Experts and users discuss abortion, womens rights, roe v. wade, politics, abortion debate: Abortion Rights are Pro-Life and Must be Defended in Fundamental Terms
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Abortion Rights are Pro-Life and Must be Defended in Fundamental Terms
- From Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
By Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights - Advancing Objectivism
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Yes, a woman has the right to her life
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.
- Atlas Fan
August 30, 2008 9:56AM
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Abortion in fundamentally wrong
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.
- mkovach
September 8, 2008 11:54AM
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Abortion Should Be Legal
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.
- Sylvia Bokor
November 19, 2008 8:05AM
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You are right
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
November 20, 2008 5:12PM
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I Repeat Abortion Should Be Legal
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.
- Sylvia Bokor
November 22, 2008 7:25AM
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Not for the reasons you are stating.
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
- Pepper
December 17, 2008 10:26AM
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Abortion Should Be Legall: Response to Pepper
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 Bokor
December 18, 2008 9:10AM
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Response to Sylvia
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”.
- Pepper
December 18, 2008 1:38PM
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Abortion Should be Legal: Response to Pepper #2
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.
- Sylvia Bokor
December 19, 2008 8:57AM
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abortion should be legalized
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.
- holabalooga
February 12, 2009 4:01PM
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Rape victims
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?
- ussitano
March 13, 2009 8:18AM
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Abortion = Killing a human being?
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?
- a1b2c3d4 April 6, 2009 10:37AM
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Assuming things from the start
"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.
- ussitano
October 22, 2009 3:45AM
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My answers
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?
- ussitano
October 22, 2009 4:01AM
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