelter, etc. For children there is such a thing as criminal neglect, because the parent is responsible for another human being and has a contractual duty to uphold, and the only way out of it is adoption. A pregnant woman who has decided to carry the fetus to the point where it can survive just like any baby outside her womb has decided to allow it to become a baby who happens to be located inside her. She does not have the right, at that point, to kill it. She has the right to remove it and put it up for adoption, certainly, but just because the baby is at that time dependent on her body does not give her the right to end its life.

I don't see why that is irrational, and it fits pretty much with the way abortion is done currently in the US.

[Jake_Ellison]

I have not read the entire thread, just the last few pages, simply because it has grown to an unwieldy length.

What about this conversation, on the very last page, posted just yesterday? It contains the rebuttal to your false analogy between killing a fetus and killing a child. Why didn't you acknowledge it, if you read it?

I disagree with this definition of the beginning of human life. Man is a rational animal. Therefore, man is a "man" at the point where his conciousness first becomes active. This study shows that a fetus can "learn" at 30 weeks: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_sh...-research-.html and there have been many more like it (this is just the most recent)

So, if a fetus is conceptualizing at 30 weeks, then it is a rational animal, and therefore a man. Science needs to be used to determine the cutoff point, in my opinion, to determine when a fetus begins to think. Otherwise, we should just go around executing every non-volitional adult, because there are plenty of those around.

Answer:

Man is also a separate being; until something gains the status of being a separate person, the concept of rights is inapplicable.

Also, on that second page you read, I posted this:

"I wish you would read up on at least some of these questions yourself. The government's only job is to protect individual rights. This is the relevant Objectivist position on objective, individual rights:

"Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right."

"Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression “individual rights” is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos)." (Ayn Rand- The Virtue of Selfishness)

The end does not justify the means. No one’s rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others."(Ayn Rand-Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal)

"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)." (Ayn Rand, The Objectivist)

If you understand Ayn Rand's position on individual rights, you understand what the government, in her view and ours, should or shouldn't do in any given situation.

Why don't you acknowledge the Rand quote that says: "No one’s rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others", and "only an individual man can possess rights", when you go ahead and declare it illegal for a woman to abort something that is occupying her body?

Ayn Rand defined rights as applicable to individuals. Something inside a stomach is not an individual.

So what objective system of rights do you propose we adopt instead, that would allow for forcing women, by Law, to carry out pregnancies they don't wish to carry out?

Parenthood is a contract essentially, with the child.

A contract, essentially, is an agreement signed by two parties, comprised of adult individuals or groups of adult individuals. So, parenthood is not essentially a contract. Plus we're not discussing parenthood, but pregnancy.

But the last time this came up was I think three pages ago, so it was time to answer it again