“A comatose ind. is capable of recovery “ yes, any where from immediately to as long as 29 years.
In 29 years a fetus could be performing brain surgery.

The principles you see as "conflicting" don't necessarily conflict in my opinion. I'll just say that we don't agree, and that I made my arguments clear already in my above commentaries. I have no interest in pursuing this discussion further. I would thank the moderator(s) at this site for reentering one of my comments above after briefly disallowing it. That shows this site remains an open marketplace for expressing values and opinions.

In reply to your comment, I would like to quote Ayn Rand with excerpts from a letter to a John E. Marshal, Television Producer, dated October 18, 1980 (P. 666, Letters of Ayn Rand, ed. M.S. Berliner):

"Thank you for your letter of August 6, and your invitation to take part in a television series dealing with 'Cultural Conservatism."

...I'm NOT a Conservative...I am an Objectivist...

This year in particular, I would be ashamed to be connected with the so-called Conservatives in any way. Their anti-abortion stand is outrageous--and so is their mixture of politics with religion.

...I can not accept your invitation."

Obviously if AR was generally okay with a woman opting for an abortion, she was also okay with terminating fetal life. If she regarded a fetus as a human being, how could she condone a woman opting for abortion?

On many occasions in Ayn Rand's writings, eg. For the New Intellectual, 1961 [https://www.google.com/books/edition/...], Ayn Rand noted that it is human consciousness that separates human beings from other animals. If Ayn Rand thought that a fetus was capable of human consciousness (before birth), she obviously did not consider a fetus to be a human being.

You argue that a comatose individual would be subject to being killed if this definition of human life was applied to a comatose (or presumably sleeping/sedated) individual. Actually a comatose individual is capable of recovering from coma and regaining consciousness--even immediately. A fetus doesn't have this potential until it becomes a baby at birth when there is something to be conscious of.

In order to rule out specific procedures, one has to take each individual procedure separately and examine the moral principles in conflict and decide which one should take precedence. One then must take and extrapolate that out further to see if following a consistent policy will then bring us into conflict with other principles in similar situations. It may seem simple to conflate things because they sound the same but this is the classic example of the fallacy of association.

Here are just a few of the conflicting principles brought up in this discussion:
1) Parental rights
2) Bodily autonomy
3) Religious expression/personal expression
4) Doctor-patient confidentiality
5) Government intrusion

I'm sure there are others, but the principle which keeps coming back to me is that governmental restrictions should be the last option and should only be entertained when there is a clear overriding principle involved, such as a fundamental human right. Abortion deals with a fundamental right (the right to life) which is why it properly falls within the sphere of government regulation: government has a vested interest in the survival of the species and the protection of its citizens. In the case of male circumcision, I'm failing to see an overwhelming case for government intervention.

Thank you ,Very interesting comment , much of that I did not know. I find this statement to be speculative. “as she (Ayn Rand) argued that fetal life was not human life because it lacks the immediate potential for human consciousness-“ actually I find that to be a crock of $hit. With todays full term abortions these babies would be born human.
With her opinion of “immediate potential for human consciousness “ would that not also apply to a person in a comatose state ? If Ayn was suggesting
a fetus in the first term that , at that point could not survive out of the womb it makes a bit more sense .

Please correct me ,but the adverb of immediate suggests a time frame . What is it? A week? a month? a year?
Some people have been unconscious in comatose state for over 2 decades and have awakened. What about severely autistic people? Not trying to be an ass , Just opinionated like most everyone else.
I have some unconscious neighbors who vote for Kakistocrats and advertise their ignorance with yard signs , can’t say I would miss them if they had been aborted, but there is still hope I suppose of them choosing life and liberty vs death and enslavement in the future.

I'm glad to see your response. I also would like to see "everyone make that decision for themselves absent government diktats"--for themselves, not for minors under their influence/physical control who presumably haven't yet acquired the ability to make an informed choice. If there's going to be a "diktat" against "gender affirmative healthcare" for minors, I personally wouldn't object to seeing male circumcision of minors included in that diktat.

I would point out, however, that the primary reason for circumcision was Jewish and Christian religious tradition - not some random doctor I've never heard of or his moral views. I'm certainly willing to let everyone make that decision for themselves absent government diktats.

Male circumcision (preferably without anesthetic) in infancy (or as a neonate) was strongly advocated by Dr. John Kellogg (the promoter-inventor of certain "health" foods including a brand of cornflakes) as a remedy for masturbation. He saw masturbation as perverse and ungodly, and sought to eradicate it in himself and all boys. (He even circumcised himself at age 37 as a means of avoiding the practice.)

You are repeating the arguments for circumcision that were popular about sixty-five years ago when about 90% of white baby boys were being circumcised here in the US (not in Europe, as Europeans rejected the practice).

Since then, medical science has reevaluated the practice of neonatal circumcision and found that the male foreskin has value, not only in sex, but in protecting male sexual sensitivity--the sensitivity that Kellogg hated and saw as perverse.

What happened to millions of white boy babies here in the US isn't something to cry about now. I can assure you that under no circumstances would I have ever permitted the circumcision of my son until he reached adulthood (and only if he personally elected the surgery at that time). To avoid the possibility of a mix-up and inadvertent circumcision over my own council, I had all my children born in a nation where circumcision is an exceptionally rare practice. My son has thanked me effusively for leaving him to be the one to make that decision--a choice/decision millions of grown American men were never allowed to make.

I always felt it was curious that AR never addressed this personal issue as it was during her lifetime that circumcision was being performed routinely on nearly every white baby boy being born in the US.

I don't know how she could have reconciled the idea of disallowing a man to make this choice personally when she was generally a proponent of personal liberty--extending to the right of a woman to have an abortion, as she argued that fetal life was not human life because it lacks the immediate potential for human consciousness--and it's the immediate ability to posses distinctly human consciousness that separates humans from other animal species. Humans routinely kill other animal species (that do not possess the immediate capacity for human consciousness) for food and pleasure.

I believe, although I never addressed the question to her when she was alive, that AR refused to comment on male circumcision for practical reasons--as a large number of her New York City champions and enthusiasts were of Reform Jewish stock, IOW atheistic Jews. Nearly all of these men were circumcised and likely circumcised their own boys according to Jewish tradition. To have written or spoken against ritual Jewish circumcision, or male circumcision in general, would have alienated or demoralized a large percentage of her subscribers and colleagues.

I don't know Nathaniel or Barbara Brandon's views on the subject either, although the west-coast school of Objectivism (after the late-60s breakup), represented by N./B. Brandon, probably had substantially fewer circumcised males as proponents than did AR's post-breakup New York City school (carried on by Peikoff).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ha...
https://circumcision.org/functions-of...

Going to nitpick here, but circumcision for males isn't the same thing, as the foreskin doesn't really have a sexual role. One can argue that modern medical care now helps uncircumcised males keep clean better, but this one doesn't really fit in the same box with the others. And I definitely don't consider "female circumcision" anything other than wanton brutality. The female labia play an important role in concealing the vaginal opening from the random grime one comes into contact with. It is proven that women who have undergone this procedure are at a significantly higher risk of UTI's and vaginal infections than those who have not.

Having had to make the decision to remove my child from life support, I don't take the matter of "assisted suicide" lightly. I am in principle against it. The philosophical difference to me is whether or not the person is - as was in my daughter's case - brain dead. In general, I am against allowing doctors the decision to either prolong or shorten life in such a case. (I can go into details as per my own experience but let's just say that the doctors were far more interested in treating my daughter as a guinea pig than in actually adhering to the Hypocratic Oath.)

"ALL irreversible surgery (especially that involving sex organs) is a life-or-death matter that only the concerned individual should decide at adulthood."

In general, I am in agreement. I would add voluntary to your description just to clarify. I have had two nephews who had to have surgery with the first few days or months of birth - one to correct a heart valve issue and the other to correct bowed legs.

I can agree with these terms philosophical.
They are reasonable.

Can confirm.......I have been scoping out other places. Eastern Oklahoma looks nice. If I relocate the plan is to be no more than a 30 minute drive from the state border with another red state. That way if things get a little too Branch Covidian I’m just 30 mins from freedom.

I 100% agree. I would also throw in circumcision (male or female) or any other surgical, non-reparable transformation of sex organs—unless three M.D.s are willing to assert in writing that such surgery is physiologically necessary to repair a rare anatomical defect. A clitoris, labia, or foreskin are NOT physiological abnormalities automatically implying surgical correction.

I also assert that choosing assisted suicide should not be an option until age 18; before 18, only if three M.D.s concur with the patient and guardian(s) (most likely both parents) that life termination is the only reasonable option for the patient's well being.

If injury is so severe that a patient (even a minor) is comatose and can't make an informed choice, only with the approval of three M.D.s (and concurrence of the parents if the individual is a minor), the final decision to terminate life might be left to the court system, perhaps a majority-jury decision where arguments for the comatose patient's life or death can be heard by a group of unbiased, reasonable citizens who have no familial connection to the comatose individual.

ALL irreversible surgery (especially that involving sex organs) is a life-or-death matter that only the concerned individual should decide at adulthood. The decision to alter ones own anatomy, especially ones own sexual tissue, is a choice so personal and so vital that the state should by no means sanction such practice and rather make assisting or engaging in it at least a felony until the concerned person reaches nominal adulthood (age 18) at a minimum when there is the likely promise of a reasonable, personal decision.

Yes, it killed their followers and loyalists but I don't think they care any more for them than they do for us. We are fungible.

Exactly why they register voters their Sr. Year in High School in swing states. They are signing things they cannot legally sign, and cannot be held against them.

But don't you dare ask for any kind of proof.
And once they get that Voters ID, they can vote by mail FORVER! never showing an ID to anyone, potentially NEVER HAVING an ID. Let that sink in!

Except the Jab Killed their Followers/Loyalists.
Potentially Sterilizing them! Let that sink in!

Of course, you realize this could just be the Chinese LONG Game sterilizing us!

"They are trying to kill us all." I denied that concept for a long time thinking "they" just want to control us all into their vision of utopia. Now it's looking like they are realizing their dream will never come true so death to all scorched earth style is the road they are on now.

Michigan has a ballot proposal that would legalize "gender affirming healthcare.' It is under the umbrella of "abortion rights." Hopefully voters will understand the results and vote no. If it passes there may be mass exodus of families from the state. .

Very much as they are trying to kill as many older (I mean "older" as over-21, not just elders) people as possible, they are doing what they can to encourage suicide by the younger ones. Suicide hotlines are FULL of young people - FULL of them. And so many people, especially the young, are mentally ill that availability of help (such as it is) is nearly nonexistent.

They are trying to kill us all. If one way doesn't work, they'll use another.

I intentionally do NOT read or listen to the leftists any more. When they open their mouths, out comes propaganda designed to make me emotionally want to give them what they want. NO MORE

I'm glad somebody finally used Mengele as a description for these child-mutilating doctors.

It's bad enough that they're being indoctrinated in school with communism, misanthropy, self-loathing and every perversion known to man.
Now they're being encouraged to sacrifice themselves on the LGBQ-whatever altar with mutilation.

The suicide rate is going to skyrocket with these kids. Maybe that's the ultimate goal with the powers that be, I don't know.

Should we ever get enough sane people voted into the House and the Senate with our vetoing Puppet-In-Chief also replaced, that 18-year-old limit should be legislated into law.

If only Brandon's mom would have had access to reproductive healthcare ("abortions"), 79 years ago.
Oh, well.

That weird Merrit Garland guy, may have the "Justice" Department declaring parents as "terrorists."

When I heard that phrase "Gender-affirming healthcare" I did not know what it meant, but I instinctively knew it was just a pretty euphemism for the latest Leftist/Progressive terrorist attack on our civilization. Like "Affirmative Action" or "Social Justice." .

None of this should be even allowed at minimum until a person is eighteen - legal age for a person to be an adult. It's also been shown that the physical body doesn't reach complete maturity (especially the brain) until at least 24. I believe it is the height of medical malpractice to encourage anyone under 24 to seek to prematurely "correct" something that isn't finalized. I also believe that it should be mandatory to run a body chemistry check on anyone thinking about this. In most cases, these people are depressed and their hormone levels are wacky. They need to get those situations under control because surgery doesn't fix them and the numbers don't lie: three years post-"transition" most "transitioners" don't have healthy mental lives: many commit suicide and many regret their actions.