Point back. Didn't deserve a down-vote.

It is, generally speaking, impossible for a mother to sign away her chid's right to parental support from the father, it being the law that the child has an independent right to support from his father [and of course the courts go on to assert a governmental right to avoid having women replacing the support from the father with welfare]. One of the arguments in holding the father responsible for the support of his child -- even if the mother wants nothing to do with him -- is the right of the child to the support of his parent is paramount. Another argument is that, while he may not have had the deciding vote on whether the mother gives birth to the child, he was there at the conception and thus his responsibility for all of the expected and natural consequences thereof cannot be evaded. It's rather like being an accomplice to a bank robbery; if you help plan it, if you drive the getaway car, you are responsible if the bank guard gets shot in the process.

Thus, if the legal principle makes the man responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his actions, why does it not work equally when the woman's responsibilities are being analyzed? Why does she get the "get out of jail free" card, but not the father?

Because it is only the mother's body in question.
And my point was that choices remain with such mistakes; no one can take your choices away. Your examples are off point; e.g. if you fail to turn in a term paper, you violated the teacher's rule and you lose the choice of grade.

Rights to conflicting refers to the fundamental rights each individual has. That does not suggest that you can violate the rights of others without consequences. In other words, to retain those fundamental rights, there are conditions.

When a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, she is doing no harm to another human being when she aborts the fetus. Your analogy is false.

Your quote from "Of Living Death" answers your last question re last minute abortions. There is other discussion here re. the impracticability of late term abortions.

Yes indeed responsibility goes with freedom. My point, tho, who do we pay for that? Are we to buy our freedom from our Rulers, who don't own it?

Virtually all the above.

Yeah, but nobody knows at that time if that infernal internal joining happened, whether it really matters.

I asked how Objectivism justifies abortion considering all we know about the process of life and the range of contraceptions we have readily available today. It was very specific, intended to gain some degree of understanding for a position I see as one of the ultimate acts of irresponsibility in a persons life (male or female), legally killing a child. Its bothersome to me that any woman would take something like this casually just so she can sate her needs or exercise her freedom as a woman. But, that is the reality of the world we live in.

As long as the woman has the choice to use birth control (and have her man use it as well), I see no need for abortion in the US. Again, thats not the world we live in.

Surprised actually. Thought for sure you were a man.

Now would that really be rational?
I'm glad you're not representing Obj.ism.
Note that abortion is far from a central/fundamental principle; but it follows from the latter.

You've got my gender wrong, if you think "cranedragon" is a man. So that makes you...?

I asked a very specific question about Objectivism, specifically about Rand's stance.

That also clarifies what I've been asking, considering all we know today about the life process AND all we can achieve (premature birth survival rates) AND the ready availability of before, during and after intercourse birth control, would Rand still see the issue the same way. It is difficult for me to believe that she, with all the information we have today, would.

If an unplanned baby is the end result, yes.

Sounds like you are on a mission of men's liberation. Women's Lib (which Ayn Rand did not endorse, as a self-declared male chauvinist), freed women to have careers outside the home and to take full control over their reproduction. They could obtain designer sperm from sperm banks, work through most of their pregnancy, and return to their careers thanks to the availability of nannies and day care centers that they could afford thanks to their lucrative jobs.

Women are learning to think with their brains, though mostly with their hearts. The ages-old meme that women are subservient to men and must do what the man wants of them--keeping house, cooking meals, servicing him sexually, bearing his children--has not been eradicated. "To honor and obey" has not gone away. Women are still sold into involuntary marriages, and churches still encourage men to discipline their women. Domestic violence is notorious evidence that women do NOT have control over their lives.

Our culture is still suffused by such prejudice, or there would be no controversy about abortion rights. The churches, mostly run by men, are heavy contributors to this criminal policy. There is no cake.

I supposed I could have just ignored it. But his comment was offensive. Seems like I am doing him a favor letting him know how I felt. Better chance of learning something.

Uncalled for.

Quite a few here don't recognize that they are as steadfast and stubborn with conviction and can quote chapter and paragraph as well as a televangelist. They hate hearing me say that but if you remove the miracles from any belief structure you're left with a philosophy, an outline telling you how to live your life and how to think, and why.

Here it is again. The Gulch on abortion. Here I go again. Potential human life is not equal to human life. Abortion should be required when the pregnancy threatens the physical well-being of the potential mother. Sexual irresponsibility is not always the reason for abortion. Do you want to cap the number of abortions a woman can have in her lifetime? Do you want to cap the number of children a woman can have in her lifetime? Do you want to call a potential human life equal to a human life, again?? What about abortion of the fetus that is pre-six weeks? Will you now tell me again about the tissue that is there? Is masturbation a form of abortion? Will you please stop with this same question again and again?

sign, no, its not a misunderstanding. I chose my words deliberately to show the parallel between stern adherence to a set of ideas. Elsewhere in this thread, I was told not to examine ... a surprisingly church-like mentality for this site.

ah and there is the hypocrisy, it take two and the male is on the hook without the ability to influence the outcome. Conversely, women should think with their brains, lest they exercise their uterus.

If a man says, I have no intention of being with you in the very beginning and teh woman chooses to keep the child why should he have to pay at all?

You can't have you cake and eat it too. Oh yes, in this society you can, provided you're female.

Accident was intended for when the rubber breaks or slips off.

Ah, but children, the infirm, the unborn -- until they're old enough or fit enough to dial "911" by definition they cannot ask the government to intercede on their behalf and use retaliatory force to prevent harm to them. If government's hands are tied until someone is free, uncoerced, and able to request assistance, much harm can go on with no one to intercede for the abused child, the battered wife, the defrauded elder.

Ayn Rand said, "One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months." So, what is the dividing line between the point at which a woman has carte blanche and the point at which she must yield some of her freedom to the fetus? If there were no dividing line other than birth, then Rand would have said something entirely different than "One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. " If "one may argue" then clearly we are not dealing with a moral absolute -- not in the later stages of pregnancy.

If so, would it be a given that Leo would be the father?

The source material is interesting.

It quotes Ayn Rand as stating: "One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. " Leonard Peikoff makes a similar comment.

So it would appear that Rand sees an argument, not a moral absolute, in the later stages of pregnancy, a nuanced approach, not a meat cleaver dividing a pregnancy into pre-birth and after-birth [no pun intended].