No, abortion isn’t murder, but whether individual rights begin at birth is something you have to analyze and prove. I believe that according to your logic, individual rights only begin some time after birth when toddler’s conceptual volition emerges as a capacity. Until then, you should by the your logic allow post-natal abortions. Anyways, you might want to respond to my essay:
Yes, I addressed precisely these arguments in my essay and I believe they don’t quite work. Basically, your line of demarcation is not supported by real evidence. There’s no essential *intrinsic* difference between late-stage fetus and a newborn: the differences are extrinsic and have to do with the mode of dependence on the mother & the mode of functioning of some organs. Basically, both late-stage fetus and newborn are of the same “nature”.
In particular, I believe my other statement still holds and isn’t refuted by your essay: a newborn doesn’t have capacity for conceptual volition, and hence there’s no ground for its individual rights.
If you seriously take this argument as valid, then I suspect you might contradict Objectivism’s own theory of rights and end up grounding rights in something other than the nature of the being itself.
Rand says rights apply to rational, volitional animals by their nature. Being a rational volitional animal is an intrinsic property — part of an entity’s nature. Where the being is located, or what its life depends on, are extrinsic properties.
Let me sharpen my questions:
1. Is a late-stage fetus a rational, volitional animal?
2. Is a newborn a rational, volitional animal?
3. Depending on your answers, why does one have a right to life and the other doesn’t — given that the biological life of both depends on the mother’s support, just in different ways?
It's just not Rand's view that rationality is the sole basis of rights. Lots of evidence for that in my essay. (And rationality itself is obviously a relational thing. There's no such thing as a rational consciousness that isn't conscious of something outside itself.)
The necessary basis of rights is the nature of being rational and volitional — that much is clear from Objectivist theory. I see your point that this isn’t sufficient: the fundamental right is the right to life, and life is the process of self-sustaining, self-generated action. The right to life means the right to freely engage in that process. So right — there must also be a capacity for such action.
But this actually makes your case worse when applied to post-natal abortions.
First, a newborn is not yet a rational, volitional animal, so it has no basis for rights at all. But suppose we say it acquires capacity for volition at around one year old. And does a one-year-old truly have the capacity for self-sustaining, self-generated action? I doubt it. It can’t walk, can’t get food, can’t survive without constant external support. Its only self-sustaining actions are breathing, swallowing, and some rudimentary sensory exploration.
So under your criteria, does that one-year-old have the right to life — or not?
An impressively mindless article from a simp hoping blue-haired wymin will want hym some day.
Learn what words mean: "medieval" "murder", etc. Just to help you out; "murder" is a legal term with strict and limited application. Abortion is homicide. The taking of a human life by a human, for whatever reason. Unless you're really trying to claim a genetically complete individual is NOT human. if so, 1970 wants their "science" back...
Legally, abortion is not homicide. Homicide is defined as the killing of a human being (or person) by another human being (or person).
How does the law define the terms "human being" and person? Like this (taken from the US Legal Code but many states and nations use am equivalent definition):
"In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."
The born alive rule has millennia of history behind it and can be traced back to Genesis 2:7: "Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being." It has been a codified part of British common law, the basis for US law, for centuries.
It's why there is no mention of the unborn in our Constitution and why the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to those born in the US and not to those merely conceived in the US.
Totally fine with sex. Sewed my own wild oats in my younger years (but was careful enough to avoid pregnancy and STDs). Also, atheist. I hold no sky daddies.
Just not okay with killing humans.
There is inconsistency in my stance only if you have no idea where I am coming from. Abortion is killing a human individual. I didn’t have to move goal posts when you defined murder as “unjustifiable homicide of an individual human being”. You had to, when trying to explain why abortion was not murder, you had to add the phrase, “with human rights.”
Maybe subconsciously you understand just how bad a definition it would have been to define murder as “unjustifiable homicide of an individual human being with human rights.” Because suddenly you’d get where every genocide condoner was coming from. Just take away the human rights from the victim and you will never have another murder again!
PL people who accept exceptions do so under specific logical premises that comport to post-born understandings of murder. Life and health exceptions are triage. A fire fighter moving a heavy beam in a burning building blocking the door to someone an inch away from death to get to the previously trapped person likely to survive isn’t murder of the former. It’s saving 1 versus letting both die.
Rape exceptions follow a different, but still consistent logical strand. Do not get me wrong, morally, I hope and would support a woman to not abort in the case of rape, but legally would not mandate it because we never put a physical burden on a person to save another where the person had no hand in the other’s jeopardy. Walking on a bridge and accidentally knocking someone into a lake, and not saving them when you could, you might get a manslaughter charge. Coming across a person drowning and electing to not save them when you could may get you some social pressure (deservedly so) but you aren’t going to jail for it.
Those women (and men) who claim: “Women have a right to abortion on demand!”
Please read the those words (again and again if necessary) and then ask yourself: doesn’t that sound authoritarian.
Authoritarian:
“adjective—favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.” (Oxford Dictionary)
Now before you stop reading (if you’re Pro-Choice), this is NOT an anti-abortion comment. This a PRO Liberty comment.
Whenever the State “regulates” duties to any groups of individuals (in this case medical professionals), insert the word “compell” into your mind— CONTROL.
Now again, I can already anticipate your objections. I am NOT talking about any lifesaving emergency procedures. Medical professionals take an oath to do no harm; And not acting to save a woman’s life would amount to undeniable harm.
Now let’s take an average case, a woman discovers she is pregnant somewhere between 6 to 15 weeks into her pregnancy. (Note: I am not characterizing the circumstances because it does not matter or change my analysis.). The right to abortion on demand means that all qualified medical professionals (regardless of any conflicting beliefs or values) MUST act to medically terminate her pregnancy.
All medical professionals are compelled by the State to act against their right to liberty—the freedom not to act and perform an abortion. Failure to act as demanded by the State will logically lead to suspension or loss of their medical licenses and worse: criminal convictions and imprisonment.
Abortion on demand amounts to forced labor. When the State can dictate when and how you must use your own body there’s a word for that: SLAVERY.
PS—My analysis applies to any State regulation, policy or law to act or provide goods or services against an individual’s liberty to choose (baking cakes, defending sexual offenders or other violent cases, etc.)
Who actually holds the view that "all qualified medical professionals (regardless of any conflicting beliefs or values) MUST act to medically terminate her pregnancy"? Few if any--this is a straw man. The issue is, does she have the right to choose one if she can persuade doctors to provide her with one. And there are definitely doctors willing to provide in most cases.
Provided that you trade for that good or service or produce it.
I am not against any choice that doesn’t violate the liberty of another individual. I oppose the authoritarian nature of those activists claiming “a right to choose” in the case of abortions, but opposing that same right in the case of paying for welfare.
Almost nobody thinks that the "right to choose abortion" means the right to demand health care providers to do so without pay. There are some who think it should be paid for by the state, but that's not the issue most are debating about right now. The major cultural controversy is just about whether it should be legal.
I am opposed to characterizing abortion or “healthcare” (not a real concept—its medical services) or employment or any good as something one has a right to.
All goods and services should be legal provided no force or threat of force is imposed on the producer. I have serious concerns about the coercive nature of government when it comes to medical services.
No, abortion isn’t murder, but whether individual rights begin at birth is something you have to analyze and prove. I believe that according to your logic, individual rights only begin some time after birth when toddler’s conceptual volition emerges as a capacity. Until then, you should by the your logic allow post-natal abortions. Anyways, you might want to respond to my essay:
https://open.substack.com/pub/kirillmagidson/p/when-do-individual-rights-begin-a?r=1tqc97&utm_medium=ios
Please see the article linked to above that offers the argument:
https://new-ideal.aynrand.org/p/individual-rights-and-the-right-to
Yes, I addressed precisely these arguments in my essay and I believe they don’t quite work. Basically, your line of demarcation is not supported by real evidence. There’s no essential *intrinsic* difference between late-stage fetus and a newborn: the differences are extrinsic and have to do with the mode of dependence on the mother & the mode of functioning of some organs. Basically, both late-stage fetus and newborn are of the same “nature”.
In particular, I believe my other statement still holds and isn’t refuted by your essay: a newborn doesn’t have capacity for conceptual volition, and hence there’s no ground for its individual rights.
The argument in my article is about why "extrinsic" differences make a difference morally. I'm not even sure what an "intrinsic" difference means.
If you seriously take this argument as valid, then I suspect you might contradict Objectivism’s own theory of rights and end up grounding rights in something other than the nature of the being itself.
Rand says rights apply to rational, volitional animals by their nature. Being a rational volitional animal is an intrinsic property — part of an entity’s nature. Where the being is located, or what its life depends on, are extrinsic properties.
Let me sharpen my questions:
1. Is a late-stage fetus a rational, volitional animal?
2. Is a newborn a rational, volitional animal?
3. Depending on your answers, why does one have a right to life and the other doesn’t — given that the biological life of both depends on the mother’s support, just in different ways?
It's just not Rand's view that rationality is the sole basis of rights. Lots of evidence for that in my essay. (And rationality itself is obviously a relational thing. There's no such thing as a rational consciousness that isn't conscious of something outside itself.)
The necessary basis of rights is the nature of being rational and volitional — that much is clear from Objectivist theory. I see your point that this isn’t sufficient: the fundamental right is the right to life, and life is the process of self-sustaining, self-generated action. The right to life means the right to freely engage in that process. So right — there must also be a capacity for such action.
But this actually makes your case worse when applied to post-natal abortions.
First, a newborn is not yet a rational, volitional animal, so it has no basis for rights at all. But suppose we say it acquires capacity for volition at around one year old. And does a one-year-old truly have the capacity for self-sustaining, self-generated action? I doubt it. It can’t walk, can’t get food, can’t survive without constant external support. Its only self-sustaining actions are breathing, swallowing, and some rudimentary sensory exploration.
So under your criteria, does that one-year-old have the right to life — or not?
An impressively mindless article from a simp hoping blue-haired wymin will want hym some day.
Learn what words mean: "medieval" "murder", etc. Just to help you out; "murder" is a legal term with strict and limited application. Abortion is homicide. The taking of a human life by a human, for whatever reason. Unless you're really trying to claim a genetically complete individual is NOT human. if so, 1970 wants their "science" back...
Legally, abortion is not homicide. Homicide is defined as the killing of a human being (or person) by another human being (or person).
How does the law define the terms "human being" and person? Like this (taken from the US Legal Code but many states and nations use am equivalent definition):
"In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."
The born alive rule has millennia of history behind it and can be traced back to Genesis 2:7: "Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being." It has been a codified part of British common law, the basis for US law, for centuries.
It's why there is no mention of the unborn in our Constitution and why the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to those born in the US and not to those merely conceived in the US.
Totally fine with sex. Sewed my own wild oats in my younger years (but was careful enough to avoid pregnancy and STDs). Also, atheist. I hold no sky daddies.
Just not okay with killing humans.
There is inconsistency in my stance only if you have no idea where I am coming from. Abortion is killing a human individual. I didn’t have to move goal posts when you defined murder as “unjustifiable homicide of an individual human being”. You had to, when trying to explain why abortion was not murder, you had to add the phrase, “with human rights.”
Maybe subconsciously you understand just how bad a definition it would have been to define murder as “unjustifiable homicide of an individual human being with human rights.” Because suddenly you’d get where every genocide condoner was coming from. Just take away the human rights from the victim and you will never have another murder again!
PL people who accept exceptions do so under specific logical premises that comport to post-born understandings of murder. Life and health exceptions are triage. A fire fighter moving a heavy beam in a burning building blocking the door to someone an inch away from death to get to the previously trapped person likely to survive isn’t murder of the former. It’s saving 1 versus letting both die.
Rape exceptions follow a different, but still consistent logical strand. Do not get me wrong, morally, I hope and would support a woman to not abort in the case of rape, but legally would not mandate it because we never put a physical burden on a person to save another where the person had no hand in the other’s jeopardy. Walking on a bridge and accidentally knocking someone into a lake, and not saving them when you could, you might get a manslaughter charge. Coming across a person drowning and electing to not save them when you could may get you some social pressure (deservedly so) but you aren’t going to jail for it.
See this piece, linked to in the one you're commenting on:
https://new-ideal.aynrand.org/p/individual-rights-and-the-right-to
What about abortion on demand?
Those women (and men) who claim: “Women have a right to abortion on demand!”
Please read the those words (again and again if necessary) and then ask yourself: doesn’t that sound authoritarian.
Authoritarian:
“adjective—favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.” (Oxford Dictionary)
Now before you stop reading (if you’re Pro-Choice), this is NOT an anti-abortion comment. This a PRO Liberty comment.
Whenever the State “regulates” duties to any groups of individuals (in this case medical professionals), insert the word “compell” into your mind— CONTROL.
Now again, I can already anticipate your objections. I am NOT talking about any lifesaving emergency procedures. Medical professionals take an oath to do no harm; And not acting to save a woman’s life would amount to undeniable harm.
Now let’s take an average case, a woman discovers she is pregnant somewhere between 6 to 15 weeks into her pregnancy. (Note: I am not characterizing the circumstances because it does not matter or change my analysis.). The right to abortion on demand means that all qualified medical professionals (regardless of any conflicting beliefs or values) MUST act to medically terminate her pregnancy.
All medical professionals are compelled by the State to act against their right to liberty—the freedom not to act and perform an abortion. Failure to act as demanded by the State will logically lead to suspension or loss of their medical licenses and worse: criminal convictions and imprisonment.
Abortion on demand amounts to forced labor. When the State can dictate when and how you must use your own body there’s a word for that: SLAVERY.
PS—My analysis applies to any State regulation, policy or law to act or provide goods or services against an individual’s liberty to choose (baking cakes, defending sexual offenders or other violent cases, etc.)
Who actually holds the view that "all qualified medical professionals (regardless of any conflicting beliefs or values) MUST act to medically terminate her pregnancy"? Few if any--this is a straw man. The issue is, does she have the right to choose one if she can persuade doctors to provide her with one. And there are definitely doctors willing to provide in most cases.
The boarder point is that there’s no right to anything including an abortion.
Well the right to liberty includes the right to be free to *choose* lots of things that don't violate the rights of others, including abortion.
Provided that you trade for that good or service or produce it.
I am not against any choice that doesn’t violate the liberty of another individual. I oppose the authoritarian nature of those activists claiming “a right to choose” in the case of abortions, but opposing that same right in the case of paying for welfare.
Almost nobody thinks that the "right to choose abortion" means the right to demand health care providers to do so without pay. There are some who think it should be paid for by the state, but that's not the issue most are debating about right now. The major cultural controversy is just about whether it should be legal.
I am opposed to characterizing abortion or “healthcare” (not a real concept—its medical services) or employment or any good as something one has a right to.
All goods and services should be legal provided no force or threat of force is imposed on the producer. I have serious concerns about the coercive nature of government when it comes to medical services.
That's great, we don't disagree. Why bring it up here?
Your post (which I liked) used “Abortion rights” without pointing out its fallacy. It’s a loaded anti-concept just like healthcare rights.
"Abortion rights" is commonly used a short hand for the idea that abortion should be legal. And that's all I mean by it.