That is non-responsive. You tried to change the clear statement of your post https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... about conception to "mostly referring" to the "point of delivery". They are opposite ends of the process.

Your religious opinion that "life begins at conception" to mean a few cells are a person with rights makes no sense. A person is not a few cells without organs, a human mind, and much more. Abortion has nothing to do with "killing babies", either literally or in the confusion of calling everything from cells to a fetus a "baby".

We are not all "parasites". Getting food from the environment is not the concept of biological parasite.

These are fact not "just opinion". Your opinions are based on invalid concepts lumping together things that are essentially different, based on feelings. You end up with a war of "opinions" put into the force of law in which you recognize nothing as objective and no way to resolve conflicting subjectivism without force. That is the classical "faith and force" that comes from rejecting reason.

Are you trolling? I ask because you can't seriously have things this backwards.

Then you would be objectively wrong.

That makes no sense.
If Scott is a moderator, then it is posters like ewv and me that should be putting forward our complaints as we have been mass-downvoted by religious leftists that seem to have overrun what is meant to be an Objectivist blog/forum.

Everyone on an Objectivist forum should be downvoting blarmans posts.

"Yes. But if you want to argue that humanity doesn't begin until one can understand the Oath"
Your posts clearly demonstrate you have no understanding of the Oath and are not an Objectivist, but a religious conservative who supports vast violations of individual rights.
You continue to simply ignore the points that have been calmly, clearly and repeatedly explained to you over several days, demonstrating how utterly wrong your position is end-to-end.
This is pure intellectual dishonesty on your part.

The fundamental differences between a sleeping human and the unborn are just as self-evident as any of the other false-analogies that are routinely brought out by the religious left in this thread.

You know this is the exact opposite of what's actually happening here, why even post such a thing?

That is non-responsive. You don't seem to know what "ad hominem" means.

And yes, there are militants here who rotely bulk 'downvote' posts based on who wrote them. It didn't start with this thread.

It's throughout this thread.

If you think that a fetus and an embryo, let alone cells at conception, are a person and there literally "is no difference" then you do not know. The question is whether you really don't know at all, regularly employing an invalid concept, or just make an arbitrary equivalence to rationalize for the sake of arguing against abortion.

I tend to do that also, ignoring most posts that do not contribute. But repetitively obnoxious pronouncements attacking Ayn Rand's ideas through misrepresentation and religious dogma are among the worst here. Blarman's sweeping accusations of "murder" and his denouncing Ayn Rand's concept of the rights of the individual as "arbitrary and capricious" and leading to "a debasement of human life and a justification of its termination based on anything one wants to dream up" are really sick. So are his accusations of personal "bigotry" and "hatred" for patiently explaining what is wrong with his arguments.

You may notice that despite Blarman's complaints about reasoned rejection of his anti-Ayn Rand posts, several bulk-downvoters were trashing every comment posted by new member Peter Smith for posting his understanding favoring Ayn Rand's positions.

And at least one of them continues to bulk-trash posts based on who writes them (which is not new from the militant religious conservatives), including rotely 'downvoting' my straightforward "Openly encouraging emotional personal attacks is not civil." https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... That was in response to ycandrea supporting Blarman's more personal attacks right after, in the name of being "civil and friendly", she supported his previous attacks. They act like they're running a ruthless crusade. They can't stop the discussion of their anti-abortion activism, but no one should have to waste time putting up with this on what is supposed to be an Ayn Rand forum for reasoned discussion.

I tend to only down vote posts that contain personal attacks. I may respond to the others you mentioned. But that’s just me.

"Human cells" does not mean "human being", i.e., a person. No one has said the cells aren't human cells. In equivocating on the meaning of "human" -- between a human person and cells that are human -- you are misusing the concepts.

That distinction has been explained many times and you continue to not acknowledge it. It is why the repeated assertions invoking the equivocation -- long after this has been discussed -- do not contribute to the discussion. It's not a matter of "Just because you say that does not make it so". This has all been explained, not just "said so".

Repetitious religious rationalization refusing to acknowledge refutation is not relevant as a base of discussion here. The reasons why his assertions are false, irrelevant rationalization, or both have been explained many times. It's not "funny".

Posts are properly downvoted for not contributing to the discussion on what is supposed to be an Ayn Rand forum. Worse are the false accusations, misrepresentations and personal attacks. Downvoting that is not the "hatred" and "bigotry" that Blarman falsely accuses.

Olduglycarl: "To obtain maximum freedom one needs to embrace maximum responsibility...otherwise someone's gona regulate your ass."

Freedom means freedom from physical compulsion. The morality of freedom, i.e., the rights of the individual, are principles based on the nature of man -- his requirements to live as a rational human being. That requires recognizing the same rights of others. They do not require, and are incompatible with, the imposition of unwanted duties in the name of "embracing responsibility" and crude threats of "regulate your ass".

Olduglycarl: "Life begins at conception, Life that becomes aware of it's environment, aware of pain and hunger, begins very soon after that."

A living cell in not a living person. Living cells at "conception" do not mean a human being that lives and has rights at conception, which is nonsensical. Awareness of the "environment" and "pain and hunger" do not "begin soon after" conception, and neither define being a person nor have anything to do with the basis of rights. The progression from a few cells at conception to a fetus is a potential human being, not a person with rights. The demands that a woman bear a child she does not want are a barbaric violation of the rights of a woman, not a "responsibility".

Openly encouraging emotional personal attacks is not civil.

Rejecting a personal attack for what it is has nothing to do with "glass houses". His reckless accusations of "murder", "bigotry", and "hatred" against those who reject his dogmatic pronouncements and rationalizations are "uncivil". Rejecting it is not.

Emphatically rejecting his arbitrary decrees, rationalizations, dishonest misrepresentations -- personal and otherwise -- and reckless accusations is not "ad hominem". An "ad hominem" is a kind of logical fallacy, not what you don't like because it clashes with your beliefs. There is nothing civil or friendly in Blarman's posts.

This is not "just opinion". The facts have been given here and elsewhere repeatedly, with patient explanation.

There is no "science" that "backs up" the claim that anything in the pre-birth process is a human being, i.e., a person, "long before birth" -- The presence of dna, a "heartbeat", and twitching when poked are not the defining characteristics of the concept 'human being' and are not why we require a moral code and have rights. Nor has an any anti-abortionist tried to explain why anything with human dna has "rights" -- other than subjective appeals to a mystic soul.

All of those appeals in the name of science are fallacious rationalizations of a mystical floating abstraction of an alleged entitlement to be born and the barbaric practice of forcing women to bear children they do not want. There is nothing civilized or friendly about any of that.

Protection of rights requires that the concept of 'righs' pertain to the entity to be protected. A potential person is not properly regarded as already an actual human person just because it "has dna".

Rational use of concepts is required for human life and protection of the rights of the individual. It is not "arbitrary and capricious" and does not lead to "a debasement of human life and a justification of its termination based on anything one wants to dream up", and it does not lead to "willing to trample on the other Rights" through "slippery slope justifications whether that be choice of religion, choice of political affiliation, skin color, heritage, or just about anything else."

Mysticism, subjectivism, and irrationalism have savagely done just that throughout history, including the barbaric forcing of women to bear children they do not want. That "is the path which leads to destruction" and that is the choice the militant "anti-abortionists have made "to walk".

Blarman's ugly gratuitous accusations in his pompous "fairwell" histrionics that reason leads to such barbarism are disgusting. They are right down there with his previous repetitive -- and preposterous -- pronouncements that the Soviet Union was "based on atheism".

The difference is that between a biological parasitic state versus a biologically independent entity with vastly different functioning. That you do not understand why human beings have rights and parents must take care of their children does not mean that fetuses and more primitive stages of pre-birth have an alleged "right" to be born.

Recognizing the difference between a person and a potential human being in the form of a fetus and earlier even more primitive stages is a matter of conceptual classification based on essentials. The rational concept of human being, i.e., person, required for concepts of morality and rights as well as other biological and mental characteristics, distinguish people from other living entities does not apply to a fetus. This is determined by observing both and noting the essential differences.

That we all "started out that way" is not "evidence" to the contrary. It is only consistent with the fact that every person had to go through a complete, specific process, in accordance with his dna, during which he was only a potential person. There are no virgin births.

Blarman's "putting his hands" to "feel movement" is not an observation of a person. 'Looky feely human' in the imagery of his mind as he ignores concepts and essentials is not rational understanding. Neither is his subjective feeling that "there is no question in my mind that a human being is in there doing its best to grow and develop". We are not human beings with rights because we twitch when poked and have a heart beat and 10 little fingers. The kind of growth required is as a potential human being, not yet a human being, progressing by an automatic process, not "doing it's best". His emotional projections are not observation. Emotions are not tools of cognition.

His "waiting" for proof that a "fetus is not a human being" is a demand for an impossible proof of a negative with his emotions as a primary -- the same emotions that he invokes to savagely deny the rights of women without waiting for "proof" of anything.

He already has proof of the essential differences between a person and a fetus; the "proof" he pretends to wait for is the impossibility of ever overcoming his emotional commitment to faith, which is not subject to rational argument at all.

The rest of his rationalizations are evasive misuse of science as the handmaiden of his faith, which is why we see so much repetitive irrelevancy in his posts: Going on at length, over and over and over, about about "human dna" and "abortionists harvesting organs and body parts for research" because they are "human" is all the same irrelevant equivocation-in-bulk between the concept of a 'human person' versus 'cells with human dna'. Organs with human dna are not human persons either.

The dramatic pitch of his 'conclusion' leaps to the non-sequitur: "We are talking about the cardinal right to Life itself, without which no other Rights may be expressed. The expression of the Right to Life is continuance - a continuance that abortion abrogates in violation of that Right." That is nothing more than the same fallacy of arbitrarily claiming "rights" of the unborn to be born by entitlement. No, it isn't "about the Right of Speech or Association". It's far more bizarre: an alleged right to "Freedom of Assembly".

A new born baby would die if no one fed it. It is totally dependent. A baby in the womb is no different.

evw, those who live in glass houses..... Please let's keep this civil.