True.

Perhaps you are correct in the precise definition of "harm no others". If you interpreted that to include fetuses, I apologize. I did not mean it in that way. After birth, the following from “Textbook of Americanism,”
The Ayn Rand Column, 85, applies:

A right cannot be violated except by physical force. One man cannot deprive another of his life, nor enslave him, nor forbid him to pursue his happiness, except by using force against him. Whenever a man is made to act without his own free, personal, individual, voluntary consent—his right has been violated.

My comments are for Blarman not you and I apologize for the confusing tags. J you have no idea what constitutes a religious argument. . Blarman makes no statements other than as a Christian. and he believes everything he says is consistent with his Christian beliefs whatever they are. He is consistent if secretive about his values. He invited me to a private thread to discuss theism which ended with a plea from him that I give up my reason so I could experience god. He holds that god puts a soul into two strands of DNA whenever they come together. He cannot show that this happens and why between that moment and birth mother nature gets rid of a high percentage of fetuses and their souls through ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and still births. The problem of evil is nothing compared to why god would waste all those souls. You are mistaken in assuming you can decide that "some life is potential life" that is not the Christian view those are souls and the fetus is irrelevant. But nature can decide which souls are to be wasted? Nature can decide to override gods intentions? Or is god just an assembly line sticking souls into any old DNA? The Christian problem is it will not reduce its concepts to observation, it requires they be accepted on faith as true from some one else. So Blarman asks for the science but cannot even define his terms as Objectivism requires by reducing them to observation. The premise you have to check is which of the concepts you hold true cannot be reduced to reality and observation and are held only by faith received from an authority you accepted without justification. As an engineer try to keep in mind that life began some 4 billion years ago and evolved to life as h sapiens about 200,000 years ago with very high mortality rates. The idea of of a christian god is only 2100 years or so, thus a recent invention. How comes it to explain that which already existed? What on earth is the holy ghost? How did man fall and yet evolve...it is all faith versus reason and yes it is time to check your premises. What Ayn Rand added was to check your remises you need to reduce them to observation in reality discarding those which cannot be reduced and integrating the rest. Then contradictions disappear and the "human understanding" and peace so admired by Locke settle into your self made soul.
I too have been through lost pregnancies and hope you never do again. .

that is indeed the roots of PP. do not deny reality. The evidence is overwhelming. You need only look to Sanger's own writing and the employing of black preachers to aid in her goals of "educating" black females. That aside, the philosophy of PP today is anti-human. Keep women on birth control (that's why the papsmears are free) and we are working at reducing the world population. I can post evidence of this but you can find it as well-the head of Girl Scouts America was a former PP exec who has spoken earnestly about this very thing and indoctrinated the GS with it. It is one reason I removed my lifetime membership from the org. Don't act like there is not an agenda at PP. There is and you are either naive or don't want to see it. Why else is it that under female reproductive care you can get birth control pill but not pre-natal vitamins?

I completely agree that there is nothing wrong with addressing this issuehead on. But where in this thread has anyone advocated making abortion illegal? They would like a definition for when life begins and I think that's a rational place to start a discussion on human life. Defunding PP is something you would agree with. My point is at least the people in this thread celebrate human life. However, they miss the slave and you own yourself arguments over the emotional argument of killing a fetus. You said earlier that you see the Sanger argument as a canard. I disagree. The underlying philosophy of PP is anti-human. Yes, get your birth control here and get a papsmear-but DO NOT have a baby. You know the planet has too many humans on it as it is and we are doing our part in population control. That is clear-else in the name of female reproductive services why do they not represent pre-natal care? hmm?

"Harm no others" is not an Objectivist principle. It is a vague slogan that leaves out what kind of "harm" and "how". No one can live while altruistically limiting himself to do nothing that someone will consider "harm".

Counseling for adoption is not non-subsidized competition to PP in performing abortions and does not change the fact that the religious anti-abortion movement is trying to ban it.

You stated "At a minimum, contrary anecdotal evidence must be cause for one to check premises." I reject as arbitrary your use of anecdotal evidence as a principle to demand reconsidering what we already know to be true. The burden of proof is on he who makes the assertion to show why it is relevant and serious.

If that is what he literally did, then go to a different doctor. Eugenics and Margaret Sanger have nothing to do with the fight to maintain the right of abortion. It is based on the rights and freedom of the individual to not be sacrificed to an unborn potential, not "eugenics". Blarman's accusations of "eugenics", "nazism", "racial cleansing", a "black holocaust", etc. and your endorsement of it are disgusting.

There is no goodwill in moral denunciation and violating the rights of a woman to have an abortion. The irrationality of the religious influence is deadly serious. There is nothing wrong with treating it seriously on this forum. Those who don't see the consequences of irrational ideas, especially within a contemporary political movement, do not have to discuss it or read it. It doesn't mean that the threat to property rights is not serious.

In the "Wreckage of the Consensus" Ayn Rand wrote:

"'The most immoral contradiction—in the chaos of today's anti-ideological groups—is that of the so-called 'conserve-tires,' who posture as defenders of individual rights, particularly property rights, but uphold and advocate the draft. By what infernal evasion can they hope to justify the proposition that creatures who have no right to life, have the right to a bank account?"

The same is true of the anti-abortionist attack on the rights of a woman not to have a child she does not want.

Objectivism has not "made the assignment of rights at birth based on that life form's ability to generate enough action on its own to sustain itself." This has been explained to you many times and you continue to ignore it. You do not understand the basis of morality and rights. As explained many times, "sentience" is not the base of morality or rights.

The arbitrary attribution of "rights" as intrinsic in a fetus (or earlier) most certainly is a religious argument. Rationalistic verbal manipulation in the manner of Medieval Scholasticism also reeks of the religious tradition, whether or not it is dressed up in the garb of claimed science and "engineering". Reason and rationality do not mean "consistently" manipulating floating abstractions.

Doctors giving advice based on statistics to not have a child is not "eugenics". Rambling "conservatism" and its consequences of outrageous accusations is not "rational debate".

You do not even remotely understand Ayn Rand's philosophy and should stop the repeated misrepresentations and opposition to it along with personal attacks on those who defend it. You can believe what you want but it doesn't belong here.

Up until now, I have not downvoted you on this post. It really takes me a lot to downvote, but you are getting close to earning a downvote. You have just rejected anecdotal evidence a priori as arbitrary.

Once again, I have a friend who is an exception to your generalization. Sure, she counsels those who are debating between abortion or not, in favor of adoption. She and I have had a rather lengthy discussion on the psychological effects of bearing unwanted children for adoption, of having abortions, and of raising unwanted children toward adulthood.

That would not be me downvoting you. I just gave you a +1.

"Harm no others", while it could be considered religious, is conceptually part of the Objectivist code as well as the Hippocratic oath. If someone is going to consider that based in religion, then that person and I are going to have a hard time agreeing on much of anything.

Religious zealots are down voting rejection of faith on an Ayn Rand forum. They don't belong here at all.

No, it isn't. The arbitrary is cognitively worthless. It isn't evidence at all. No one can possibly run around rechecking premises in the name of an "open mind" in response to every claim in the name of "anecdotal evidence" opposing what one already knows to be true.

Scientists searching for new facts to determine in more detail the range of validity for scientific knowledge are not springing "anecdotal evidence". Blarman is no scientist and has nothing to offer in his attacks on Ayn Rand's philosophy.

The religious crowd is trying to ban abortion, not provide competing services to PP.

And religious zealots are down voting rejection of faith on an Ayn Rand forum. They don't belong here at all.

JBrenner, your post gave me a headache, thank you.
The statement "I have rationally made decisions based on what I can live with and what I cannot live with, according to my moral code", really gave me fits over how I make decisions. It is through my own moral code I am guided in the decision-making process. I guess I just never thought about it in that way. The only part of the process which may be somewhat considered "religious" is the phrase "harm no others". But, it is part of my moral code and helps me make decisions everyday.
As to your last part of the post re: your 2nd daughter. Beautiful, man, just beautiful. Never know what the future has in store for any of us. Surprises are abundant and around every corner as we meander on.

There is no "false premise" in the quote from Philosophy: Who Needs It. Ayn Rand did not say that we know "all" that could ever be known about "reason and intelligence and consciousness". Omniscience is neither required nor possible. We know more than enough to reject faith as invalid without having to be omniscient. Faith is the opposite of reason. It rejects the requirement to validate knowledge, which validation is known to be required precisely because thinking is not infallible.

From "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World” in Philosophy: Who Needs It: "Reason integrates man’s perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man’s knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification."

The false premise is Blarman's own assertion: "Reason is a process by which information is taken and judged for its utility, observation is the process of obtaining that information in the first place."

"Taken" from where and how? "Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses." Perceptual information is provided through the physical senses as the source of perceptions about the world in contrast to claims to faith as a 'source'. Reliance on reason does not "limit observation unjustifiably"; the faculty of imagination is not a form of observation. Fantasy is not a tool of cognition.

The concept reason includes reliance on the senses as the only direct source of information about the world from which to form abstractions logically employed in thinking, it is not a way of "processing" anything anyone feels like with verbal manipulations undertaken without regard to source and meaning in reality -- which is the method of rationalism practiced constantly in academic and religious arguments and seen here frequently in opposing Ayn Rand's philosophy.

Being forced to bear an unwanted child is undeniably a sacrifice with more than just psychological ramifications. Some members of the anti-abortion crowd are quite concerned with psychological and non-psychological effects of being forced to bear unwanted children. They start their own practices that have to compete against the federally subsidized Planned Parenthood.

Anecdotal evidence is not equal to a scientific claim, of course, but when someone makes a claim, scientifically or philosophically, that is inconsistent with the anecdotal evidence, one must either reject the anecdotal evidence as statistically insignificant, influenced by some sort of bias, not directly relevant, or collected under a different set of conditions, or one must re-examine the scientific or philosophical claim. At a minimum, contrary anecdotal evidence must be cause for one to check premises.

We have the capacity of imagination, which is what faith is based on. Fantasy, i.e., faith, is not a tool of cognition.

Anecdotal evidence is not a scientific claim. A scientist does not and cannot possibly examine everything claimed by anyone to be "evidence", regardless of arbitrariness, lack of explanation or context, or what he already knows. We don't go back repeatedly "re-examining" variations on what we know to be false, like endless claims for religion.

Blarman has no evidence at all for his religious claims attacking abortion as immoral, let alone his latest bizarre round of accusations of "duplicity", "eugenics", "nazism", "black holocaust", etc., none of which belong here or in any civilized discussion at all.

I didn't reject out of hand that there can be psychological effects after abortion. That is not what I said. The claims made did not provide any scientific explanation of causes in relation to prior ethical beliefs. The anti-abortion crowd is never concerned with psychological effects of being forced to bear an unwanted child.