Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by Temlakos 11 years ago
    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?
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    • Posted by minorwork 11 years ago
      Celebrate abortion? The celebration is for the woman's sovereignty of choice for herself free of others' moral tastes and righteousness. Odd choice that you'd use tolerance as a pejorative when it involves liberating women from the dictates of others' sensibilities who carry no interest or responsibility for another.
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      • Posted by Temlakos 11 years ago
        I would sooner amend our laws to allow duelling than to allow abortion on demand and without apology. At least the two parties to a duel must both agree to it, besides being lawful adults. What crime has an unborn child committed?
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        • Posted by ewv 11 years ago
          The unborn are not people. They cannot commit or not commit crimes. They make no choices in thought or action. Morality does not apply to them at all. They are not moral beings and have no rights.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years ago
            Correct, but infants cannot be called moral beings either. They lack the ability to reason. Moreover, infants are less dependent than they were inside the womb, but not much. They lack the ability to act on their very limited thoughts sufficiently to sustain their own lives, which are central to Rand's definition of life, rights, and the exercise thereof.
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            • Posted by ewv 11 years ago
              There is an essential difference between the dependence of a child and a fetus parasitically dependent on a host. A new born baby begins to perceive the external world and begins to conceptually develop, in elementary form, as his process awareness as a coherent perceptual ability makes it possible. It is part of the life of a human being, in the context of his whole life, but he has to be born first. Rights are acquired with ability to exercise them and in the context of life. If you don't understand that then you don't understand why we have rights when sleeping or sick, either. It's not an argument against abortion.
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    • Posted by minorwork 11 years ago
      Todd Akin spoke with faux authority “If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

      Are your references to abortion causing sterility limited to one type or all?
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    Posted by DaveB007 11 years ago
    I might get a little side tracked, but I hope to pull it together at the end.

    If we look at the word Fetus in latin it still means baby. It was used to making a baby sound less like a baby and more like an object or thing. If an animal is pregnant we say she is going to have babies.

    If we found a living single celled cell on another planet...we would say there is life on that planet.

    Teaching a boy through early on and into his teenage years what responsibility means and is and his actions he will be accountable for. Should make his a more responsible adult. If for some reason he can't keep it in his pants he will be more responsible for the girl/women he has impregnated. 37% of poverty in the US is due to single women with kid(s). So yes the boy/man do have a track record of running. I like to call it stick and git ;)

    We have plenty of ways to keep from getting pregnant, but even with that there have been over 60 million abortions since it was legalized.

    There are lots of people who would like to adopt, so the option of adoption exists instead of having an abortion.

    For most who have had abortions, they live a life of regret and depression.

    I'm not sure how Rand can support abortion as it does boil down to accountabiliy and responsibility. Unless Rand wanted to eliminate the offspring of those who were irresponsible/unaccountable through abortion.

    All in all we all need to be accountable and responsible for our actions. We all can screw up, but we need to make it right when we do.

    That's my 2 cents...
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    • Posted by tdechaine 11 years ago
      Call it what you want, but a fetus cannot have rights. A woman's responsibility is to herself, not to others; no one else can dictate how she should deal with an unwanted pregnancy.
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      • Posted by $ jdg 11 years ago
        I agree provided that, if she chooses to bear it and keep it, she doesn't get to demand child support. Because he isn't responsible for her choice.
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        • Posted by cranedragon 11 years ago
          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?
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          • Posted by ewv 11 years ago
            There is no need to "get out of jail" when no crime has been committed. There is no responsibility to have a child. There is no duty to support "natural" processes, even if they would complete if allowed to. Mankind does not submit to "natural processes" regardless of their consequences. We use our intelligence and choices to avoid "natural consequences" all the time. There is a long period of many months before a birth occurs, if it does at all, and during that period the pregnancy can be aborted. To demand a "natural consequence" and disregard all the causal factors and choices possible over time is not science, it is the religious thinking of teleology demanding duty to stifle human action.

            The legal question of responsibility of both parents once a child is born ought to take into account what both parents chose across a reasonable time period available in which to choose. It says nothing condoning the anti-abortionists in the name of a bogus "responsibility", i.e., duty, to have a child.
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    • Posted by $ puzzlelady 11 years ago
      Rand consistently defended individual rights, and an adult human has priority over a potential or not-yet person. We don't let children drive, drink or do brain surgery. They acquire those rights when they have earned them. The fetus acquires the right to life upon birth, and the mother has the right, not just the responsibility, to safeguard the child's welfare. That includes the right to refuse vaccinations or other medical procedures an overreaching government may demand. Parents have sovereignty over their offspring without expecting society to support them.

      None of these questions would come up if we did not live in a society that continues to grow and encroach upon our freedom of action, and demand that we contribute more and more to the social good.
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years ago
        Most of your argument here and above is extremely cogent. Children do acquire rights when they have earned them. Then you say that the fetus acquires the right to life upon birth. This is where the centerpiece of the argument is. What has a fetus earned by being born? Clearly it is less dependent than in the womb. Your arguments elsewhere in this thread about the newborn knowing what to do in order to survive is correct, but it is quite incapable of acting on that without the mother's agreement. This is why I said elsewhere that a newborn has enough cognitive abilities to generate a sufficient number of self-sustaining actions, but that the newborn cannot perform such self-sustaining actions independently. Rand's definition should be written the way you have interpreted it, puzzlelady. Your interpretation allows for a gradual assignment of rights in accordance with one's abilities to think and do, which is the way that everyone who has raised children can agree with.

        My fundamental problem with the Objectivist position on assigning rights at birth is as follows. "A right is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission." It is not unreasonable to deny a fetus a right to life, as it would require the mother's permission. This changes significantly at birth, but not anywhere near sufficiently for one to say that a newborn's life is not still subject to the mother's (or someone else's) permission. The newborn is incapable of sustaining its own life, even though it can do certain tasks associated with that, as you correctly point out. Likewise, someone either mentally or physically incapacitated during old age can do certain tasks associated with sustaining his/her own life, but cannot sustain his/her own life.
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        • Posted by Watcher55 11 years ago
          I am aware that not all Objectivists will agree with what I'll say, but I agree: only it isn't a problem. The thing about birth is that the baby is no longer dependent on its mother for every part of its existence. It is partially independent. It is dependent on someone to look after it. And it is that someone in whom the rights reside when you're talking about babies. The mother has the right to abandon the baby: but as it is now outside her body, not to stop someone else from looking after it. See here for a more complete argument: http://www.monorealism.com/reflection...
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          • Posted by minorwork 11 years ago
            I'd give ya a thumbs up if I had that right but I'm not delivered into the Gulch yet as in full possession of my humanity. I'm developing still.

            I've mirrored your assessment of the non-arbitrary symbology and reality that the umbilical cord's function demarcates the final bridge to independence gained.
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