Devils advocate:

If not rights, what about its legitimacy to simply exist? It did not choose to exist, that was done for it. Why should its existence be sacrificed because two people made a choice AND neither acted responsible enough to use protective methods?

The parent certainly has a responsibility to the person they created. How much you could enforce would depend upon how irresponsible the action was. For instance, serious alcohol and drub abuse while pregnant is certainly disregard to human life and should be treated that way.

You would want a drug addict to be held responsible if they were high and ran into your loved ones car killing them.

If there is one point that needs to be recognized here it is that Freedom always comes with responsibilities. It is not free!

"it is immoral to take away..."
Sex was the mothers choice as was the choice NOT to use contraceptive before, during or after intercourse. In essence the voluntary action of the woman surrendered her sole dominion of her body to a new life. No one has TAKEN anyone's right from anyone, it was voluntarily surrendered. To allow conception to occur, today more than ever, is irresponsible.

Again, considering ALL of the birth control options today. I just can't understand the whole objectivist stance on this matter.

I and many other physicians I know feel strongly that abortion, while the worst form of birth control, should nevertheless be a decision shared between the pregnant woman, her partner, her doctor, and if desired her pastor. The psychosocial and economic issues surrounding the bearing and raising of an unplanned child are usually difficult and complex. Given how good government is at legislating and managing even simple matters, they have no business intervening in this situation, and should stay the hell out of it!!!.

As sophisticated as medical science has become, we still can't prove when "life" begins. Of course, how one chooses to define it varies wildly from one person or group to another, But all said and done, there's no certainty as to when during a pregnancy (if at all) there exist the characteristics generally accepted that define intelligence, awareness, and the many other functions which confer human being status and attendant legal rights.

On the other hand, what IS certain is that a substantial number of unplanned but delivered babies grow up unwanted, unloved, with poor parental role models and they develop criminal and sociopathic lifestyles. So where does true responsibility lie? No easy answers here, but certainly the politicians should stay out of it!

So now you are suggesting that the baby has no senses? I do believe that it has been proven they have senses and react to stimuli. Please think your thoughts through.

I don't care what you or anyone else says. Newborns are not capable of enough self-generated actions to sustain their own lives. They are capable of independent thought, but their ability to translate those into actions are highly limited. Moreover, they are completely dependent on their parents.

What is illogical is your claim that a newborn is an independent being. They can do some things, but arguing that a newborn is independent is absurd. Even if you are arguing for a newborn's moral independence, you are not being logical. A child has no concept of right or wrong (i.e. cannot be rational) until their age is counted in years.

From Rand: "Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life." Anyone who seriously argues that a newborn fulfills that definition has never seen a newborn. End of argument.

"In this case it is the biggest right of all, life, v.s. something that may be significant but certainly not as important as life itself."
By this reasoning, could we use police to enforce bed rest or a certain diet if medical science says to do otherwise could jeopardize the life of the fetus?

Breathing on it's own, the delivered can be fed and generally cared for by any choosing to do so or left on its own by any choosing NOT to care for the infant. Once breathing the immediacy of care recedes beyond the mother's ability to provide the rest thru the umbilical cord which function has ceased. Breathing for oneself is THE act of independence establishing independent rights and legal protections against an active killing.

Still there's an argument to be made for the 4th term killing were a defect seen in utero that justifies termination, become known after delivery.

See above - 10min +- is not the moral issue.
No, there is no practical difference - the issue is not about that late term.
Wrong - the newborn is capable of self-generated action; don't confuse moral independence with the need for assistance to survive.

Illogical: at birth, the fetus is an independent being - capable of independent action and thought.
The moral case for abortion is not about the particular moment prior to birth. However, abortion is not a practical issue toward the end of pregnancy.

Thinking requires use of the senses to integrate. Read Rand,
It is immoral to take away the mother's right to her own body. You have to stop thinking emotionally - thinking of the fetus as a actual human with the same rights.
And while abortion in the late term raises different questions, that is not what the fundamental moral issue is about.

The issue seems to be "What is a reliable indicator of the presence of human life?" There is a generally accepted definition of the end of life, that being the cessation of brain activity. Electroencephalographic signals that are uniquely human are detectable late in the first trimester. This can be interpreted as a clear indication of human brain activity and the onset of consciousness. Should this be a criteria for the removal of pregnancy termination as an option?

EXCELLENT!!!

And, btw, the baby was invited to join the party. :-)

I cannot fathom Dagney creating a life with John Galt or Hank Reardon and then destroying it. No way! She is too selfish. This is her creation and she would revere it as her own.

The concept of a 4th trimester is actually a very interesting intellectual point that Objectivism doesn't really address satisfactorily in my mind. Even in the fourth trimester (first three months after birth), the "baby" is still in what I call the "blob" stage. It can't even hold its head up, let alone generate enough actions to sustain its own life. I can accept the enslavement argument regarding a mother and her unborn, but the self-generated actions argument really does mean that a born child has no rights until adulthood. By that definition, (post-natal) infanticide should be moral. dukem's point may seem like levity, but as all humor does, it has a kernel of truth.

Thank you! You brought up something I failed to mention. Rights come with responsibilities. You can not have one without the other. Every choice we freely make creates consequences and responsibilities we must live with. Freedom without responsibility is unsustainable.

The problem I have with the Objectivist argument regarding rights for the young comes after birth. As several in this thread and others have asked, is there a fundamental difference between 10 minutes before birth vs. 10 minutes after? Yes, there is a difference, but not as large as Objectivists make it. The newborn still has no ability to sustain itself through self-generated actions, so is it OK to kill the newborn? If it OK to kill the newborn, then at least Objectivists are being self-consistent. If it is not OK to kill the newborn, then Objectivists are being logically inconsistent with their own definition of life involving a sufficient number of self-generated actions. It is precisely at the point of birth and shortly thereafter that I have a problem with how Objectivism is practiced. I can buy the self-generated actions argument, but only if Objectivists consider infanticide (post-birth, to be clear) is OK.

If one says that the newborn has rights that the fetus shortly prior to birth does not, then the definition of life based on a sufficient number of self-generated actions needs to be updated.

I don't think one can, AJ. One of the biggest flaws in Objectivism is its tolerance for, or even celebration of, abortion.

You have correctly identified the central issue. Any woman can choose to be sexually responsible or irresponsible. So also, by the way, can any man.

And I would also point out--and this is one thing of which any woman ought to take note--that abortion leaves scars, not only emotional but physical. Do that often enough, and childbearing becomes impossible. If that is your desire, then by all means have a doctor sterilize you. (I understand some gynecological researchers are working on a sterilization technique they or someone else can reverse later.) But don't go about "doing away with a problem" in such a crude manner.

You wouldn't expose a living child at birth, would you?

Well said mdant! I agree. To give the mother the right to kill an unborn child because the child does not have her permission to be inside her body makes no sense to me. Sex creates life plain and simple. You make that decision when you decide to have sex. Life is not an "inconvenience" to dispose of. Just my two cents.

How absurd to think of the thoughts of the baby? Are you serious? How can you say that, unless you actually think he/she does not have thoughts. Which if that is what you are saying, this is where technology comes in. I feel confident it will be proven one day. . And I noticed that you take it as black and white that the mother has a right to her body or she does not. How about at six months old? Do you think the mother has a right to kill another person so it will not get in her way? How about the baby, Either he/she has a right to live or not?

I really did not expect such an emotional response here. Please think it through.

AJ, I agree with you on this, but we are going to lose all the way down the line in this forum. As I commented a few days ago in the long and occasionally acrimonious debate on the presidential candidates, I conclude that there is a point where the clump of cells passes the point of being an appendage of a woman's body -- an appendix with a heartbeat, as it were -- and reaches a point where it possesses individual viability and deserves moral and legal protection. I find the arguments very troubling that a woman with a viable preterm infant has the absolute right to terminate the life of that child/fetus/whatever, based on compelling reason or irrational whim, whereas if her conclusions were different, she could survive premature labor or c-section and deliver a viable child.

However, we are clearly in the tiniest minority here. I don't believe that even the development of intrauterine monitoring devices that demonstrated [here I'm hypothesizing] that the fetus is humming Bach and doing rudimentary algebra would sway most Objectivists away from the immovable position that birth is the only dividing line that matters.

Why not? If a newborn baby has rights, then at some point in its development a fetus acquires them. Or is there a fundamental difference between a fetus 10 minutes before birth and a baby 10 minutes after, which inheres rights in the latter but not the former?

My BW and I decided long ago when she was told that she'd be wise to abort our 2nd son that there was no way we would do it. Fortunately, he turned out fine with all parts intact. But it was OUR decision. Every individual has to deal with it individually based upon their own basic premises. I do not condone abortion, but neither do I condemn it, except in the 2nd or 3rd trimester. There are too many variables for condemnation. 2nd or 3rd trimester, sorry A.R., but that is a complete human being, just without some details filled in. Aborting that is murder. Yes, I know you might say then isn't the 1st trimester just as valid? The answer is, to me, it is a potential human, and in the case of rape, incest or some other very serious scenarios, an abortion may be an option.

hear hear