Abortion Rights are Pro-Life and Must be Defended in Fundamental Terms
Today, no one is defending the right to abortion in fundamental terms, which is why the pro-abortion rights forces are on the defensive.
Abortion-rights advocates should not cede the terms "pro-life" and "right to life" to the anti-abortionists. It is a woman's right to her life that gives her the right to terminate her pregnancy.
Nor should abortion-rights advocates keep hiding behind the phrase "a woman's right to choose." Does she have the right to choose murder? That's what abortion would be, if the fetus were a person.
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A fetus is not a human being. That is a scientific fact. Does i have the potential to be a human? Yes. But it is not a human yet. Fact is, if abortion would not ever be possible we would all over the world have even more cases of children being abandoned, abused, thrown around the social system, because they were forced into life even though the parents never wanted them. I am thinking more about the children being born without love than the women not wanting the children. In a perfect world it would never be an issue, but facts are different. Do we like the idea of potential life being terminated? No of course not. But if it will prevent children for being born into suffering, then yes! Its not all black and white, there are too many grey areas here to make statements like "no matter what, abortion is murder". People making these statements are thinking about their own feelings towards this issue, not the feelings of the child. Rape victims? They dont deserve a life too? They should be forced to look into the eyes of a child they may never love because the eyes look like the rapist?? Teenagers not being taught about protection or sex in general make mistakes that can ruin their lives forever...These are grey areas...
jannielise, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Scientifically, new life begins precisely at conception. That is the fact. It is not a "potential" life. A potential is one alternative among many. It is not a "potential" human. It is precisely at conception that everything about the person's identity is set in place. The person's gender, eye color, hair color, fingerprints, etc. are all established at conception. This happens exactly at conception, and not a second before or after. Absent any unnatural intervention, that person will likely develop both before and after birth.
When exactly do you think a human being first begins to exist? And what is it just one second before that point? And and what point do you think a human being declines to become a non-person? These are hard questions for you.
Abortion is an unnatural act that terminates a human life. Abortion is murder. That is the fact.
Are you willing to say to another human person "You are too much trouble for me. I have the power so now I will terminate you"? There's no gray area here. It's black and white. It's life or death.
I started reading this blog because I was unsure weather I supported abortion or not. But seeing the argument above I have decided I am all for abortion. My decision was not as much influenced by Peppers amazing arguments but by Silvia's lack of respect for a woman's life and right. A fetus is nothing but a mass of cell, no different from cell in any other part of your body. Yes it has potential life. But that potentiality is in the future and presents various paradox. If you worry so much about "what could be" should you be using electricity, eating vegetables, using toilet papers etc as it all leads to "violation of rights" of "what could be " the future world. (did that make sense?) If abortion was murder, so is punching someone because you do kill potential baby as the cells you killed during punching have the same composition as that of a fetus.
Also do you realise that many fetus die naturally without many women even knowing they are pregnant a lot of the times....it is just a mass of cell until it develops in its shape and all that parts. Also agree with peppers arguments about humans being moral beings have moral rights which is given once they are capable of conscious reasoning and actions.
I guess what I am pointing out is- a host has more right than a parasite. And regardless of what fetus end up being, they are parasite as long as they are inside a woman's body. A woman is a fully fledged moral being and has moral rights. It is her right to decide what she wants to do with the contents of her body. WE have no right to dictate what a person should do with his/her body. How would you like it if tomorrow someone passed a law saying all women should cut off one boobs or all men should cut of one testicle. How would you like it? I know it is ridiculous example but it is relevant because when you force a woman to have a baby, you are dictating what you want her to do with her body. It is a form of slavery.
Also the point I never see is about the father's right or say in the matter of abortion. I mean- what if father wants to keep the baby and is willing to compensate...will he have any claim or right? What if the mother wants the baby and the father does not...is it fair on the father? Esp considering the law makes fathers pay for baby they dont want? :S Confusion confusion.
The Objectivism philosophy espoused by Ayn Rand, cannot lead to the "choice" side of the abortion debate because such would be self-conflicting and irrational. Here's the problem. In its adherence to objective reality (metaphysics), we must recognize the fact that with every pregnancy, another human life exists. That statement is true, independent of our "knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears". It is the fact that A is A. We cannot create our own reality by wishing it to be something other than what it is. The fact that every human life comes into existence at the moment of conception is the reality of nature. To argue otherwise would be to abandon reason and can only have motivation on some other emotional basis.
And so we argue about when this human life becomes a person or when it becomes entitled to rights etc. Any attempt to limit a human being to be something less than a person or to have rights that are less than they are for any other person, can only be done by reference to some other man-made law or belief system -which of course violates the objectivism philosophy. Such attempts require that we draw an imaginary line to separate the “non-person” humans from the “person” humans. What’s the criterion? When the human heart starts beating? When the human begins to suck its thumb? When its sex is determined? When the human leaves the womb and is born? When the human is weaned from nursing? When the human can walk? Talk? Run? Drive an automobile? Vote? Incidentally, if we look to some “dependency” criteria, then doesn’t it apply equally to elderly human beings when they start to decline? Do we become “non-persons” and some age, or when we can no longer function at some level?
The Objectivist is attracted to abortion on the grounds that it is rejecting some form of altruism. The argument goes that it is strictly an act of self-interest that a woman has the right to “choose”. Yet the most basic social principle of Objectivism is that no person has the right to take from another person by physical force. Governments’ only proper function is to protect individual rights from those who would take it by force. So this principle is violated in the most egregious terms when one human is allowed to terminate the life of another human being. If we can violate that principle, then where do we draw the line? Would we be justified in murdering any other person who is an inconvenience to our self-interest? With capitalism, if we see that our competitors get in the way of our profit objective, is it OK to terminate them? Is it only OK if we are stronger and they are weaker? Capitalism is the best system because the best products and services prevail -NOT because the competitors with the most guns or power prevail. As a capitalist, it is in my self-interest not to be taken out by competitors who have inferior products, but more power.
The dilemma for the strict objectivist is that the only rational conclusion on the abortion debate is frightenly similar to, if not exactly the same as what is preached by the Roman Catholic Church. So it just doesn't "feel" right. But since by its own definition, religion has no place in Objectivism, this should not be a consideration one way or the other. So when we turn off that emotion, the only rational conclusion is that abortion does kill a human being. Abortion does initiate a violent act to take a life of another person and to take it by force. Abortion goes completely against the Objectivist philosophy.
Fiddlerguy24 argued that the philosophy of Objectivism supports the "Pro-life" position on abortion . Sbuttgereit stated that the fact that Ayn Rand personally supported abortion's legality doesn't stop the philosophy's support of abortion from being a weakness of it. Hopefully, I can argue persuasively against the position that Objectivism should rationally adopt the "Pro-life" stance, and argue that the philosophy's position here isn't a weakness, but a matter of consistency with its other principles, and with facts.
The first premise that I deny at the outset is that human life begins at conception. Conception on up until the baby is born is merely a preparation for its becoming able to live, to take its own actions to survive independently of the mother's body It's a conceptual mistake to conflate the formation of a few human cells with an incomplete, developing human being, and with a complete human being who has come out of the womb and no longer requires the mother's internal organs to survive. Though you dismiss a baby being born as an arbitrary criterion for determining when it's a "person" or not, being born is actually a massive scale difference, hence the importance of the term "birth" given by practically everyone who lives in this world. A potential isn't the same thing as an actual--most people recognize this in many issues, but not on the issue of abortion for some reason. Also, arguing against your position isn't "abandoning reason" and doesn't have to be fueled by emotion rather than logical argument. It's a difference of the concepts we're using, and the winner will be the one whose concepts best match up with reality.
The second premise that I object to is that terminating a pregnancy is a violation of the unborn's rights by the mother. What about the mother's right to the use of her own body, the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Does she lose these rights at the moment of conception? What Pro-lifers don't seem to realize (or perhaps they do, I've never been sure) is that their position leads to a clear-cut clash between the rights of the mother and the rights of unborn, such that defending the latter necessarily violates the rights of the former. Strictly speaking, making abortion illegal means that women are serfs for nine-month intervals whenever they become pregnant, and the functions of their own bodies are dictated by the government such that they must bring the unborn to term, or face criminal charges. (It doesn't matter if some of these women are themselves Pro-lifers: there have been times when certain people advocated their own serfdom. The point is that the woman wouldn't be given any choice about it, and that's where the violation of rights takes place.)
I won't quote Ayn Rand to make my point for me, but I will use a quote to lead up to an important point of my own: "Since Man has inalienable individual rights, this means that the same rights are held, individually, by every man, by all men, at all times. Therefore, the rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another."
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html
What Rand is implying here is that individual rights form a logical unity, in which the rights of one man do not contradict or violate the rights of another, and that this applies universally. The point we have to keep in mind here is that a woman possesses her rights as a matter of principle (to the extent that she respects that right in others), and no government or private action can justifiably violate her rights--that includes the right to use her body in the way that she sees fit. Human rights begin at birth, not conception, so there is no clash between a woman's choice of abortion and the termination of the pregnancy. In regard to how a woman uses her body, a baby being conceived is essentially no different from cigarette smoke, food , or alcohol entering her body: by what principle or right can anyone claim to dictate how a woman's life should be led, or what personal choices she must make under the threat of physical force? Any such attempt must be a violation of the woman's rights, and the stance of the Pro-lifers is no different.
The third and last (unstated) premise is that Objectivism's principle that no one can initiate the use of physical force against another person takes precedence or supersedes it's advocacy of egoism, of holding that all men are morally right in pursuing a selfish, happy life. Objectivism is an integrated body of principles, not a set of conflicting rules from which one has to pick and choose the best one for a given situation.
[con't]
rodfitts, would you please explain this "massive scale difference"?
The Pro-life argument is clearly an altruistic argument: regardless of the woman's decisions or life-plans or desires or her conclusions on the matter, the unborn has a right to life, so she must do everything she can do in her power to bring it to term, or she's guilty of taking its life and should face criminal charges. In egoism, you are an end in yourself, and so the main focus is on your decisions, your plans, your desires, and the conclusions you've reached, but in altruism, you are merely a means to other people's ends, and your views become irrelevant in this context. Making abortion illegal amounts to making women altruistic means to the end of birthing children, and important areas of their lives in which they should be properly ends-in-themselves (egoistic) become diminished or non-existent as a result. But what you haven't grasped here is that Objectivism is fundamentally opposed to altruism, and fundamentally committed to egoism, to women living their own lives, and acting based on their own thinking and decisions. It does not support the decisions of people who meddle in others' lives through threat of force, and of government bureaucrats who want to dictate how a woman should use her own body.
Making abortion illegal clashes with Objectivism on metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political grounds. Doing so confuses the potential for an actual. It misinterprets what it means to be a "person." It tosses aside the woman's values, decisions, and life as irrelevant, and considers her as merely a mechanism for creating new human beings, whereas Objectivism adopts the principle of egoism, in which people aren't made to be the means of others' ends. And its position actually consistutes a violation of the woman's rights to liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and even life, to the extent that she would have to partially live as a serf to the government for nine months. Properly, Objectivism is pro-choice on abortion, and Rand was correct in saying so herself.
rodfitts, isn't giving birth to a baby always an altruistic act? If not, can you give me an example and explain please?
To explain, I'll have to bring up one important point. Egoism and altruism are questions about the beneficiary of your actions: who should benefit, whether it is you or someone else. More specifically, it's about the ultimate beneficiary. A committed altruist does self-subsistent things too, but ultimately, his actions are for others, and that's what makes him an altruist. There's a parallel with egoism: an egoist is *not* someone who does nothing for others; he does things so that he can ultimately benefit, and that includes actions that benefit others, like a business deal, or a relationship. In both of those cases, both parties benefit (let's assume), but you are really motivated to carry out the deal or start the relationship because *you* want something out of these things, you seek some sort of benefit from it. (Imagine telling your significant other that you benefit in no way from your relationship with her, and that you have no selfish enjoyment from it whatsoever. You'd basically be a robot that serves her.)
With that in mind, I think this same logical analogy applies to most people who decide to have babies. There's a certain kind of life that they selfishly want, and they take the actions to reach it, including having the baby and raising him or her. These parents acknowledge that their lives will have to change dramatically, but (most) accept that change and work to make it an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Raising the baby does become an important part of their lives, which is why most people say that love and parenthood is about altruism and sacrifice, but I think that they're mistaken. You should still be the most important concern in your life, but you now have to find a way to integrate your life and the baby's life into one framework. There's a lot of thought that goes into this, and that explains why parenthood is such a difficult task, especially when you think that you're just a selfless servant of this baby now.
So having a baby can be selfish or selfless. It depends on the person's views on who should ultimately benefit from that person's actions. I hope this answers your question.
Do you really think that if we made abortion illegal , that more women would die from illegal and unsafe abortions than innocent babies are killed now?
Every year 1.3 Million Babies are killed. Since abortion was legalized, 46 million in total have been killed.
And by the way. unborn babies are human and are persons.
The Scientific Law of Bio-Genesis states "living things reproduce after [and ONLY after] their own kind." So, how is it possible for parents to produce offspring that is not human, but later becomes human? That alone scientifically proves that a fetus is a human being. Now if you want to object to it being a person:
The only differences between you or me, and an unborn human is size, Level of Development, Environment, Degree of Dependency, if you think of something else, tell me.
1. Size: But large people are not more human than small people
2. Level of Development: But a 4 year old is no less human than a 40 year old
3. Environment: A newborn in an incubator is not less human than a child elsewhere
4. Degree of Dependency: People on insulin are less viable but no less human
Face it, if you kill a unborn baby , you are taking a human life.
"That's what abortion would be, if the fetus were a person"
You assume this without any arguments, when this is the very point we must discuss to accept any kind of abortion or not at all.
The big question here is this: Since science as proved that the life of every baby begins at some point before birth (and there you have the countless premature babies to prove it), when does this new human life begins to exist?" and the other question: Since all newborn babies are entitled to the right to life what are the "properties" that make them human persons and that fetus don't?
What is necessary here is to use all available knowledge of science, phylosophy and any subject available to give an answer to those two questions. And with the best answers we can obtain with the knowledge we have nowadays to decide first weather abortion should be morally accepted and seconddly if abortion should be legal or not.
And while pro-life all give the same answer: life begins at conception, all human beings are also human persons, the pro-choice side has no official answer. This fact bears a consequence: while the pro-life answer gives a concrete solid starting point, the pro-choice side is at any rate incoherent within itself. Allowing abortion will always lead to kill what, for some of the pro-choice advocates, is a human being and with a right to life. My point is: since we cannot apparently reach a common definition on when a human being should be recognized as such and consequently respected it's right to life, shouldn't we take as answer the most safe of all which is at conception just in case?
Example: if we go hunting with a friend and we hear the sound of what seems a stag shouldn't we double check if it isn't our friend instead, and if we cannot reach a conclusion not to shoot?
Ok, if a mother decided to take abortion , does that mean killing a human being? Consider this > I have the right to take the life of a mouse, ants, or even a micro-organism that does not even count(unprotected animals ), right? and consider this > so if i do not have the right to take a life of a human being, why is it that im allowed to take the life of a human being partly? for example, some of the person's cells are killed when the person is doing an X-ray test. The same goes if i poked someone lightly. What happened when the egg in the mother's womb is fertilised? Does that mean life? what if somehow i killed the fertilized egg at that particular moment? Does that mean i murdered and therefore i committed a crime ? well, what if i killed the sperm and the egg seperately? it's still ending a life. As i mentioned earlier, if i poked someone, it means killing some of his cells. But why is it that it's not a crime? the reason is maybe that it's minor, these cells almost has no benefit to that person and therefore it makes almost no loss. Its not the same if a ran into a man and purposely decapitated his arms. I will be sent to jail. Now lets go back to abortion. If the mother feels that the child only cause trouble for her.(cases such as financial problem, time, etc.) It also means that the baby has almost no benefit to the mother. I know, it means "something" to the baby. But consider this > if i cloned an animal(which is illegal), the animal's cell/dna or whatever is needed for this. so if i killed it, does it also mean killing some of the animal's cell which has no benefit at all? Every human being has individual rights of their own body. if it is allowed to kill a sperm because the father have the right, and kill an egg because the mother have the right. Surely it is allowed to kill when the egg fertilizes as the parents have the right?
I think abortion should be legalized because of the simple fact that woman have the right not to be pregnant wether it be an accidental thing with her partner, or being raped. I meen who in this god forsaken planet would want to live with the knoledge that the baby she is about to have is the son of a complete stranger who had raped her, but hey im just a just a 9th grader and i dont know verry much about this subject, but all i do know is that i think it is right and i am all for abortion.
Hello there.
Just some food for thoughts:
You say that the woman have the right not to be pregnant. I agree with you. Let's take the rape victims out of the equation for a moment (they count for less than 1% of all abortions).
How does a woman get pregnant? By having sex with a man. What is the possible outcome of a etherosexual sexual intercourse (as there are no 100% birth control methods) ? A new life. As we all are entitled to assume the responsability of our actions, shouldn't we expect the mother that chose to have sex to now take care of this new life that bears no responsability in existing?
Now for the rape victims: as told these abortions count for less than 1% of the total.
My thought here is that in the rare case a woman gets pregnant in a rape she has suffered a disgusting violation of some of her most valued rights. To discover to expect a child from the man who raped you must be very hard to accept. This said, we have to ask ouselves this question: how is an abortion going to help forget the trauma, isn't it even worse to have an abortion? Wouldn't it remind the patient of the terrible thing that happened to her?. Isn't this abortion going to add a new sense of guiltiness on the victim? To abort in a case of a rape is to kill an innocent human being by the less human method available while to retain the baby is to give birth to a new life. Wich choice will help the mother live better after this terrible experience?
Abortions should be legal. To make abortion illegal is to deny a woman's individual rights. Whether a woman has an abortion is entirely up to her. This is an issue of individual rights. If an individual's right is denied or violated, that individual is not free.
To the extent that all women are denied their individual rights, to that extent the nation is not free. When that's the case, males are also affected. In time, the entire nation is under the dictates of whoever has the most pull and the most guns.
The state and church should not interfere with this right. Both government and religious leaders have no moral say in the matter of abortion. A woman might want to consult with the father of the pregnancy to discover his preferences but ultimately she alone has the final choice. It is, after all, HER life. She should be free to live it as she chooses.
Abortions should be legal.
To allow abortion is to deny an innocent child individual rights. The women should not have the "right" to abort the child. If the individual child's right to live is denied or violated, that child is not free. It is after all, the CHILDS life. The child should be free to live .
Abortion is the taking of innocent life and should not be legal. The child is a life worth allowing to develop.
Do you get upset when you see a Dad/Mom beat their child ? How much more you should be upset when you know that child not yet outside the mother's protective womb, is killed. That is the ultimate child abuse. There is no way abortion should be legal ( except maybe to save the life of the mother, which really I'm not sure ever is neccessary.
Remember, abortion takes place to relieve the father of his parenting responsibility , or for the convenience of one or both parents. Killing someone should not be an exceptable social activity, especially with the request of the responsible caregiver ( parent).
Sylvia, please reconsider your thoughts on abortion.
Convenience should never be an excuse to kill someone.
This is an issue of individual rights. However, a woman does not have the right to terminate a life, regardless of whether it is inside her body or not. The fetus also has a natural right, to life. If this is not so, then the mother does not have a natural right to life either. One cannot say one human being has more of a right to life than another. What makes this even worse is we all have a right to make our own choices. The mother who terminates her pregnancy had a host of choices that would have prevented the pregnancy, the fetus never had a choice. The fetus' choice is made for them. This is a form of tyranny, as the voiceless does not is not given a choice of freedom.
Denying a woman an abortion is not to deny her an individual right. She does not have the right to terminate her pregnancy and destroy human life, it is a choice not a right. She has a right to make choices, choices that would have prevented the pregnancy.
You are right, she is free to live as she chooses. However as Rand said, "a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others)".
Abortion is an example of the lack of individual responsibility that is being bred into our culture. We have all these rights and don't want the responsibility that comes with exercising them. When the ultimate individual responsibility we will ever have (to that of our offspring) can be neglected and the decision made which leads to this can be accepted with no recourse, our society is degenerating. Creating life (reproduction) is the ultimate gift that has been given to all living things and to demean that gift and take it for granted can do nothing but harm. Abortion is morally wrong, biologically wrong, ethically wrong, and violates all natural rights humans have been endowed with. It is truly one of the largest violation of human rights the world has ever seen and since the abortion movement (Planned Parenthood) systematically targets poor minorities, I would claim it is borderline genocide. http://www.blackgenocide.org/black.html
ajligs wrote and I quote: “The fetus also has a natural right, to life.”
No. A fetus has no rights. “Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generating action.” (Ayn Rand)
Simply because a thing is alive does not give it rights. Many things are alive, including insects, weeds and algae. One does not attribute rights to such things. Individual rights have a specific meaning and it applies only to human beings. A fetus is totally dependent on its host. It cannot think or act without its host. It is not a human being until the moment of birth.
“A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” (Ayn Rand) The born have a right to exist because they are born. Not vice versa. The pregnant woman has a right to abort because she has the right to life. The fetus has no such right.
ajligs wrote, and I quote: “the fetus never had a choice.”
This is true. It cannot have a choice because it has no capacity to choose. It cannot think. It has no power of volition because it is not a self-sustaining, independent entity.
Your entire argument is based on a mistaken premise that a fetus is a human being. Since you believe that, you give it rights. But a human being refers to a specific living organism of a specific kind. By definition a human being is “a rational animal.” But a fetus is not rational. It is impossible for a fetus to be rational before birth. It does not yet have a mind. It has no means to form a mind. As best it is a parasite. It may look human after a certain development, but it is not yet human until it has an independent conceptual consciousness, i.e., until it is born. Rights may not be attributed to the non-human.
Women have individual rights. Fetuses do not. Abortion should be legal.
One way to make sure the fetus never has a choice is to kill it. If the fetus is not killed , he/she will grow , just like you did. A fetus has a mind , heart, arms, legs ,etc. that are growing and developing just as you did and are doing today.
I think I am being very rational to think it is wrong to kill innocent life.
Interesting argument Sylvia; technically filled with many errors, but interesting.
What evidence do you have that a fetus can not think? Later term fetuses definitely exhibit brain activity.
A fetus most definitely has human DNA. It has a heartbeat. It has a brain and brain activity. It is, in scientific terms, every bit as much human as you are.
You are correct when you say a human being refers to a specific living organism of a specific kind. That specific kind is determined by its DNA. Fetuses are living, and they have human DNA. That makes them human.
By what basis or by what evidence do you make the observation that a fetus has no mind, or that it has no independent conceptual consciousness? Please provide the evidence to support that comment. What is the magical transformation that takes place in a matter of seconds that transforms a parasite into a human being?
A human fetus, from as early as 21 weeks into development, is a fully functional human being. From that point forward they continue their growth and development to improve their chances of surviving on their own outside the womb. But that does not mean that they do not have everything that is required to live on their own at 21 weeks. Your argument is based on very simplistic terms; if you can’t touch it, and you can’t see it with your own eyes, then it’s nothing more than a parasite. This makes it easier to morally justify terminating it, but it does nothing to change the facts that any abortion that is performed after 21 weeks is terminating a life that could very well have survived and gone on to a full, normal life and do great things.
If you’re really interested in the subject and not just trying to make excuses for why it’s OK to abort a fetus at any point of it’s development I would recommend the following site for an interesting read; http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/tul/psychtoday9809.html
Dear Pepper:
You asked: "What evidence do you have that a fetus can not think? Later term fetuses definitely exhibit brain activity."
Brain activity is not thought. Every organism that has a brain, has brain activity. Cats have brain activity. So do rats and birds and dolphins and so forth. Brain activity per se is not the defining characteristic of thought.
Thought is a complex set of identifications and integrations of two or more percepts, which means thought requires some perception of that which exists independent of one's own consciousness. A fetus inside a womb has no material to be conscious of. One cannot be conscious when there is nothing to be conscious of.
The evidence that a fetus cannot think lies in how it must function. By its nature, it relies on its host. If, for instance, the host smokes or drinks, we know "out here" that this is not good for the fetus "in there," but the fetus does not know that such things are bad for it. It cannot identify or evaluate the things the host sends to it. It can only passively absorb what the host gives it.
You wrote: "A fetus most definitely has human DNA. It has a heartbeat. It has a brain and brain activity. It is, in scientific terms, every bit as much human as you are."
Not true. A fetus does have the things you mentioned but none of it adds up to the human. Human DNA or a heartbeat or brain activity are not defining characteristic of a human being. The essential defining characteristic of a human being is conceptual consciousness. DNA is the building block of the physical organism, which includes the brain.
You wrote: "You are correct when you say a human being refers to a specific living organism of a specific kind. That specific kind is determined by its DNA. Fetuses are living, and they have human DNA. That makes them human."
No. As I indicated above, when one is discussing the human, one must consider the essential that differentiates the human from other mammalian life forms, which is rationality. The human is the rational animal. The rational animal alone has a conceptual consciousness.
You asked: "By what basis or by what evidence do you make the observation that a fetus has no mind, or that it has no independent conceptual consciousness? Please provide the evidence to support that comment."
I've already answered this above.
You asked: "What is the magical transformation that takes place in a matter of seconds that transforms a parasite into a human being?"
There is no magic involved. The transformation involves essentially two fundamentals: existence and development. Ordinarily, at a particular stage of its physical development, a mammalian organism is ejected from its host. At that moment, it is plunged into the entire array of things that make up the universe, including light and gravity and objects and so forth.
The born organism cannot immediately perceive everything available to him. It takes considerably longer than a few seconds to ignite the operation of his consciousness. Upon birth it is still on the pleasure-pain principle. He can sense discomfort and hunger and will react. The fetus has a potential. When it is born into a different environment, that potential is activated. But it takes him quite some time to learn to focus his eyes. It takes even longer for him to sense that the object looking at him is "good for me." It takes even longer for him to SAY "mama." This is the nature of the development of a consciousness from the perceptual to the conceptual, which is unique to human beings.
A conceptual consciousness cannot begin to function until it has material to be conscious of. It cannot have access to that material until its perceptual mechanism is activated and utilized. It cannot activate and utilize the perceptual mechanism until it is born into an environment where there is material to perceive and be conscious of. So, we say: the fetus upon being born is now in an environment that supplies him with perceptual data, which enables him to develop his conceptual consciousness. Ergo, he is now human.
You wrote: "Your argument is based on very simplistic terms . . .but it does nothing to change the facts that any abortion that is performed after 21 weeks is terminating a life that could very well have survived and gone on to a full, normal life and do great things."
Are you saying that if a fetus is terminated before 21 weeks, that's okay. You know it won't do great things. But if it's terminated after 21 weeks, then you know that one is killing something that might do great things?
In any case, this does not deal with the most important issue: A woman's individual rights. Why should a pregnant woman do what you want her to do? Why should her rights be violated? Why do you advocate using force upon human beings in the name of the human? It does not make sense. Abortion should be legal because it acknowledges and affirms a woman's individual rights.
Sylvia,
So are you suggesting that cats, rats, birds and dolphins do not think? You ought to be more careful as it’s a scientific fact that these animals all do think, and in the case of dolphins, might very well think more than humans do.
Your argument is defining the differences between a ‘human person’ and a ‘human being’. A human person is a human being that is now interacting with its environment. It has a name, a personality, behavioral patterns, likes and dislikes, skills, etc. A human person is one you can touch and see and feel. A human being is a human person who hasn’t yet had the chance to establish themselves. It is a biological entity that has yet to develop into a 'person'. Physiologically speaking, there is no difference. Placing a fetus in an environment that gives it more external stimulation to respond to does not make it any more human than if it stayed in the womb.
By your definition, if a doctor removes a 28 week old fetus from the womb and places it in a nursery it is now a human. However, if a baby is born naturally and immediately placed inside an empty, dark, windowless room it is still not human as it’s not interacting, learning and evolving from its environment. That’s just silly. A fetus can not control the environment it’s in nor should it be judged human or not by it’s location. An unborn fetus has just as much ability to learn and interpret from its environment as one that has been born; they just reside in different environments.
Regardless of whether we will agree on this point or not, if you read at the link I provided you will see that fetuses in the womb are in fact very active and reacting to their surroundings. They respond to touch, to sound and even to light. They are human beings who just happen to be living in the protective cover of their mother’s womb, but whether in the womb or out, they are physically the same.
You asked: “Are you saying that if a fetus is terminated before 21 weeks, that's okay. You know it won't do great things. But if it's terminated after 21 weeks, then you know that one is killing something that might do great things?”
I use 21 weeks as a reference because that’s the point in a fetus’s development that it begins to stand a chance of surviving outside the womb. My position, as stated from the start, is one of compromise; a woman should have the right to decide whether she wants to be pregnant or not and be able to terminate the pregnancy if that’s her choice. However, at some point the embryo/fetus developing inside her reaches a point where they are considered viable, and from that point forward I prefer to protect their right to live. I would prefer never having to take a life, so no, it’s not okay with me to abort fetuses less than 21 weeks. However, I do understand the need for allowing abortions, hence a solution based on compromise. But just remember, every great human who has ever lived was, at some point and time, a fetus less than 21 weeks into development.
You prefer to frame abortion as nothing more than a woman’s individual rights but in doing so you trivialize the human life growing within her. It’s obvious to me that this is why so many people who favor unrestricted abortion rights spend so much time arguing that the unborn fetus isn’t a human life. However, by all scientific definitions it is a human life and at some point its right to live should supersede a woman’s right to abort it.
You wrote: “Abortion should be legal because it acknowledges and affirms a woman's individual rights.” But what you’re really saying is “Abortion should be legal because it acknowledges and affirms a woman's individual rights, including the right to kill another human being”.
Dear Pepper:
You asked: "So are you suggesting that cats, rats, birds and dolphins do not think?"
Yes. I don't merely suggest it. I affirm it with full conviction.
You wrote: "You ought to be more careful as it's a scientific fact that these animals all do think, and in the case of dolphins, might very well think more than humans do."
Your assertion is not an argument---nor is it persuasive. Your allusion to "scientific fact" is of the same type.
But I am curious to know why you believe the lower animals can think. Have you read an article written by a rat? Have you observed cats working to send a man to the moon? Or maybe a chimp worked at your computer for a while where it accessed the net and discussed with an MIT professor the dangers of government interference in the economy?
I'm not being facetious. I'm quite serious. I am trying to stress that a process of thought is far different from a beaver making a dam prompted by his biological programming---and so forth in regard to all the other activities the lower animals engage in. None of that is thought. Nor is thought the response to stimuli.
A different process is involved when, say, we discuss our differing points of view. I could not hold this discussion with any of the lower animals. Why do you think that is? Is it merely because you and I share the same language? Or is something else involved?
For example, suppose we are in the same room and in silence I point to a chair. You would know immediately what that object was. And if I also pointed to a dining table, you would again know what I was pointing to. Then suppose I stated, "I need more furniture." You would know instantly that what I meant was I need another chair, or a bed or a side table. This is an example of concept formation. It is an abstract process that is unique to man because only we have the kind of consciousness required to do that kind of mental work.
As for the rest of your comments, I regret to say I do not agree with anything you wrote. As I said before, I do not consider a fetus a human being. Consequently I cannot agree with your statements, which all follow from that premise. I do not consider it virtuous to compromise on the principle of individual rights. I do not accept the initiation of force as a proper mode of civilized, moral conduct.
Of all your assertions the one most grievously horrific is your statement that a fetus "at some point its right to live should supersede a woman's right to abort it."
This says that a woman's rights should be at the mercy of whoever decides what that point is. Would you enjoy having a "right" that is conditional upon how much time an egg spends in your womb? Perhaps you would consider it your duty to give birth, since someone else says you must? In any case, a "conditional right" is not a right at all. It is the wholesale destruction of individual rights.
You wrote: “But I am curious to know why you believe the lower animals can think. Have you read an article written by a rat? Have you observed cats working to send a man to the moon? Or maybe a chimp worked at your computer for a while where it accessed the net and discussed with an MIT professor the dangers of government interference in the economy?”
Place a rat in a maze and they will figure out how to get to the end, where the food is. Put them in the maze a second time and they will get to the food faster. They *learn* the maze.
Chimps are very creative at solve problems, like making a tool to reach inside crevices to hunt for insects. That is an intelligent solution to a problem. Chimps also work together when they hunt. Their methods are very complex. They are communicating and organizing and they are very successful. Since we can’t understand them we have no idea what they are saying, but only human arrogance would conclude it’s not intelligence. Don't believe me? Go read at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/science/17chimp.html?ref=science
Don't think dolphins are intelligent? Go read at this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jul/03/research.science
It's not an opinion but scientific fact that intelligence is not limited to humans.
You wrote: “As for the rest of your comments, I regret to say I do not agree with anything you wrote. As I said before, I do not consider a fetus a human being. Consequently I cannot agree with your statements, which all follow from that premise. I do not consider it virtuous to compromise on the principle of individual rights. I do not accept the initiation of force as a proper mode of civilized, moral conduct.”
But you do, apparently, consider killing a 30 week old fetus to be proper, civilized moral conduct? A fetus that, if removed from the womb rather than being murdered, would have a greater than 90% chance of going on to lead a very long, healthy life.
You wrote: “Of all your assertions the one most grievously horrific is your statement that a fetus "at some point its right to live should supersede a woman's right to abort it."
“This says that a woman's rights should be at the mercy of whoever decides what that point is. Would you enjoy having a "right" that is conditional upon how much time an egg spends in your womb? Perhaps you would consider it your duty to give birth, since someone else says you must? In any case, a "conditional right" is not a right at all. It is the wholesale destruction of individual rights.”
Would you prefer the laws were not conditional and abortion was illegal at any stage? Look, the bottom line is this; ‘at some point’ (approx 27 weeks) a fetus goes from being unable to survive without its mother to one that could. Despite your beliefs, it is of human form, it has human DNA, it has a complete set of chromosomes, it has fingers and toes, hair and eye lashes, it has a heart beat and an active brain. It can respond to touch, sound and light. It can recognize its mother’s voice. If you did nothing more than allow a doctor to remove the fetus it would most likely go on to live a long, productive life. This is all fact, not some fantasy that you can summarily dismiss as inconvenient. What I have suggested is yes, a conditional right – a conditional right to terminate a life before it reaches the point where it could live on its own. If, by that time, you still have not decided that you wanted to abort the baby, and it’s now capable of surviving on its own, then to terminate it becomes a much more egregious act. But what your saying is if we do not preserve the right to murder the unborn, regardless of whether they are fully function and able to live on their own, then we are guilty of wholesale destruction of individual rights – as if murdering the unborn wasn’t itself an act of destroying individual rights.
You are, of course, free to continue to keep your head buried in the sand with regards to what exactly is growing within the womb. I doubt you or I will personally change the course of our country’s debate over abortion. But I am willing to bet that as long as we have extremists on both ends of the spectrum, we will never settle the debate. I offer a compromise. It will never appease the religiously motivated, nor will it satisfy the unrestricted abortion rights activists. But I suspect if you polled the country you would find far more support for some kind of compromise solution than you would for either outlawing abortion or making it completely unrestricted.
Dear Pepper:
I am pleased that you agree that abortion should be legal. But I am not pleased that you believe it should be "restrictive," as you put it. To the extent that you endorse "restrictive" abortion, you continue to advocate the use of force against women who choose abortion. If you choose to bear a child, you have that right. But you do not have the right to force others to do what you want.
As I said before: abortion should be legal. Government is not the agency to set conditions against it, or set conditions around it. This is a matter left properly to the woman and her doctor.
As for your other remarks: Nowhere did I use the term "intelligence" in my previous comments to indicate the difference between the human being and a fetus or the lower animals. I have repeatedly referred to conceptual consciousness, or to rationality as the defining characteristic.
There is a distinct difference between intelligence and the faculty of rationality and conceptual consciousness. To confuse these terms leads to the kind of statements you made in your last post. None that you listed involved conceptual consciousness, or conceptual activity, or rational processes. Some of your statements merely involve responses to stimuli of one sort or another. Others of your statements refer to learning processes possible to perceptual consciousness, which rely exclusively on association---a lower form of bringing data together---observable also in human infants as well. Learning by association is how we train animals, for instance.
Because your use of the term intelligence is confused, you consequently make unwarranted generalizations and leaps that simply don't follow. For this reason I reject all your statements regarding the activities possible to perceptual consciousness. None are instances of conceptual consciousness. None are instances of thought.
You wrote: "You are, of course, free to continue to keep your head buried in the sand with regards to what exactly is growing within the womb. I doubt you or I will personally change the course of our country's debate over abortion."
I'm certain that such exchanges do change the debate over abortion---eventually. Airing one's views is the only place to start.
You wrote: "But I suspect if you polled the country you would find far more support for some kind of compromise solution than you would for either outlawing abortion or making it completely unrestricted."
True.
Sylvia,
This is not about forcing women to do things. This is about protecting an innocent life. Abortion proponents always manage to leave the fetus out of the discussion as if it’s not worthy of consideration. This should be a matter left properly to the woman, her doctor AND the fetus, and that’s the point. Someone has to speak for the unborn because they are incapable of speaking for themselves.
As for ‘conceptual consciousness’; for the sake of this discussion I consider this to be a superficial ‘benchmark’ that you have established that, if not yet attained, disqualifies one for consideration for ‘right to life’. The only thing preventing a fetus still in the womb from meeting your requirement is that it is still locked up in the womb. Release it from the womb and it will attain ‘conceptual consciousnesses’. It’s not a shortcoming of the fetus, it’s a limitation imposed by the environment it’s trapped within.
And yes, I agree that debate can often shift opinions, but sadly, I think the gap between the two sides of the abortion debate is too wide, and emotions run too deep, for it to ever get resolved. Compromise is the only chance, but the debate is dominated by extremists.
Dear Pepper,
You wrote: "Abortion proponents always manage to leave the fetus out of the discussion as if it's not worthy of consideration."
False. You and I have been discussing the nature of the fetus throughout this exchange. Further, it is precisely the "life of the fetus" that anti-abortionists focus on entirely, disregarding the woman, her life, her rights and her status as host. It is precisely the woman that anti-abortionist consider "not worthy of consideration."
They---as you---argue that because a woman has a fertilized egg inside her, THAT subjects her to the status of "nothing but a common carrier," implying that the fetus is some kind of holy object. They---as you---argue that because a woman is pregnant she is therefore somehow subjected to other people's decision. They---as you---argue that the fetus' life is more important than the woman's and call for "restrictions" on the woman's rights. It's tiresome to read the assertions of those who, like you, consider a fertilized egg superior to a human being---all the while maintaining that this is "not about forcing women to do things."
That, too, is false. Of course the debate surrounding abortion is about force. There is no way to deny it. Anti-abortion is about force because it is the woman who is being forced to put aside her own individual concerns and act in favor of the fertilized egg she carries. You claim that "Someone has to speak for the unborn because they are incapable of speaking for themselves." And at the same time you declare that conceptual consciousness is "a superficial benchmark."!!!
You wrote: As for 'conceptual consciousness'; for the sake of this discussion I consider this to be a superficial 'benchmark' that you have established that, if not yet attained, disqualifies one for consideration for 'right to life'."
Of course I do. That is implicit in my argument. By what other standard can one defend the woman than by her right to her life? To seriously attribute to a parasite "a right to life" while denying the same right to the woman who has developed and carries that parasite is beyond reason.
Whether the woman chooses to bring that parasite to term is up to her and her doctor. No one else. The fetus is not a person. It is not a human being. It has no rights.
Your continued argument for forcing a woman to carry to term a fetus she does not choose to bear is nothing other than the argument for the woman to do what you think is best. You conceal your actual intent by saying that "someone has to speak for the unborn because they are incapable of speaking for themselves," which, parenthetically, acknowledges the importance of conceptual consciousness while asserting it's merely a superficial benchmark.
You claim that "[conceptual consciousnesses is] not a shortcoming of the fetus, it's a limitation imposed by the environment it's trapped within."
Of course, not having a conceptual consciousness is a short-coming. A short-coming is a lack, an insufficient means of dealing with something, a defect, a deficiency, a falling short of what is required. To call the fetus' lack of conceptual consciousness merely "a limitation imposed by its environment" is merely saying the same thing but using different words. It's still a short-coming. And it still means that without the pregnant woman, the fetus could not and would not exist, which indicates the priorities, which indicates which is the more important to protect and defend.
But you put the cart before the horse. Like a government bureaucrat who claims that some men have "the right" to a job that was created by someone else, you claim "the right" to tell the woman who carries the fetus that her rights are to be "restricted" by the fetus she carries, and that it has rights that supersede hers---a fetus that has done nothing, is not conceptually conscious, has no means of volitional action, is not humanly alive in any sense except the physically reactive response of absorbing what the host gives it.
I wonder if you can see the basic untenable premise you embrace. You are saying that nothing is superior to something.
Ayn Rand said to never sacrifice the actual to the potential in reference to abortion. However science shows that a fetus is undeniably human, regardless of its ability to care for itself. The mother's own free action created the child so her duty it so the child until it can care for itself.
Location does not determine if you are human. If you are in the ocean you do not become a fish, that is insane. So why should something as arbitrary as location determine whether or not you have human rights?
The ability to reason also does not determine who deserves to live, or else infanticide should also be the moral right of the mother.
Now we see the true question, "do all humans deserve to live or only the ones that can make visual appeals to our sentimentality?"
The only logical argument for an abortion is when the mother's life is threatened, as then it can be argued to be self defense. In no other case is abortion justified.
This post by the ARC is just the tip of the ice burg. If I understand the argument, the full argument involves the view that a person's right to life involves the right to live it by their own judgment of how best to do so. Since a fetus has no such judgment it has no right to live by it, just as it has, with some exceptions clearly spelled out in law, no right to on the food he/she eats, or the TV shows watched, or the education it receives. The age of majority is the recognition of the fact that person-hood and the full support and weight of the law is reserved for those who have developed the capacity and ability, as far as the law is concerned, for reasoned judgments about how best to lead their own lives. This is the source of a woman's right to have an abortion.