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Lotus Birth and rights

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I just heard of what is called "lotus birth" in the news which seems to be a new birthing trend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_birth

Now, I have always held the position that only once the fetus is outside the womb AND the cord is clamped and cut, is a baby born and acquires rights, since the fetus has become a completely physically separate living human being from the host (mommy).

We know Rands view on when rights occur and her view on abortion: until its BORN does it acquire rights. And Peikoff mentioned cord cutting in at least two podcasts I've listened to. So to me the dividing line is the clamping and cutting of the cord.

I wonder how this goes with the lotus birth? To me, the fetus is outside the womb, but not yet a separate human being.

I wonder what you guys think about lotus birth and when you think rights actually begin.

Edited by intellectualammo
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Rights aren't physical entities, they don't literally (or actually, to use the word you used) begin at the exact time of a physical event. The expectation that one ought to be able to narrow down when they are to be applied to the second is unreasonable.

Rights are just a set of moral principles (or one principle, really) defined for a purpose: to guide the interactions of men. Simply saying that rights begin at birth is more than enough, to accomplish that. There has never been and there could never be a situation where one must decide if a child still attached to its mother with the cord has rights or not (because no sane mother would kill or harm such a child, and no insane person should be treated as a criminal).

And, since the one and only purpose of defining a concept such as rights is to guide human interactions and man made justice, it would be an error to try and search for a rational answer to your question. Such an answer cannot exist, because applying the concept to the issue diverges from the purpose of the concept to begin with. It would be like coming up with the concept of centimeters, and then trying to figure out how many centimeters make a kilogram or an hour. Or, a different example, coming up with the concept "long", and trying to establish at exactly how many millimeters it begins.

For a concept to be useful, it doesn't necessarily have to have an exact timestamp on it. In this case, "at birth" is more than enough of a timestamp, being more precise would be both superfluous and arbitrary.

Edited by Nicky
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Yeah, it's gross, but now I just read that some are actual human babies that still have the cord attached to the placenta, but not to mommy:

" The all-natural trend, called Lotus Birth or umbilical nonseverance, calls for a mother to allow the umbilican border to detach from her baby naturally, The New York Post reported.

In practical terms, that means carting around a blob of red matter (aka the placenta) that can stayed plugged into the baby's tummy for up to 10 days."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/04/11/lotus-birth-trend-keeps-umbilical-cord-and-placenta-attached-to-baby-for-days/#ixzz2QJ7PB9us

It's " Umbilical Nonseverance"

The issue I have is the time of the placenta expulsion. Until it's expelled, the fetus is still a parasite feeding off its host.

From the Wiki on placenta:

" the placenta is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply. "

Edited by intellectualammo
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But a fetus is a potential man, not an actual man.

If something happens during delivery, be something medical to the fetus or woman, or even something in that mom to be's life, or that she didn't want to or couldn't afford to or couldn't gain medical attention before hand, like blood work, sonogram, etc. She didn't have knowledge of just what was in her womb until it was delivering it, and she doesn't want to actualize the potential for whatever reason, I don't see why she could not stop it outside the womb from becoming an actual while it's still connected and surviving off of her because of the fetus and the woman share a fetomaternal organ together still (the placenta).

Edited by intellectualammo
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The issue I have is the time of the placenta expulsion. Until it's expelled, the fetus is still a parasite feeding off its host.

 

It isn't a parasite or a fetus- it's a baby. The criteria for childbirth are: "the shortening and dilation of the cervix, descent and birth of the infant, and birth of the placenta." Once the placenta is out of the oven, a child has been born.

 

According to one doc, “I've never heard of the Lotus Birth but there’s no scientific evidence that leaving the umbilical cord attached to the baby provides any sort of benefit,” says Hilda Hutcherson, M.D., Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University. “There has been research in the past few years which found that when doctors delay clamping the cord for three minutes, the baby receives higher levels of iron which prevents anemia, but beyond that time frame, leaving the cord attached to the baby serves no purpose because it no longer feeds nutrients to the baby.”

 

If there is any evidence that leaving the umbilical cord attached until it naturally falls off really does benefit the baby or the mother, I would like to see it.

 

Is it a violation of rights to not provide a man with food?

 

Yes, now that you mention it, you're violating my rights by not giving me a cheeseburger.

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This is a perfect example of everything wrong with the objectivist movement. Why, so and so said it, so that's my position. The potential and the actual, you know. How about actually engaging with arguments from premises to conclusions instead of mindless sloganizing?

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Mdegges wrote "Once the placenta is out of the oven, a child has been born."

Exactly my point. Rand said "when it's born". So the fetus would have to be out of the oven, either naturally or via a C, AND the cord clamped and cut. Only when it's BORN is it a physically separate actual living human being. This whole cord nonseverance thing complicates it for me now. The line then I think would be drawn at placenta expulsion, the when we have knowledge that the fetus is no longer parasitical to the host and is physically separate. I think what you quoted above describes the three stages of labor for a woman.

Rand also said in regards to abortion: " One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months."

Edited by intellectualammo
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This is a perfect example of everything wrong with the objectivist movement. Why, so and so said it, so that's my position. The potential and the actual, you know. How about actually engaging with arguments from premises to conclusions instead of mindless sloganizing?

On an Objectivist forum, it is alright to have some premises in common without arguing their validity every time. That's a reason to visit such a forum. And in any case, everything wrong with the "Objectivist movement" (I never liked that phrase a lot) seems to be a judgment about one poster, IntellectualAmmo, and perhaps some other posters. You can't generalize to everyone like that; you made a sweeping generalization.

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I think Rand's and other prochoice arguments stem from a response to the legality, and not necessarily the morality of abortion. Her argument was from the perspective that you can(should) not say it is illegal and/or equatible to murder because rights apply to individuals and a fetus is not an entity that exists separately from the pregnant female.  

 

There is a distinction between morality and legality , it seems discussions about abortion very often blur and/or obliterate this distinction on both sides of the argument.

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Lotus birth is a problem because the objectivist position on abortion is a problem--it is conventional (meaning it involves an arbitrary choice), although objective (it is reducible to perception), but not deductive (in that it is not the only logically deducible position from the axioms of the philosophy).

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How so, aleph?

 

I don't see how cutting the cord is important, since it isn't a requirement for childbirth. My understanding is that giving birth to the placenta is not dependent upon cutting the cord. (Remember that giving birth to the placenta is the third stage of childbirth.) Oftentimes the placenta comes out before the umbilical cord is cut. If you choose to cut the cord before it naturally falls off, like many people do, you have a living, breathing baby. If you want to leave the cord attached (for whatever reason) until it naturally falls off, you still have a baby in your arms. Lotus birth isn't a moral problem, but it seems strange to leave the cord attached if you don't have to, especially if it doesn't provide any additional benefits to a mother or her baby.

 

Edit: The morality of abortion is context dependent, just like the morality of killing someone is context dependent. (For example, it would be moral to turn a gun on someone in self-defense (ie: intervening when an armed robber breaks into your house), or to protect another person (ie: intervening when you see a man raping a woman in an alley). Just like there's scenarios where murder is immoral, there's definitely cases where abortion is also immoral- see the thread on Sarah Catt, who aborted her fetus at 40-weeks.

Edited by mdegges
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How so, aleph?

 

I don't see how cutting the cord is important, since it isn't a requirement for childbirth.

Precisely my point. The baby is a baby whether you cut the cord or not. It is a living breathing human being whether you cut the cord or not. Whether you cut the cord one minute after birth or fifteen is arbitrary. Any definition of human based on cutting the cord is thereby conventional. Its moral significance is laughable.
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Precisely my point. The baby is a baby whether you cut the cord or not. It is a living breathing human being whether you cut the cord or not. Whether you cut the cord one minute after birth or fifteen is arbitrary. Any definition of human based on cutting the cord is thereby conventional. Its moral significance is laughable.

What then is your line between mother and child from conception to birth?
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Its moral significance is laughable.

Yes of course it is. Analogously, if we say that an 18 year old can sign a binding contract, the notion that he was any less competent at 1 minute before midnight of his 18th birthday is laughable (a problem that remains no matter where we draw the line). See Nicky's post above.
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Yes of course it is. Analogously, if we say that an 18 year old can sign a binding contract, the notion that he was any less competent at 1 minute before midnight of his 18th birthday is laughable (a problem that remains no matter where we draw the line). See Nicky's post above.

 

Your claim of analogy only goes to the conventional nature of the so-called "choice" and not to the issue of morality. At least in regards to contract law it is recognized that there are exceptions and there exists a concept called "emancipation" whereby minors may engage in contracts. In this way, the law has provided for difficulties in applying a uniform convention. Your difficulty is worse because you claim that one moment a "fetus" has no rights, is not a person, and may be disposed of as so much tissue, while the next it has rights, is human, and it is murder to take its life. What you fail to consider is the fact that the motives are the same regardless of timing.

 

No, Jaskn, I'm not going to help you out of the morass you have created for yourself. Think it through and accept the conventional nature of your view. You might also consider changing you view to a more objective one.

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Mdegges wrote: " Oftentimes the placenta comes out before the umbilical cord is cut. "

If that is the case, then it's no longer a biological parasite, but a physically separate human baby.

So if we do not have placenta expulsion, and U-cord nonseverance, then I would think, we have a fetus outside the womb, until the u-cord is clamped and cut or the placenta has been expelled from vag or womb in the case of a C.

If a woman did not want to have an abortion because of medical reasons (like afraid she may never be able to have a child, or whatever) I think she should be able to during delivery phase, like when the fetus begins to emerge from the vag or during a C. This is why I think it's important to draw lines objectively so as to protect the rights of the woman. Basically where her rights end, and the babies begins.

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What you fail to consider is the fact that the motives are the same regardless of timing.

In abortions, the motives are predominantly moral: i.e. whenever the woman is thinking about her own life and decides that she wants to have kids later.

As for legality, it is pretty clear that the line ought to drawn way after conception and fertilization. Once you assume this, wherever you draw such a line, when you come right up close to the line and look at it one hour or one day before and after, you are going to find it impossible to justify the exact legal line. it is the same with age of majority. Your reply about the law allowing exceptions is really non-responsive. Obviously, the judge does not mke decisions arbitrarily. Once again, it is based on some aspect of reality and therefore you will -- once more -- have borderline cases.

I assume you want abortions banned or only to allow them very early. If so, you are simply using the borderline case as your polemic. It is like socialists who point to some rare case and say "surely the government should help that person". while they actually want to have the government help every Tom, Dick and Harry. Similarly, you're happy to jump on a rare type of case, which is really academic, even though you have no intent of giving ground months away from there. You're simply bluffing.

In essence you want to say people are child-killers,because you think that ad hominem will be embarrassing. Okay, do you want to draw the objective line (say) 60 minutes after the child is born? If so, say so, and I'll say I'm fine with it... the notion that this line is so vital is a Christian irrationality.

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This is what happens when you draw the line at conception, and embryos and its considered first degree murder:

All the political pressure -- mostly from Christians -- is about taking the line closer and closer to conception. That is why the whole debate about whether the legal line should be at cord-cutting, or at some stage that comes (say) a week earlier, is purely academic.

As for Rand's personal position, she really did not develop any of her thoughts about where the line ought to be drawn. If you exclude responses to Q&A -- which should never be considered a final position, her whole focus was to fight the Christian idea that abortions in the first trimester are immoral and ought to be illegal.

Perhaps our great, great grandchildren would have shaken off the Christian curse and will be discussing where to draw the line. There is no reason to think that a single act, or a single age should be a line, and that is that. When you come close enough to a borderline case you face situations like this: if we draw the line here, it would be too early in a rare case like XYZ, but if we draw the line elsewhere, it might be too late. The way to handle this is to have objective law that specifies the type of rare siutation you are consider, and to codify that.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Christians try to take away basic abortion rights every day.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Right, that's why I quoted Rand about what she said about arguments could be made for later term abortions. So for me the line must be drawn when the fetus is not longer parasitical and physically separate from its host. Viability arguments are irrelevant to me. She did say "when born" rights are acquired, so that is where the woman's right to abortion would end.

Edited by intellectualammo
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There has never been and there could never be a situation where one must decide if a child still attached to its mother with the cord has rights or not (because no sane mother would kill or harm such a child, and no insane person should be treated as a criminal).

 

Are you saying that every person who kills a child is insane, and should not be treated as a criminal? Children are killed all the time.. Why is this specific scenario any different? I think that generally what you say makes sense, but I wouldn't conclude that 'if you do X, you are automatically insane.'

 

Also- clinical insanity is different than legal insanity. A person can be clincally insane (ie: suffering from a crazy mental illness) but still be legally sane (ie: understand that his actions were wrong at the time he committed a crime, or unable to physically control his urges). So a mother/father could potentially kill their newborn (as some do when suffering from postpartum depression or something similar), still be considered criminals, and serve time.

Edited by mdegges
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