Should abortion be legal until the moment of birth?

[Hairnet]

You're trying to define "individual" in terms of a concept that refers to a relationship between individuals: dependency.

Individuality isn't defined in terms of dependence. An individual is an individual no matter what his relationship is to other individuals. A concept that's useful in Politics has to be a precedent of concepts like "dependence". Politics starts with a collection of individuals, and then uses concepts like dependence to describe the relationships between them.

But what an individual has to be is someone capable of such relationships with other individuals. Applying political principles to something that's not is senseless.

Biology is a science. I'm no Biologist, but that statement doesn't sound like it's a part of it.

It's not. That's the whole point. If you wish to make sure that a child doesn't die, there's no need for you to force the mother into a relationship with that child. You can have a political solution to your goal: change of custody.

That's not the case with a fetus. You can't call something an individual if the only means other individuals have of establishing any kind of a relationship with it is indirect, through enslaving the mother.

No, we are talking about a very speicifc issue here that calls into question just "when" someone becomse an individual. You can't just ignore the fact that is exactly what I am attempting to do. Using parasitism (biological dependence) as a standard is not esoteric or unusual in anyway. Parasitism is a concept in biology (an common knowledge) that needs no precedent in political philosophy. It can be applied to political philosophy. Even then I can not be criticized for helping to find the specific application of an idea like "individuality" in a strange context by contrasting it with its negative state like "non-individuality".

Same goes for ultrasounds or less invasive means of testing whether or not a fetus can surivive outside the womb with only the protection provided to any other born child,.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Hairnet

[intellectualammo]

the moment of birth is when 'the lights go on' and the infant's consciousness can begin differentiating and integrating and understanding the surroundings.

What should be considered as the moment of birth? Just delivery? Or delivery and cord cutting? and what about C-sections?

Edited September 24, 2012 by intellectualammo

[Grames]

What should be considered as the moment of birth? Just delivery? Or delivery and cord cutting? and what about C-sections?

Birth is actually a process, not a moment. For some unfortunate women it is a long and drawn out process. Still, an objectively defined moment that comes earlier than cord cutting is when the infant is first visible from outside the mother's body. Specifying the moment is head is visible as the moment of birth is arguably better as it classifies babies that do not survive breech birth as not having been born.

From the mother's perspective birth is accomplished when the baby is expelled, and whether the baby was born alive or dead it is still gone. But from everyone else's perspective, including the law, being born as "the beginning of personhood" implies being born successfully, meaning born alive. Death certificates issued in cases of still births or deaths in difficult deliveries would seem to imply there was a person and then there was not a person but really serve as an official explanation of why an expected living person (the infant) does not exist, protecting the mother from suspicions of murder. Which brings the thread back onto the original topic.

[Grames]

We're agreed that there needs to be a threshold, but that threshold ought to be meaningful. The question before us, I believe, is one of rights, and at what point the Doctor's "entity" is a human being who has rights. As best as I can reckon, the source of those rights cannot be simply whether "the cord has been cut." My argument as to 10 minutes before a C-section or after is not to argue against any possible boundary, but it is to insist that there is so little difference between these two specific scenarios when it comes to the nature of the child (for it is a child in both cases) that we cannot possibly have "rights" in one case and not the other.

Regardless of your intention to not argue about boundaries per se, it remains an argument against boundaries and is refuted by argument establishing the inevitability of boundaries. Furthermore, your explanation of why you claim there is a contradiction, "(for it is a child in both cases)", is petitio principii because establishing when personhood begins and rights apply is the question to be answered. I will not concede that the object of our attention is a child in both cases.

I find the epistemological method you seem to employing here is intrinsicism. Intrinsicism in general is the assertion that the 'thing in itself' is a value, and in this particular case that 'human flesh has rights', with no thought of justification or considering of value to whom and for what purpose, or of what causes rights.

A couple of weeks before birth, my wife had a small scare with spotting -- the placement of our child's placenta was close to my wife's cervix, so it was a rather big deal. When we consulted with our doctor, she told us to rush to the emergency room in any such case, because, based upon her development, our child was perfectly viable and could be delivered safely at any time. I don't mean to argue that "viability" ought to be the line exactly, I don't know what should, but it seems to me that this is far more meaningful than birth with respect to the nature of the child in question.

All through our lives we take action with respect to things which do not exist. That is called planning ahead. Yet the existence of the plan and even the carrying of it into action is not the same as the ultimate object of the plan and action. Taking action right now for the benefit of the child you expect to have does not imply the child exists right now, anymore than my saving for retirement right now implies that I am retired right now.

1) You'd said this: "As the Objectivist case for rights centers on having a faculty of rationality, and that requires awareness of existence, the moment of birth is when 'the lights go on' and the infant's consciousness can begin differentiating and integrating and understanding the surroundings."

A faculty of rationality is a function of the biological reality of a human being, not a function of his surroundings. A child in the womb has the *faculty of rationality*, if not the material to put that faculty to good use, just as a just-born infant has the faculty of speech, if no knowledge of language or motor control to utilize it.

A faculty of rationality is an attribute of some consciousnesses, and consciousness itself is not an entity but the action of awareness, a type of relationship between subject and object, knower and known. Reifying 'faculty of rationality' as though it were an independent entity or attribute not premised on awareness is another instance of thinking like an intrinsicist.

2) It's just factually wrong that a fetus "is effectively in a sensory deprivation chamber." With the caveat that I'm no expert, I'm pretty certain that children in the womb can hear in some capacity... and I don't know what other sensory abilities they might possess, nor what early consciousness may develop accordingly, but I am sure that this takes place too.

I'll concede that the sensory input in the womb is greater than zero, but the sensory input to an adult in a sensory deprivation chamber is also greater than zero. Being rational, indeed remaining sane, requires sensory input above some threshold level which is itself not zero. See http://en.wikipedia....ory_deprivation . Since an adult cannot keep his consciousness from disintegrating under conditions of sensory deprivation, I cannot give credence to the notion that a fetus can gain consciousness, the human style consciousness that underlies rights, in similar conditions and especially not with the additional factor that a fetus has never known any other condition.

I've heard it said that some just-born children show an affinity for their mother's voice, presumably because they have heard it so often before and have developed an attachment. And soothing strategies such as swaddling, rocking, shushing, etc., work because they reproduce to some degree the child's experience in the womb, in terms of noise, motion, and other physical sensations.

This is could be said to be true for for all mammalian infants. Not all mammalian infants have rights, so all of this is nonessential to thinking about rights.

[Spiral Architect]

Spartan infanticide.

I know. I was just making light of his reference and making a point at the same time.

[DonAthos]

Regardless of your intention to not argue about boundaries per se, it remains an argument against boundaries and is refuted by argument establishing the inevitability of boundaries.

Incorrect. It is (as I have clearly stated) an argument against this particular boundary -- there is no meaningful difference 10 minutes before or after a C-section with respect to the child, or the child's source of rights. If you had another boundary to suggest, then perhaps there would be a meaningful difference. But birth is not it.

Furthermore, your explanation of why you claim there is a contradiction, "(for it is a child in both cases)", is petitio principii because establishing when personhood begins and rights apply is the question to be answered.

I'm not begging the question, I'm asserting my essential argument. Saying that it is a child is not my rationale, but a restatement of my premise (and an obvious one at that).

I will not concede that the object of our attention is a child in both cases.

Of course you won't. Fidelity to your conclusion demands nothing less. Of course a child isn't a child 10 minutes before delivery.

I find the epistemological method you seem to employing here is intrinsicism.

Well, you're wrong.

All through our lives we take action with respect to things which do not exist. That is called planning ahead. Yet the existence of the plan and even the carrying of it into action is not the same as the ultimate object of the plan and action. Taking action right now for the benefit of the child you expect to have does not imply the child exists right now, anymore than my saving for retirement right now implies that I am retired right now.

The paragraph to which you're responding is meant to demonstrate that viability is a more meaningful threshold than birth, and moreover that it meets the criteria you'd set out earlier, i.e."objective and provable and clearly understandable boundaries," (though it may not be the threshold I would ultimately argue for), not an argument that a child "exists right now," as such. Though that latter is, again, obvious.

A faculty of rationality is an attribute of some consciousnesses, and consciousness itself is not an entity but the action of awareness, a type of relationship between subject and object, knower and known. Reifying 'faculty of rationality' as though it were an independent entity or attribute not premised on awareness is another instance of thinking like an intrinsicist.

Excuse me, but what are you even talking about? Where do I "[reify] faculty of rationality"? I don't think you'll find it, because that's just something you're making up.

Here's Rand on "reason" from "The Objectivist Ethics" (per the Lexicon):

Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.

Note that she makes no claims as to what material we're talking about, nor even that there is any extant material (as a person could be in a real sensory deprivation chamber). This faculty is possessed by every human consciousness, even those who are not "rational," and yes, including those humans 10 minutes before and after their birth. The faculty is possessed by a person before he identifies or integrates any material; it is, indeed, by virtue of that faculty that he is capable of doing so!

Is it possessed by an embryo? Nope. So we're not debating whether an embryo has rights. But does a child, 10 minutes before birth, possess "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses"? Why yes, it does! (The main difference between 10 minutes before and after is that 10 minutes after the child has *more* material provided by his senses -- but that is not a statement about his ability to identify/integrate that material, which he possessed prior to being born).

And since "the Objectivist case for rights centers on having a faculty of rationality," I suppose that is the argument made. Is it not?

I'll concede that the sensory input in the womb is greater than zero, but the sensory input to an adult in a sensory deprivation chamber is also greater than zero.

Indeed. It is enough to wonder why you ever advanced that argument in the first place.

Being rational, indeed remaining sane, requires sensory input above some threshold level which is itself not zero. See http://en.wikipedia....ory_deprivation . Since an adult cannot keep his consciousness from disintegrating under conditions of sensory deprivation, I cannot give credence to the notion that a fetus can gain consciousness, the human style consciousness that underlies rights, in similar conditions and especially not with the additional factor that a fetus has never known any other condition.

Again, possessing a "faculty of reason" is not the same as being rational, though you seek to equivocate between them here.

Why should a "fetus" not be able to have whatever consciousness 10 minutes before birth as 10 minutes after? Because it has not yet opened its eyes (howsoever briefly)? What magic do you suppose happens in that time frame (which may as well be 1 minute on either side, or 10 seconds) which gifts to the child "human style consciousness" and rights accordingly?

This is could be said to be true for for all mammalian infants. Not all mammalian infants have rights, so all of this is nonessential to thinking about rights.

And of course the paragraph you're supposedly responding to here is meant as examples of evidence for the kinds of sensory information that a human child receives in utero. Did you not understand that? Did you think I was talking about "all mammalian infants" or something? Where did I lose you?

We were talking about human beings. You wrongly claimed that a child in the womb is as in a sensory deprivation chamber, and thus cannot have the faculty of reason necessary to enjoy rights. I argued that a child in the womb does indeed sense, and is possessed of the faculty of reason (at least, according to how Rand described it), and thus does indeed have rights per the standards you yourself have laid out. Right?

[intellectualammo]

Birth is actually a process, not a moment. For some unfortunate women it is a long and drawn out process. Still, an objectively defined moment that comes earlier than cord cutting is when the infant is first visible from outside the mother's body. Specifying the moment is head is visible as the moment of birth is arguably better as it classifies babies that do not survive breech birth as not having been born.

Birth, by definition, is an emergence, physical separation. That, does not occur when the fetus's head, toe, sticks out of a woman's vagina. But the defintion also says emergence, which I am unclear what that exactly qualifies as, emergence, as you said, or emergence, as in the start of life as a separate independent being, as the definition seems to indicate that, to me, instead of a toe sticking out of a womans vag.

Edited September 25, 2012 by intellectualammo

[aleph_1]

If you are having trouble defining when a "fetus" becomes an "individual", it is because you are dealing with a floating abstraction. It is common to use words to define classes of humans out of the human race so that it is acceptable to liquidate them. An unborn human is a human and has entered the life-cycle in the same way as all mammals. If it is alive and human, the only question left is, "When does it gain value?" If you are in the business of defining some humans as having no value, I don't want to live in your neighborhood.

[Nicky]

If you are having trouble defining when a "fetus" becomes an "individual", it is because you are dealing with a floating abstraction. It is common to use words to define classes of humans out of the human race so that it is acceptable to liquidate them. An unborn human is a human and has entered the life-cycle in the same way as all mammals. If it is alive and human, the only question left is, "When does it gain value?" If you are in the business of defining some humans as having no value, I don't want to live in your neighborhood.

Value to whom? God?

[intellectualammo]

It is common to use words to define classes of humans out of the human race so that it is acceptable to liquidate them.

My goal in defining is not finding acceptable human liquidation, but rather when a potential human being becomes an actual human being, so that a woman's rights are not violated, and the rights of a newborn aren't violated either.

One thing about such a late term abortion, for whatever reason a woman has for having one, we need to find the line, the cut off time - which I think is removal of fetus from womb either by vag delivery or a C then clamping and cutting the cord. You then have an actual human being, not just a potential, because of complete physical separation from mommy. Just a little part of the head sticking out of the vag, I do not think should qualify potential as an actual until complete physical separation. Rand said 'until it is born' does it acquire rights and until then its a womans right to abortion. 'Born' means existing as a result of birth. So, when the process is complete, the result is an actual human being that has rights.

I don't want to live in your neighborhood.

Move then.

[Grames]

Birth, by definition, is an emergence, physical separation. That, does not occur when the fetus's head, toe, sticks out of a woman's vagina. But the defintion also says emergence, which I am unclear what that exactly qualifies as, emergence, as you said, or emergence, as in the start of life as a separate independent being, as the definition seems to indicate that, to me, instead of a toe

"A toe sticking out of a womans vag" is exactly what happens in a breech birth, which is precisely what I tried to exclude. So we agree there. And yes I think emergence is the better way to think about birth rather than including infanticide with the umbilical cord still attached under the concept of abortion.

[aleph_1]

Value to whom? God?

As you well know, there is no god at all-ah. Yours is a weak diversionary tactic common from those who support abortion. You are the only one inserting god into this issue. That abstraction has no validity at all. I said of value to "you". It is your values that are at issue. The presence of the child in the womb is measurable and not an abstraction. It's value is the only question that remains.

[aleph_1]

My goal in defining is not finding acceptable human liquidation, but rather when a potential human being becomes an actual human being, so that a woman's rights are not violated, and the rights of a newborn aren't violated either.

One thing about such a late term abortion, for whatever reason a woman has for having one, we need to find the line, the cut off time - which I think is removal of fetus from womb either by vag delivery or a C then clamping and cutting the cord. You then have an actual human being, not just a potential, because of complete physical separation from mommy. Just a little part of the head sticking out of the vag, I do not think should qualify potential as an actual until complete physical separation. Rand said 'until it is born' does it acquire rights and until then its a womans right to abortion. 'Born' means existing as a result of birth. So, when the process is complete, the result is an actual human being that has rights.

So if you kill them before you cut the cord it's okay, and if you kill them after you cut the cord it's murder. When do you cut exactly? You are exactly trying to find an acceptable liquidation point, and hence human value is a floating abstraction that you haven't come to grips with. Your are working very hard to justify an arbitrary point in time.

A land that accepts arbitrary "dis-valuations" (to coin a word) of classes of human beings is doomed to repeat history.

[Spiral Architect]

^{Nicky was demonstrating that the argument was showing the value was not in the women whose body is involved, but someone else who wishes to force women to obey their tandard of value. He just went the full way by using the typical argument from (supernatural) authority that is used, which is God(s). His point does stand, the question is of value to whom? The answer is not "You", if that was the case this debate would not be taking place since the women would be deciding since she is the only value holder.}

^{The point that a bunch of protoplasm becomes a human being with rights is an interesting question. Claiming a two celled organism has Constitutional Rights is the floating abstraction since it is not based in any fact, easily demonstratable by the obsurd notion that a women has more rights before she is born than afterwards. Picture a pregnant lady picking up a Social Security Card for her Fetus becasue it is a member of society with rights, checking the "I don't know yet" box under gender, to see just how rediculous it would be to follow through on such a notion and impliment into law.}

[softwareNerd]

A land that accepts arbitrary "dis-valuations" (to coin a word) of classes of human beings is doomed to repeat history.

To clarify, are you saying that interfering with the "human" is immoral and should be illegal at any point after fertilization? Or is implantation the line? I sounds like you're drawing the line at fertilization. If so, do you also think contraceptives should be banned? Just trying to understand your complete position here. Edited September 26, 2012 by softwareNerd

[Nicky]

As you well know, there is no god at all-ah. Yours is a weak diversionary tactic common from those who support abortion. You are the only one inserting god into this issue. That abstraction has no validity at all. I said of value to "you".

To me? I value puppies and kittens, because their cuteness makes me all fuzzy inside. And I have no use for half the human population.

So either I'm the second coming of Hitler (but with a soft spot for furry animals), or my values don't dictate what has rights and what doesn't. Which is it?

Edited September 26, 2012 by Nicky

[aleph_1]

To clarify, are you saying that interfering with the "human" is immoral and should be illegal at any point after fertilization? Or is implantation the line? I sounds like you're drawing the line at fertilization. If so, do you also think contraceptives should be banned? Just trying to understand your complete position here.

I am not addressing that issue at all. The issue in question is the abortion of a viable full-term "fetus" having cute little pinkie toes and lovely puffy cheeks. Using labels that dehumanize that "potential" human is just as inhuman as using labels to dehumanize other classes of human beings.

[softwareNerd]

I am not addressing that issue at all.

Actually, it is very much the same issue. Put generally, the question is this: is there a point from fertilization to birth where you think abortion should be legal? If so, where -- at least in broad terms -- do you draw that line? You speak of pinky toes. Well, should it be legal to abort before pinky toes -- and similar features -- form? Where is the line before which you would be very comfortable with abortion being legal, and where is the (other) line after which you're adamant that it must be illegal? Edited September 26, 2012 by softwareNerd

[intellectualammo]

You are exactly trying to find an acceptable liquidation point

And again, my goal is upholding and protecting a woman's individual rights as well as a newborn. How late is too late for abortion? that is the question that needs an answer. If something made a woman change her mind, for whatever reason, rational or irrational, not to give birth, she needs to know when that decision to abort is too late, so as her right to abortion does not violate the newborns right to life. When does it acquire those rights is essential to know. When it is born. When it is a physically separate living being, does it acquire rights, and the womans right to abortion ends.

[tadmjones]

And again, my goal is upholding and protecting a woman's individual rights as well as a newborn. How late is too late for abortion? that is the question that needs an answer. If something made a woman change her mind, for whatever reason, rational or irrational, not to give birth, she needs to know when that decision to abort is too late, so as her right to abortion does not violate the newborns right to life. When does it acquire those rights is essential to know. When it is born. When it is a physically separate living being, does it acquire rights, and the womans right to abortion ends.

And added to the legal consequences would be other individuals that participate in such a procedure. Would it lead to indicting sellers of the labor inducing chemicals, assuming they have no other medicinal uses?

[Kjetil]

Since fetuses don't have rights, should abortion be legal until the moment of birth?

[intellectualammo]

See my posts in this thread:

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23894&st=25#entry297661

Edited January 10, 2013 by intellectualammo

[softwareNerd]

See my posts in this thread: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23894&st=25#entry297661

I've merged the two threads.

Bonus: see attached thumbnail that I got from somewhere on the internet, but it has sources listed.

[Ninth Doctor]

There's some pretty scary reading in this Robert Tracinski piece here:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/newsletters/the_daily_debate/2013/04/15/

Follow the link to the story in The Nation for the real grisly stuff.