Ron Paul is not pro choice on abortion.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Biologically, parasitism does not occur in the same species. Nurturing is not parasitism. Here are some definitions gleaned from the web.

Parasitism

Parasitism is one version of symbiosis ("living together"), a phenomenon in which two organisms which are phylogenetically unrelated co-exist over a prolonged period of time, usually the lifetime of one of the individuals.

(Phylogeny is the study of the evolution and history of species.)

parasitism

1 : the behavior of a parasite

2 : an intimate association between organisms of two or more kinds; especially : one in which a parasite obtains benefits from a host which it usually injures

parasitism

Relationship between two species in which one benefits at the expense of the other.

parasitism

A symbiotic relationship in which one species, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host.

parasitism

A form of symbiosis in which the population of one species benefits at the expense of the population of another species; similar to predation, but differs in that parasites act more slowly than predators and do not always kill the host.

Parasitism

Similar to predation in that one species benefits from the relationship and the other is harmed; differs from predation in that parasitism generally not fatal to adversely affected organism.

Parasitism

A type of symbiosis where two (or more) organisms from different species live in close proximity to one another, in which one member depends on another for its nutrients, protection, and/or other life functions.

I could go on, but all one has to do is Google the term. Some definitions do not specify that parasitism involves two different species, but I imagine that none of the authors would conceive of someone describing a fetus as a parasite of the mother. Making this type of error has to be some kind of cognitive blindness or some kind of intentional cognitive shutting of eyes. It is not philosophy, it is not science and it is not nice. There is a dark agenda here.

I also see this implied all the time in Objectivist and libertarian definitions of human being. Instead of treating a fetus as the beginning of human life, then trying to define at what point in that specific life individual rights start, I have seen them try to define a fetus as some other kind of non-human existent.

If there is any further doubt, here is an article that sums up the differences between parasites and human beings in the first stages of life:

Why a Human Embryo or Fetus is Not a Parasite by Thomas L. Johnson, Professor of Biology, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA, and, incidentally, a libertarian.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I also see this implied all the time in Objectivist and libertarian definitions of human being. Instead of treating a fetus as the beginning of human life, then trying to define at what point in that specific life individual rights start, I have seen them try to define a fetus as some other kind of non-human existent.

If there is any further doubt, here is an article that sums up the differences between parasites and human beings in the first stages of life:

Why a Human Embryo or Fetus is Not a Parasite by Thomas L. Johnson, Professor of Biology, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA, and, incidentally, a libertarian.

Michael

O.K. So by a strict definition a fetus is not a parasite. But it is a living organism that lives at the expense of the mother. It takes nutrients from her blood, along with oxygen she could have used. It also leaches out calcium from the woman's bones if there is insufficient calcium in the mother's blood. In addition the fetus endangers the life of the woman at every stage of its existence, particularly the latter stages. There are conditions under which a woman's kidneys will fail because of the burden placed on her system by the fetus. Eclampsia and pre-eclamsia are such. They are life threatening. Childbirth itself is attended by potentially fatal risks. In days of yore, death resulting from childbirth were quite common. Now they are better controlled and prevented, but they still occur.

The fetus in no way benefits the woman that carries it biologically. It does not enhance her physical health at all. If anything, it endangers her physical health. So human or not, parasite or not a woman has the right to remove this thing growing in her if she is unwilling to carry it to birth.

A person has every right to take whatever steps are necessary to remove hazards to their life/health or prevent them from happening. There is no moral justification for preventing abortion. Abortion is never immoral. It is a way for a woman to defend her life and health.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But it is a living organism that lives at the expense of the mother.

. . .

The fetus in no way benefits the woman that carries it biologically. It does not enhance her physical health at all.

Bob,

This is absolutely wrong. I skimmed several other articles on biology that explored the different aspects of a give and take relationship between fetus and mother. The view you state was abandoned by medical science way before the middle of last century. Also, propagation of species is one fundamental aspect of living—not the only aspect, but not to be discarded. Look it up. You like science. I have already given way too much time to something I already knew by common sense.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The fetus is part of the mother. Separation--birth--foreshadows the eventual separation of children from their parents. Abortion is premature (biological) separation. My Mother had four children. She'll be 93 in October. Hard to say all that "parasitism" will shorten her life.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

And my mother will be 97 in August, and she has been a heavy smoker all her life. Conclusion?

[BaalChatzaf]

But it is a living organism that lives at the expense of the mother.

. . .

The fetus in no way benefits the woman that carries it biologically. It does not enhance her physical health at all.

Bob,

This is absolutely wrong. I skimmed several other articles on biology that explored the different aspects of a give and take relationship between fetus and mother. The view you state was abandoned by medical science way before the middle of last century. Also, propagation of species is one fundamental aspect of living—not the only aspect, but not to be discarded. Look it up. You like science. I have already given way too much time to something I already knew by common sense.

Michael

Carrying to term should be totally voluntary. No women should be forced to carry something in her body she wants to get rid of. The Future of the Human race is not ground for denying women the freedom to carry or not carry. If every women in the world refused to give birth (thereby dooming our species) they are totally within their right to do so. The possible future members of our species has no claim over the current members. Neither do the dead have a claim on the living.

The Right to Abort is the Right to Self Defense. It is absolute.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

What rights a woman has or does not have is no excuse for warping biological facts in presenting the case.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

The Right to Abort is the Right to Self Defense. It is absolute.

That's such a concisely stated position, it bears repeating and application to parallel cases.

For instance, The Right to Kill is the Right to Self Defense. It is absolute.

The Right to Maim is the Right to Self Defense. It is absolute.

The Right to Take Another's Property is the Right to Defend one's Own.

The problem with Ba'al's claim is that it is bass-ackwards. If he had started with the Right to Self Defense and considered why and when it is applicable, he would have realized that: The Right to Self Defense ~includes~ the Right to Abort, ~when~ (and ~only~ when) a mother's life is in danger. Abortion whenever the mother's life is ~not~ in danger is ~not~ an exercise of the Right to Self Defense. It may, in some circumstances, be justified even if the mother's life is not in danger, but that is not an issue of the Right to Self Defense, but simply her Right to Liberty to do something that does not infringe the equal Right to Life of another human being.

As for when fetuses are humans with the Right to Life, I think that ~if~ babies, including premature babies, have the Right to Life (and they do), then all fetuses also have rights if they are not threatening the life of their mother and are at least as well developed and separable from the mother as the youngest surviving premature babies. Call this "Bissell's Equal Protection Amendment," if you like. I'll stand by it and watch the rest of the Objectivist and Libertarian movements gallop off to infanticide, if I have to.

And any mother who has carried a fetus for six months or longer, to the point that it is now ~separable~ from her and able to survive, has an extreme amount of gall, claiming the "right" to kill her baby, if it is not threatening her own life. But what else is new. Libertarianism and Objectivism seem to include a large number of people who were attracted to those ideologies because they endorsed those people's egocentric Stirnirite egoistic tendencies. The Prudent Predator and the Unnecessary Third Trimester Aborter are just two of the rather more loathsome examples of this syndrome.

REB

[Brant Gaede]

And my mother will be 97 in August, and she has been a heavy smoker all her life. Conclusion?

It didn't hurt.

--Brant

[studiodekadent]

The problem with Ba'al's claim is that it is bass-ackwards. If he had started with the Right to Self Defense and considered why and when it is applicable, he would have realized that: The Right to Self Defense ~includes~ the Right to Abort, ~when~ (and ~only~ when) a mother's life is in danger.

Pregnancy is a risky business, even today. There is always a level of danger to the mother's life involved.

As for when fetuses are humans with the Right to Life, I think that ~if~ babies, including premature babies, have the Right to Life (and they do), then all fetuses also have rights if they are not threatening the life of their mother and are at least as well developed and separable from the mother as the youngest surviving premature babies.

This standard would still allow abortions throughout the first and second trimesters. I agree that there is a case for legal protections of the fetus at the end of the second trimester, since after that time (on average) no infant 'has' to survive biologically off the mother's resources and by that time the risk of cognitive defect is low.

[Martin Radwin]

Ba'al Chartzaf wrote:

I assume you read the word "deport". That means sent out of the country.

Overseas areas which are free fire zones. No death camps in North America. We send foreign born fifth columnists abroad where they will be killed eventually.

Of course, what could possibly go wrong with giving the government the power of life or death over all foreign born people, after which they will use this precedent to demand the power of life or death over all native born people as well? After all, the government has demonstrated such competence and commitment to justice. Some day, it may even be able to deliver the mail competently. Federal bureaucrats are the ultimate end of human evolution. If we really want to live in freedom, we must give these godlike beings ultimate power over all of us. War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!

Ba'al Chartzaf wrote:

Native born Muslims will present a bit of a legal problem. They will have to be watched very closely and excluded from certain critical occupations.

I know this sounds unpleasant but we are currently at war, de facto. In a war one does what one must do to survive and observing niceties and legalities can be counter-productive.

Absolutely! Of course, native born objectivists and libertarians will also present a bit of a legal problem. They will also have to be watched very closely and excluded from certain critical occupations. Ayn Rand, the founder of objectivism, advocated terrorism in her novels. Howard Roark blew up a government housing project. Ragnar Danneskjold was a terrorist pirate who went around seizing government relief ships. And John Galt withheld technology vital to the survival of the US and led a conspiracy of industrialists to withdraw from society, thereby precipitating its collapse. This obviously constitutes an advocacy of terrorism against the United States. Not only that, objectivists and libertarians advocate laissez faire capitalism and the abolition of the income tax. Ayn Rand has advocated the abolition of all taxes and the financing of government from voluntary contributions. How could the US military industrial complex, the American empire, the roughly 800 - 1000 US military bases around the world, the Iraq War, the Iran War, the global war on terror, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the TSA, the DEA, and the thousands of other absolutely essential federal government bureaucracies continue to exist without all of these wonderful taxes that objectivists and libertarians propose to abolish? These objectivists and libertarians are dangerous people. Deporting them, locking them up in Guantanamo style prison camps, even executing them, all seem like reasonable measures. We are, after all, at war!

Ba'al Chartzaf wrote:

During WW2 Native born folk with Japanese parents were shipped out to Utah and Colorado and interned in camps. Eventually the government folk were convinced these people weren't dangerous and they were let out bit by bit. Initially it was not known just how dangerous these folk were going to be so no chances were taken. A smaller number of ethnic Germans and Italians were also interned during WW2 especially members of the Bundt and their families.

Absolutely! It's most unfortunate that a hundred thousand or so innocent people were locked up in concentration camps and had their lives destroyed. But, you know what they say, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs! I suggest that we start rounding up all of the objectivists and libertarians and doing the same thing to them. Of course, there may be many objectivists and libertarians who don't explicitly identify themselves as such, so this creates a problem of knowing just how many of these potential terrorists are out there. I suggest we solve this problem by gathering the names of all people who post to libertarian or objectivist web sites. We can then send federal agents out to arrest all of these people, along with their friends and family. You can never be too careful. After all, we are at war!

Martin

[Brant Gaede]

If the US nukes America that'll take care of most Objectivists!

--Brant