A Randian Falacy


equality72521

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I like the sliding scale approach as well. It's logical. Being a parent, what sold us was hearing our kids' heartbeat (that would be my line). There was no going back. My wife had severe bleeding after our daughter was born. She knew that was a risk second time around. It was her decision. I had no say, and didn't want it.

You can rationalize all you want about the "line" but there is an emotional factor included. Hear the pounding of the heart for the first time. If you're like me, you'll fight tooth and nail to see your child born. You're hooked! :)

However, it is the right of the mother, hopefully for safety of self, to choose. These days, there are plenty of families willing to care for the child if the biological parents do not have the means.

And just as we are all different, so to are the circumstances for each decision regarding birth.

~ Shane

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I like the sliding scale approach as well. It's logical. Being a parent, what sold us was hearing our kids' heartbeat (that would be my line). There was no going back. My wife had severe bleeding after our daughter was born. She knew that was a risk second time around. It was her decision. I had no say, and didn't want it.

You can rationalize all you want about the "line" but there is an emotional factor included. Hear the pounding of the heart for the first time. If you're like me, you'll fight tooth and nail to see your child born. You're hooked! :)

However, it is the right of the mother, hopefully for safety of self, to choose. These days, there are plenty of families willing to care for the child if the biological parents do not have the means.

And just as we are all different, so to are the circumstances for each decision regarding birth.

~ Shane

You are right and I share your feelings but other people thinks very different and this difference has to be respected if we want to live in freedom

I am a late Objectivist and also a late father, both in my 40's and I would gladly give my life for my 3 years old son (literally if I need to, I have already lived a wonderful life anyway).

But it doesn't change the fact that some people have other feelings, needs, values, circumstances and the list goes on...

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I’ve been wanting to weigh in here with a tale from the Objectivist trenches, sorry to be late to the party. When I was running a campus club Andrew Bernstein added a lecture to his ARI sponsored touring repertoire: The Philosophic Basis of a Woman’s Right to Abortion. The lecture went without incident, but wasn’t interesting in the least. I believe I have a video tape of it, but haven’t rewatched it, knowing that the terms of Justin Raimondo’s critique of Leonard Peikoff (skinny little guy, pencil thin neck) apply doubly to yours truly aged 21 (I did the intro). Anyway, it was at the afterparty that the conversation got interesting. You’d expect that Bernstein would be ready to answer easily anticipated questions, like exactly when do rights begin to apply to a fetus/infant? At birth was the formulation in the lecture. My then second in command, now trading under the OL username Peregrine777, tested our guest with an illustration of the umbilical cord, attached and not attached. No rights (connected), rights (not connected)? Dr. Bernstein claimed that was an “invalid question”. On to the dicey issue of late term abortion, he asserted a “look and see” standard for whether the fetus had developed to where abortion was inappropriate, and wouldn’t define it with any level of precision. He said he can judge by pointing…no I’m not making that up and I remember it vividly. I think an illustration is in order to impart the flavour of his performance:

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... Anyway, it was at the afterparty that the conversation got interesting. You’d expect that Bernstein would be ready to answer easily anticipated questions, like exactly when do rights begin to apply to a fetus/infant? At birth was the formulation in the lecture. My then second in command, now trading under the OL username Peregrine777, tested our guest with an illustration of the umbilical cord, attached and not attached. No rights (connected), rights (not connected)? Dr. Bernstein claimed that was an “invalid question”. On to the dicey issue of late term abortion, he asserted a “look and see” standard for whether the fetus had developed to where abortion was inappropriate, and wouldn’t define it with any level of precision. ...

The video is funny, but I think Bernstein's comments illustrate the problem with the all-or-nothing approach to the issue. It is the sudden transition from acceptable to murder that leaves everyone confused about the issue.

Darrell

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I think Bernstein's comments illustrate the problem with the all-or-nothing approach to the issue.

Indeed, though if I were to give a college campus lecture on a subject I’d have answers ready or not give the talk. BTW we may have been the first to host this lecture, maybe he’s improved since (I sure hope so). This wasn’t asked in the question period, it was at the get-together afterwards.

The movie Lake of Fire is an interesting and challenging exploration of the topic. Both sides get their say, it’s hard to say which side the filmmakers are on. Noam Chomsky is more or less the voice of reason in the film (IMO).

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  • 3 weeks later...

The question of whether or not the fetus is human is totally irrelevant to the issue of abortion. That question only has significance from a religious standpoint, because religionists hold that all human life is somehow sacred in the eyes of the Great Goblin in the Sky. From a secular standpoint, the only issue is the woman's right to determine what she wants to do with her own body. To suggest that she surrenders that right by engaging in sex is fundamentally puritanical and utterly ridiculous. I believe we abolished slavery in this country over a century ago.

To see a thread like this on an Objectivist webforum almost defies comprehension.

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To see a thread like this on an Objectivist webforum almost defies comprehension.

Do you have answers to the issue raised below?

exactly when do rights begin to apply to a fetus/infant? At birth was the formulation in the lecture. My then second in command, now trading under the OL username Peregrine777, tested our guest with an illustration of the umbilical cord, attached and not attached. No rights (connected), rights (not connected)? Dr. Bernstein claimed that was an “invalid question”. On to the dicey issue of late term abortion, he asserted a “look and see” standard for whether the fetus had developed to where abortion was inappropriate, and wouldn’t define it with any level of precision. He said he can judge by pointing

When does the entity in question obtain rights, or (to rephrase) when do rights begin to apply to it? Is it ok to scramble it in utero while the mother is in labor (healthy, full term), so long as that's the mother's choice? Bernstein didn't think so, but couldn't articulate guiding principals for when it starts being ok. I'd like to hear an answer, and this thread seems like a good place to seek it.

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To see a thread like this on an Objectivist webforum almost defies comprehension.

Do you have answers to the issue raised below?

exactly when do rights begin to apply to a fetus/infant? At birth was the formulation in the lecture. My then second in command, now trading under the OL username Peregrine777, tested our guest with an illustration of the umbilical cord, attached and not attached. No rights (connected), rights (not connected)? Dr. Bernstein claimed that was an “invalid question”. On to the dicey issue of late term abortion, he asserted a “look and see” standard for whether the fetus had developed to where abortion was inappropriate, and wouldn’t define it with any level of precision. He said he can judge by pointing

When does the entity in question obtain rights, or (to rephrase) when do rights begin to apply to it? Is it ok to scramble it in utero while the mother is in labor (healthy, full term), so long as that's the mother's choice? Bernstein didn't think so, but couldn't articulate guiding principals for when it starts being ok. I'd like to hear an answer, and this thread seems like a good place to seek it.

Do I have an answer? I don’t know how anyone could have a precise answer who is not an expert in obstetrics. I do regard this as a very important issue, as long as we set aside the ridiculous nonsense about the legitimacy of abortion in principle. I regard the issue of fetal viability as the point where the rights of the ‘unborn’ become relevant, although I would obviously have to defer to medical experts as to when that occurs. I have no idea what a “look and see” approach would be, but I don’t like the unscientific sound of it.

I dealt with this issue at length at Rebirth of Reason in 2007. I strongly disagreed with a writer from the Ayn Rand Institute, Glenn Woiceshyn, defending ‘partial birth abortion,’ and used a quote from Ayn Rand to suggest that she would have opposed this practice. Others who contributed to the thread offered what I considered to be a thoroughly untenable "ARI orthodox" interpretation of Rand’s comments.

Here is what I wrote:

"There are critically important issues involved here. Anti-abortionists claim that this issue reveals the hypocrisy behind the claims of pro-choice advocates that they want to stand on the principle of a woman's right to control her own body. The cavalier sanction of late term abortion, when the potential viability of the fetus outside the womb may be at issue, suggests that whim-worship, not self-determination, is what the supporters of pro-choice are really defending.

"Where the health and safety of the woman or the fetus is clearly threatened, late-term abortion may well be justified. But Woiceshyn defends abortion in a way that implies a woman can blithely choose to destroy the fetus until the moment the umbilical cord is cut. He contends that to do otherwise is to open the door to an eventual ban on all abortions.

But the opposite is true: the failure to make crucial distinctions regarding the developmental stage of the embryo or fetus totally undermines the pro-choice position, and lends credence to the pro-lifer's contention that all abortion represents the devaluation of human life.

"Woiceshyn argues that the opponents of "partial birth abortion" are trying to "create an essential distinction when none exists." Well, since he is writing under the auspices of the Ayn Rand Institute, he might have investigated what she had to say on that subject:

"Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a 'right to life.' A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable." Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Letter, A Last Survey--Part I ,Vol. IV, No. 2 November-December 1975

"Ayn Rand obviously considered the first three months of a pregnancy to be essentially distinct from the subsequent stages. There is every reason to believe she may well have opposed 'partial birth abortion' on principle, when no health or safety issues were paramount. If the Ayn Rand Institute prides itself on strict philosophical adherence to her ideas and teachings, it might want to stop promoting views directly contradictory to her own writing on the subject."

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To see a thread like this on an Objectivist webforum almost defies comprehension.

Do you have answers to the issue raised below?

exactly when do rights begin to apply to a fetus/infant? At birth was the formulation in the lecture. My then second in command, now trading under the OL username Peregrine777, tested our guest with an illustration of the umbilical cord, attached and not attached. No rights (connected), rights (not connected)? Dr. Bernstein claimed that was an "invalid question". On to the dicey issue of late term abortion, he asserted a "look and see" standard for whether the fetus had developed to where abortion was inappropriate, and wouldn't define it with any level of precision. He said he can judge by pointing

When does the entity in question obtain rights, or (to rephrase) when do rights begin to apply to it? Is it ok to scramble it in utero while the mother is in labor (healthy, full term), so long as that's the mother's choice? Bernstein didn't think so, but couldn't articulate guiding principals for when it starts being ok. I'd like to hear an answer, and this thread seems like a good place to seek it.

The principle is that we err on the side of the victim.

Prior to quickening, there is no coordinated neural activity, and hence no possibility of the existence of consciousness.

Quickening occurs around the 18th week, i.e., 126 days, or just into the the fifth month.

This is almost 100 days after the first day on which the woman should have missed her period.

One hundred days is plenty of time to decide to abort.

Once the kid starts kicking on his own, the mother who has not acted to end the pregnancy has chosen motherhood by default.

A parent must at some point accept responsibility for her having brought an autonomous being into existence without his consent.

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The principle is that we err on the side of the victim.

Well there’s the rub, which entity is the victim?

Prior to quickening, there is no coordinated neural activity, and hence no possibility of the existence of consciousness.

So coordinated neural activity and “possibility” of consciousness are the guiding principals? Is that for when rights apply or is there another standard you’re working from? Need time to consider.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The principle is that we err on the side of the victim.

Well there's the rub, which entity is the victim?

Prior to quickening, there is no coordinated neural activity, and hence no possibility of the existence of consciousness.

So coordinated neural activity and "possibility" of consciousness are the guiding principals? Is that for when rights apply or is there another standard you're working from? Need time to consider.

Thanks, Doctor. As I argued before, we err on the side of the victim. I reject the argument that conceptualization is the source of any specific individual person's rights. We assign rights to humans not because they pass a test, but because they are members of the species. We require due process before we deprive them of their rights. I reject survivabilty as the criterion for two reasons. First, we would not say that a fertilized cell has rights simply because technology has advanced to such a state that a pregnancy can be fully carried out in vitro. Second, babies and toddlers aren't "survivable." The fact that they can't survive on their own doesn't mean we can let them wander in traffic or starve to death.

Sentience depends on coordinated neural activity. There is no coordinated neural activity prior to quickening, before which muscles may twitch but they do not move in such a way as to cause flexing of the muscles. I happen to doubt that even at quickening, there exists mentally a person who can suffer. But I am not willing to do Mengelese experiments on innocent children to find that out. We do know that babies later in pregnancy struggle against and suffer during abortions. The issue is this. Does a woman, who has known for a hundred days that she is pregnant, never become responsible for the fact that by both her action and her inaction she has brought about a state of affairs where an innocent person has come into existence?

One hundred days after you have noticed you missed your period is plenty of time to have an abortion before the proposed alternative becomes active murder.

Edited by Ted Keer
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Ted: You build up “coordinated neural activity” as a standard, but then abandon it to focus on the fact that the mother has had 100 days to make up her mind. You’re about to assert the importance of a capacity for suffering, but you don’t follow through. I appreciate the effort, but I’ve argued with pro-lifers and I dare say your case is not ready for prime time. Capacity for suffering is the conceptual touchstone of animal rights types, I think that’s Peter Singer’s approach (memory’s a little foggy). Also, there are cases where the mother goes past 100 days without knowing she’s pregnant, there are even rare cases where they’re full term and go into labor, still not knowing.

I’m not claiming to have an unassailable formulation either. I completely oppose killing a healthy full term fetus, meaning in a hypothetical case where the mother’s in labor and shouting irrational things, such as an order to the doctor to abort. On to another extreme, very few have a problem with “destroying” frozen embryos, when the owner so chooses. Somewhere in between is where the cutoff is, and I see room for disagreement and debate. My opinion: first trimester, no problem. After that, the difficulties mount.

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Ted: You build up "coordinated neural activity" as a standard, but then abandon it to focus on the fact that the mother has had 100 days to make up her mind. You're about to assert the importance of a capacity for suffering, but you don't follow through. I appreciate the effort, but I've argued with pro-lifers and I dare say your case is not ready for prime time. Capacity for suffering is the conceptual touchstone of animal rights types, I think that's Peter Singer's approach (memory's a little foggy). Also, there are cases where the mother goes past 100 days without knowing she's pregnant, there are even rare cases where they're full term and go into labor, still not knowing.

I'm not claiming to have an unassailable formulation either. I completely oppose killing a healthy full term fetus, meaning in a hypothetical case where the mother's in labor and shouting irrational things, such as an order to the doctor to abort. On to another extreme, very few have a problem with "destroying" frozen embryos, when the owner so chooses. Somewhere in between is where the cutoff is, and I see room for disagreement and debate. My opinion: first trimester, no problem. After that, the difficulties mount.

No, absolutely not just "capacity for suffering" but "capacity for harm to a person." (If suffering were the criterion then killing an anesthetized person would not be murder.) I hold that all innocent persons have rights as humans. The operative terms are innocent and person. I hold self-initiated movement to be prima facie evidence of the presence of a mind - of personhood. The internal nervous system cannot develop without the formation of connections in the brain which depend upon feedback from the body. Hence it is quite likely that a mind does not exist until sometime after quickening. But quickening provides an objectively definable demarcation. Were it to be proven that there is no coordinated mental activity until some later date, or in the specific case of children found to have, say, no cerebral cortex, then the situation would be different.

Pro-choice people often argue that requiring a woman to carry a child to term is the equivalent of enslavement. Quickening happens around the start of the fifth month, i.e, after four full months from conception. That gives the woman plenty of time to abort the fetus before it starts moving coordinatedly on its own. It's not as if a woman finds herself pregnant and is immediately enslaved. She would have about 100 days from the date of her first missed period in which to decide whether or not to carry to term. Here are some pictures from google of a woman's belly at four months pregnant.

As for women who go to full term without noticing they are pregnant, that is their problem, not the child's.

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  • 2 months later...

Hello equality,

You posed this with such assurance, that I thought you were going to offer some answers - they are coming later I'm sure. :rolleyes:

Abortion is one of the toughest decisions a mother or parents can make - as it should be.

But it must and should be her/their decision, alone.

That is where Rand was absolutely right - in line with Individualism, and volition, always.

No State can interfere in that private and painful decision.

Where I have been uncomfortable,however, was with what I perceive as moralizing on Rand's part, concerning the foetus, mother's body, etc. She effectively blasted away any societal, religious and governmental judgement about abortion, and she should have stopped there.

Even if it's not yet a human life, a foetus is a potential human life, and I feel for anyone having to go through this; it isn't easy, and it should not be easy, IMHO.

Tony

Even if it's not yet a human life,

No, a fetus is a human life. It can't be anything but human.

a foetus is a potential human life

No, it's actual, not potential. It's an actual human life that is potentially a newborn human; the newborn human is an actual human life that is potentially an infant; an infant is an actual human life that is potentially an adolescent; the adolescent is an actual human life that is potentially an adult; etc.

The only potentiality that appears before a fetus is the "gleam in mommy and daddy's eyes." THAT is potentially a human being. Once they get to work and make a fetus, the potentiality has been actualized, and what they are left with is an actual human being at a very early stage of actual development.

Rand's dichotomy between "in actus" and "in potens" is misapplied. She favored unrestricted abortion because she couldn't tolerate any principle interfering with an adult women's right to enjoy herself. Claiming that the aborted fetus wasn't really human yet permitted her to do so with a perfectly clear conscience.

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....... (text cut for brevity).....

Again do not attack me attack the argument and specifically definitions. If in fact as a Claim the Fetus is a Human that Humans Right to life cannot be subjugated to the mothers/fathers whim of blanking out the consequences of her actions. Either prove the Fetus is not a Human OR that the Fetus is in fact initiating the use of force. If the Fetus is not initiating the use of force the mother/father is initiating force in the act of abortion.

What ever a fetus is, I will tell you what it is NOT. It is NOT a person and has no rights its mother is bound to recognize. A fetus is the property of its mother and its mother may dispose of the fetus, qua fetus, as she will provided public health laws are not violated in so doing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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....... (text cut for brevity).....

Again do not attack me attack the argument and specifically definitions. If in fact as a Claim the Fetus is a Human that Humans Right to life cannot be subjugated to the mothers/fathers whim of blanking out the consequences of her actions. Either prove the Fetus is not a Human OR that the Fetus is in fact initiating the use of force. If the Fetus is not initiating the use of force the mother/father is initiating force in the act of abortion.

What ever a fetus is, I will tell you what it is NOT. It is NOT a person and has no rights its mother is bound to recognize. A fetus is the property of its mother and its mother may dispose of the fetus, qua fetus, as she will provided public health laws are not violated in so doing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

It is NOT a person and has no rights its mother is bound to recognize.

Obviously untrue. Even the law -- as confused as it is on this issue -- recognizes that the fetus is human and has rights. If this were not so, then a man who batters a pregnant woman and kills the fetus would not be charged with murder -- and the man often is. If the fetus were only a "thing", the most he would be charged with is property damage. That the law doesn't apply the same reasoning to doctors who kill the fetus with the consent of the mother is simply an anomaly.

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It is NOT a person and has no rights its mother is bound to recognize.

Obviously untrue. Even the law -- as confused as it is on this issue -- recognizes that the fetus is human and has rights. If this were not so, then a man who batters a pregnant woman and kills the fetus would not be charged with murder -- and the man often is. If the fetus were only a "thing", the most he would be charged with is property damage. That the law doesn't apply the same reasoning to doctors who kill the fetus with the consent of the mother is simply an anomaly.

Consider all; the things that persons do and fetuses don't do.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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It is NOT a person and has no rights its mother is bound to recognize.

Obviously untrue. Even the law -- as confused as it is on this issue -- recognizes that the fetus is human and has rights. If this were not so, then a man who batters a pregnant woman and kills the fetus would not be charged with murder -- and the man often is. If the fetus were only a "thing", the most he would be charged with is property damage. That the law doesn't apply the same reasoning to doctors who kill the fetus with the consent of the mother is simply an anomaly.

Consider all; the things that persons do and fetuses don't do.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Consider all; the things that persons do and fetuses don't do.

"Persons" and "fetuses" both turn into old people. Seems to me that's an important similarity.

One could just as easily say "Consider all the things that 30-year old men do that 30-day old newborns do not; ergo, 30-day old newborns aren't people and have no rights.

Listen, I think a good argument can be made for the view that a fetus doesn't become a person until it has graduated law school and is capable of supporting its parents. Then it's a person; then it's a mensch.

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