Ayn Rand, Abortion, and Planned Parenthood.
Kevin Williamson of National Review did a follow-up to his piece which I posted here yesterday.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/...
In this current piece, again on the Planned Parenthood atrocity (my word), he takes a shot at Planned Parenthhood apologists by referencing Rand
"Why not have a Fast Freddy’s Fetal Livers Emporium and Bait Shop in every town large enough to merit a Dairy Queen? If you are having some difficulty answering that question, perhaps you should, as some famous abortion-rights advocate once put it, check your premises."
Some people have taken this line to also be an implication of Rand.
Me, I'm not sure, there's a few things I disagree with Rand on, abortion being one of them.
But, what is Rand's view on abortion?
Here is a link the entry in the Ayn Rand Lexicon.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/abo...
I think the most relevant portion is this.
"A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months."
In Rand's day, that's what abortion was.
Now, I'm no doctor, but I doubt very much that organ tissue can be harvested from a first trimester embryo.
I speculate that Planned Parenthood was harvesting exclusively from late term and even partial-birth abortions.
What Rand would say about this is also speculative, although we can infer from her words "One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy..."
So, Objectivists, what say you?
Disclosure, my personal opinions on abortion - the human animal is a biological machine, as such it has core programming (instinctual drives). Maternal instincts are some of the most powerful any animal possesses, even stronger than Self-preservation or Species-reproduction. As such, I believe that when a woman has an abortion, regardless of the trimester, her maternal instinct kicks in at some level - automatic, unstoppable, irrevocable, unaffected by popular opinion of what abortion is supposed to be. As such, I believe that when a woman gets an abortion, she is doing deep and permanent psychological damage to herself. The existence of groups such as Silent No More lead me to suspect that my opinion is correct. What is the percentage of women who are psychologically damaged by an abortion? Who knows, and with today's Lysenko "scientists" I doubt there will be any unbiased research done. Regardless, until women who are considering an abortion first get counselling on the (what I believe) strong probability of psychological damage from the procedure, I can not be anything but against it.
This disclosure is also open for debate on this thread.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/...
In this current piece, again on the Planned Parenthood atrocity (my word), he takes a shot at Planned Parenthhood apologists by referencing Rand
"Why not have a Fast Freddy’s Fetal Livers Emporium and Bait Shop in every town large enough to merit a Dairy Queen? If you are having some difficulty answering that question, perhaps you should, as some famous abortion-rights advocate once put it, check your premises."
Some people have taken this line to also be an implication of Rand.
Me, I'm not sure, there's a few things I disagree with Rand on, abortion being one of them.
But, what is Rand's view on abortion?
Here is a link the entry in the Ayn Rand Lexicon.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/abo...
I think the most relevant portion is this.
"A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months."
In Rand's day, that's what abortion was.
Now, I'm no doctor, but I doubt very much that organ tissue can be harvested from a first trimester embryo.
I speculate that Planned Parenthood was harvesting exclusively from late term and even partial-birth abortions.
What Rand would say about this is also speculative, although we can infer from her words "One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy..."
So, Objectivists, what say you?
Disclosure, my personal opinions on abortion - the human animal is a biological machine, as such it has core programming (instinctual drives). Maternal instincts are some of the most powerful any animal possesses, even stronger than Self-preservation or Species-reproduction. As such, I believe that when a woman has an abortion, regardless of the trimester, her maternal instinct kicks in at some level - automatic, unstoppable, irrevocable, unaffected by popular opinion of what abortion is supposed to be. As such, I believe that when a woman gets an abortion, she is doing deep and permanent psychological damage to herself. The existence of groups such as Silent No More lead me to suspect that my opinion is correct. What is the percentage of women who are psychologically damaged by an abortion? Who knows, and with today's Lysenko "scientists" I doubt there will be any unbiased research done. Regardless, until women who are considering an abortion first get counselling on the (what I believe) strong probability of psychological damage from the procedure, I can not be anything but against it.
This disclosure is also open for debate on this thread.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 8.
I do not argue that most people consider children to be parasites (my parents loved children and would have liked a huge family), but I think of Alien whenever I consider an embryo, living inside me, sucking out my life. Blechch! And when they are born - they they ruin your life for the next couple of decades...until you can get rid of them.
But this admittedly extreme view does give me a good perspective from which to respond when people say things like, "all women want children". Uh...over here!...No, I don't.
Jan
What I really care about is individual rights and freedom of humans. AR said something about rights, on the order of rights do not place an imposition on others to implement them.
I also care that no laws get passed that effect the lives of existing humans in any way, shape, or form. I care that a lot (nearly all) of existing laws get repealed or cancelled. And I really care that the government 'Keep It's Damn Laws Off Human Bodies' and human, free market interactions.
And that if you wish for more laws that further restrict the freedom of any human in any way, that you go somewhere where you can do that, but not where I'm at. That is statism, pure and simple.
Let the birds fend for themselves or for people that care about them to spend their own money and time raising them, and if dead fetal tissue can be utilized for research that stands the chance of improving the future lives of humanity I'm all for it. If you don't do that, it get's thrown into a furnace somewhere.
But I do ask the waiter not to seat me near any wailing infants.
Jan
It seems that the instinct to reproduce takes into account the survival rate and population pressure.
Jan
As for "perceived abuses", I know of two non-USA competitors who are buying aborted fetuses for their tissue engineering development. If I were to do so, even if I thought it morally acceptable, I would quickly be in jail. Moreover, if I were to use aborted fetuses, it would have cut > 1 year of development time and more than $100 K. That is money I have to consider as part of my capital investment when doing ROI calculations that my foreign competition doesn't.
Jan
So, I am not an "-ist", but this blog is valuable to me.
Jan
I do not actually agree with these policies, but I can see that they are currently necessary in order to totally divorce the decision from taint of medical scandal.
Jan
My answer is that if the human race were in danger of extinction, any viable blastocyst would be worth a whole lot more than 10K!
Jan
In terms of counseling, I have no problem at all with helping people understand the options they have and the repercussions of those options. The medical profession can do better there! Bit I do NOT want this to come across as, "We know that if you decide to have an abortion you will regret this for the rest of your life. Now - do you really want to go through with this?"
A woman certainly has the right to this decision, at least to whatever degree is not defined as murder. If you do not agree with this, I shall cease to be baffled and become completely FLABBERGASTED!
Jan
It is convenient to combine perceived abuses, particularly one with so much media power, to support but a single argument that is lost on its own.
When we have Uterine Replicators that can carry a blastocyst from conception to birth, then the rule of thumb of 'viable outside the human body' breaks down. Right now, while that rule is (I feel) ultimately doomed, it is the best we can do.
I would suggest that the binary of sentient/non-sentient may be too gross a granularity. I think that there may be subdivisions, with various levels of action appropriate at each point.
Jan
Look at your bicycle example from the following perspective. Let's say you need that medical procedure, and that requires my skill as a tissue engineer (actually my current field), what would you consider the scaffold I generate along with the adult stem cells that I harvest from you and then genetically reprogram to regenerate a body part custom made for you? Would that be undeniably valuable to you? I think so. To others in this forum, it would be worse than a lump of protoplasm to them; it would likely get rejected because your immunities are different than theirs.
Jan
I do think that emotions, if properly trained, can serve as a 'short cut' to laborious reasoning. Such 'intuitions' can be valuable - you may not know 'why' that patch of woods look spooky, but you quietly creep backwards and thus avoid the sabretooth.
As a current example, I am obviously responding with a different set of emotions to the situations posed concerning, pregnancy, abortion and/or sale of the tissue and organs from aborted embryos. This thread is full of a spectrum of emotions, not a reflection of innate emotions.
Jan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLrq...
I have made a choice: riding without a helmet. If this should turn out to be a poor choice, then I can try to Undo the harm via a medical procedure.
To me, this differs from an early term abortion only in that I am undeniably valuable to me but a lump of protoplasm is of no value to me. So that makes an abortion a much easier choice - I am only getting rid of something that I do not want.
Jan
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