Late Term Abortions (1 Viewer)

[Zow]

Seriously? You can't see that once a woman become pregnant it is not just about her own body and that there are competing rights at issue?

No. I don't see it, and never have.

I need one of those :e: :blink: smilies here. Tim, you're going to get nowhere on this issue if you can't acknowledged another set of interests and rights when a chick gets pregnant.

 

[timschochet]

I'm pretty disappointed with Tim's OP, mostly because there are so many huge misconceptions regarding "late term" abortions out there and a real debate is needed regarding what constitutes viability, what constitutes health of the mother being at risk, etc.The idea of a woman waking up one day in her 8th month of pregnancy and just deciding to have an abortion is such a canard. The only women who seek late-term abortions are those where something has gone terribly wrong with their pregnancy, or something was wrong all along but has only just been discovered. These are women who by the 20th, 24th, or 26th week in have known about their pregnancies for months and have passed over the chance for an elective abortion. They have their hopes for a beautiful baby dashed by the harsh reality of a medical test result. Personally, I'm pro-choice because I believe in freedom of choice. I trust the morality of the American people, in conjunction with the code of ethics of doctors and their hippocratic oath. And I don't think that it is possible to create a statute that itemizes which conditions and health risk combinations coincide with allowable late-term abortions and which with banned late-term abortions.

Sorry that you're disappointed with my OP, because what you're stating how was the entire point of that OP. You and I agree 100%. Perhaps I worded it wrong.

 

[timschochet]

Seriously? You can't see that once a woman become pregnant it is not just about her own body and that there are competing rights at issue?

No. I don't see it, and never have.

I need one of those :e: :blink: smilies here. Tim, you're going to get nowhere on this issue if you can't acknowledged another set of interests and rights when a chick gets pregnant.

Here's what I acknowledge, Zow: there are millions of Americans who believe that there is another set of interests and rights, and these people deserve a voice, and a powerful voice at that, within our pluralistic society.But if you ask me personally to agree with this POV, I have to say no.

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

I found it strangely disturbing that the Carhart article talked about his performance of abortions on Sunday. I realize not everyone goes to church on Sunday so I am not evoking a morality issue here, but how often are other elective surgeries performed on Sundays? I'd venture to guess not too many.

So long as they are legal, someone has to perform these procedures. However, I don't think he is too much of a hero when he is snuffing out a defenseless fetus. Scum bag. Try something else heroic, like performing genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries. Surely many more of these people would survive if only their genital mutilation was carried out in a more professional and antiseptic manner.

 

[Harry Manback]

I found it strangely disturbing that the Carhart article talked about his performance of abortions on Sunday. I realize not everyone goes to church on Sunday so I am not evoking a morality issue here, but how often are other elective surgeries performed on Sundays? I'd venture to guess not too many.So long as they are legal, someone has to perform these procedures. However, I don't think he is too much of a hero when he is snuffing out a defenseless fetus. Scum bag. Try something else heroic, like performing genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries. Surely many more of these people would survive if only their genital mutilation was carried out in a more professional and antiseptic manner.

That right there is a well thought out, rational, appropriate analogy.

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

I found it strangely disturbing that the Carhart article talked about his performance of abortions on Sunday. I realize not everyone goes to church on Sunday so I am not evoking a morality issue here, but how often are other elective surgeries performed on Sundays? I'd venture to guess not too many.So long as they are legal, someone has to perform these procedures. However, I don't think he is too much of a hero when he is snuffing out a defenseless fetus. Scum bag. Try something else heroic, like performing genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries. Surely many more of these people would survive if only their genital mutilation was carried out in a more professional and antiseptic manner.

That right there is a well thought out, rational, appropriate analogy.

I pride myself in reasoned, sensitive rhetoric.

 

[Harry Manback]

I found it strangely disturbing that the Carhart article talked about his performance of abortions on Sunday. I realize not everyone goes to church on Sunday so I am not evoking a morality issue here, but how often are other elective surgeries performed on Sundays? I'd venture to guess not too many.So long as they are legal, someone has to perform these procedures. However, I don't think he is too much of a hero when he is snuffing out a defenseless fetus. Scum bag. Try something else heroic, like performing genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries. Surely many more of these people would survive if only their genital mutilation was carried out in a more professional and antiseptic manner.

That right there is a well thought out, rational, appropriate analogy.

I pride myself in reasoned, sensitive rhetoric.

Glad we're on the same page.

 

[Challenge Everything]

I am pro-choice but only as far as the 4th month or into the fight month if in rare cases and only later if the pregnancy is a threat to the mother and/or fetus. Why? I believe that is enough time to consider all of the consequences of the future child and of one's life. I do hate though if/when I get into an abortion debate that saying one is "pro-choice" presumably lumps anyone into all kinds and all types of abortions.

As far as Tiller is concerned and whomever else. That is there business and none of mine. Something like this becomes my business if/when the lady I impregnate considers abortion as an option. I am in no position to hold her into carrying out the pregnancy however I would hope it would be in the time frame I stated above.

 

[timschochet]

I am pro-choice but only as far as the 4th month or into the fight month if in rare cases and only later if the pregnancy is a threat to the mother and/or fetus. Why? I believe that is enough time to consider all of the consequences of the future child and of one's life. I do hate though if/when I get into an abortion debate that saying one is "pro-choice" presumably lumps anyone into all kinds and all types of abortions. As far as Tiller is concerned and whomever else. That is there business and none of mine. Something like this becomes my business if/when the lady I impregnate considers abortion as an option. I am in no position to hold her into carrying out the pregnancy however I would hope it would be in the time frame I stated above.

What about a teenager who is too terrified of the consequences of her pregnancy to make a decision? Suppose, for instance, her father raped her, and any action she takes (which in some states requires either parental consent or a judge's approval) means exposing her family situation? Can't you see situations, even in terms of normal pregnancies, when the four months you cited is not enough time? And what about for abnormal pregnancies, when the baby will be born brain dead or have some other terrible disease such as mentioned before? I simply don't believe that we, as a society, have the right to make this decision for a woman. Each individual circumstance demands that the woman, and only the woman, be allowed to make such important and private decisions without interference by the state.

 

[Harry Manback]

I am pro-choice but only as far as the 4th month or into the fight month if in rare cases and only later if the pregnancy is a threat to the mother and/or fetus. Why? I believe that is enough time to consider all of the consequences of the future child and of one's life. I do hate though if/when I get into an abortion debate that saying one is "pro-choice" presumably lumps anyone into all kinds and all types of abortions. As far as Tiller is concerned and whomever else. That is there business and none of mine. Something like this becomes my business if/when the lady I impregnate considers abortion as an option. I am in no position to hold her into carrying out the pregnancy however I would hope it would be in the time frame I stated above.

What about a teenager who is too terrified of the consequences of her pregnancy to make a decision? Suppose, for instance, her father raped her, and any action she takes (which in some states requires either parental consent or a judge's approval) means exposing her family situation? Can't you see situations, even in terms of normal pregnancies, when the four months you cited is not enough time? And what about for abnormal pregnancies, when the baby will be born brain dead or have some other terrible disease such as mentioned before? I simply don't believe that we, as a society, have the right to make this decision for a woman. Each individual circumstance demands that the woman, and only the woman, be allowed to make such important and private decisions without interference by the state.

What if a 18 year old girl decides she doesn't feel like having the kid anymore? The father just dumped her, her job doesn't pay well, she flat out doesn't want it, doesn't want to have to go through labor, or have any ugly scares from a c-section and decides having an abortion after 6 months is best for her?

 

[Orange Crush]

I'm pretty disappointed with Tim's OP, mostly because there are so many huge misconceptions regarding "late term" abortions out there and a real debate is needed regarding what constitutes viability, what constitutes health of the mother being at risk, etc.The idea of a woman waking up one day in her 8th month of pregnancy and just deciding to have an abortion is such a canard. The only women who seek late-term abortions are those where something has gone terribly wrong with their pregnancy, or something was wrong all along but has only just been discovered. These are women who by the 20th, 24th, or 26th week in have known about their pregnancies for months and have passed over the chance for an elective abortion. They have their hopes for a beautiful baby dashed by the harsh reality of a medical test result. Personally, I'm pro-choice because I believe in freedom of choice. I trust the morality of the American people, in conjunction with the code of ethics of doctors and their hippocratic oath. And I don't think that it is possible to create a statute that itemizes which conditions and health risk combinations coincide with allowable late-term abortions and which with banned late-term abortions.

Sorry that you're disappointed with my OP, because what you're stating how was the entire point of that OP. You and I agree 100%. Perhaps I worded it wrong.

After going back and re-reading your post, I see that most of the post does completely agree with what I said. I thought you were so horribly wrong in the first paragraph that I must have just stopped reading and assumed your wrongness continued.Sorry 'bout 'dat.

 

[Challenge Everything]

I am pro-choice but only as far as the 4th month or into the fight month if in rare cases and only later if the pregnancy is a threat to the mother and/or fetus. Why? I believe that is enough time to consider all of the consequences of the future child and of one's life. I do hate though if/when I get into an abortion debate that saying one is "pro-choice" presumably lumps anyone into all kinds and all types of abortions. As far as Tiller is concerned and whomever else. That is there business and none of mine. Something like this becomes my business if/when the lady I impregnate considers abortion as an option. I am in no position to hold her into carrying out the pregnancy however I would hope it would be in the time frame I stated above.

What about a teenager who is too terrified of the consequences of her pregnancy to make a decision? Suppose, for instance, her father raped her, and any action she takes (which in some states requires either parental consent or a judge's approval) means exposing her family situation? Can't you see situations, even in terms of normal pregnancies, when the four months you cited is not enough time? And what about for abnormal pregnancies, when the baby will be born brain dead or have some other terrible disease such as mentioned before? I simply don't believe that we, as a society, have the right to make this decision for a woman. Each individual circumstance demands that the woman, and only the woman, be allowed to make such important and private decisions without interference by the state.

I believe I addressed some of your concerns in my original post. With that said, cases of incest and rape are definitely rare cases. Further, a fetus/baby can survive outside of the womb, with some help depending on the development of the baby after the fifth and into the sixth month or so due to the lungs being developed properly. Thus, my conclusion that any decision should be made before the baby can survive on its own outside of the womb. Should rape and incest cases "get more time" as it appears you might be implying. Unfortunately, pregnancy does not allow for more time. With education and awareness I think it should be taught that late 2nd and 3rd trimester pregnancies now become a responsibility of the mother (and/or father) to either opt for adoption or raise the baby. Might that be "unfair" to the mother? Maybe, but four or five months is plenty of time as well, imo.

 

[Orange Crush]

What if a 18 year old girl decides she doesn't feel like having the kid anymore? The father just dumped her, her job doesn't pay well, she flat out doesn't want it, doesn't want to have to go through labor, or have any ugly scares from a c-section and decides having an abortion after 6 months is best for her?

That looks like a situation where she's about to make a decision that she will probably regret, and will result in outright condemnation from almost anyone who knows of her action, and hopefully everyone who knows her will urge her to reconsider her decision (including the doctor she goes to).But I don't think this incredibly rare situation is necessary to create a statutory limit creating obstacles to every other woman facing a heart-wrenching decision based on the health dangers to her or the fetus.

 

[Orange Crush]

I am pro-choice but only as far as the 4th month or into the fight month if in rare cases and only later if the pregnancy is a threat to the mother and/or fetus. Why? I believe that is enough time to consider all of the consequences of the future child and of one's life. I do hate though if/when I get into an abortion debate that saying one is "pro-choice" presumably lumps anyone into all kinds and all types of abortions. As far as Tiller is concerned and whomever else. That is there business and none of mine. Something like this becomes my business if/when the lady I impregnate considers abortion as an option. I am in no position to hold her into carrying out the pregnancy however I would hope it would be in the time frame I stated above.

What about a teenager who is too terrified of the consequences of her pregnancy to make a decision? Suppose, for instance, her father raped her, and any action she takes (which in some states requires either parental consent or a judge's approval) means exposing her family situation? Can't you see situations, even in terms of normal pregnancies, when the four months you cited is not enough time? And what about for abnormal pregnancies, when the baby will be born brain dead or have some other terrible disease such as mentioned before? I simply don't believe that we, as a society, have the right to make this decision for a woman. Each individual circumstance demands that the woman, and only the woman, be allowed to make such important and private decisions without interference by the state.

I believe I addressed some of your concerns in my original post. With that said, cases of incest and rape are definitely rare cases. Further, a fetus/baby can survive outside of the womb, with some help depending on the development of the baby after the fifth and into the sixth month or so due to the lungs being developed properly. Thus, my conclusion that any decision should be made before the baby can survive on its own outside of the womb. Should rape and incest cases "get more time" as it appears you might be implying. Unfortunately, pregnancy does not allow for more time. With education and awareness I think it should be taught that late 2nd and 3rd trimester pregnancies now become a responsibility of the mother (and/or father) to either opt for adoption or raise the baby. Might that be "unfair" to the mother? Maybe, but four or five months is plenty of time as well, imo.

The state of Maryland allows a late-term abortion for cases involving rape or incest. They are the only state with such a late-term exception.

 

[timschochet]

I believe I addressed some of your concerns in my original post. With that said, cases of incest and rape are definitely rare cases. Further, a fetus/baby can survive outside of the womb, with some help depending on the development of the baby after the fifth and into the sixth month or so due to the lungs being developed properly. Thus, my conclusion that any decision should be made before the baby can survive on its own outside of the womb. Should rape and incest cases "get more time" as it appears you might be implying. Unfortunately, pregnancy does not allow for more time. With education and awareness I think it should be taught that late 2nd and 3rd trimester pregnancies now become a responsibility of the mother (and/or father) to either opt for adoption or raise the baby. Might that be "unfair" to the mother? Maybe, but four or five months is plenty of time as well, imo.

I simply don't believe it should be your call. Or mine. Or anyone's but the woman in question, and her doctor.

 

[Challenge Everything]

I believe I addressed some of your concerns in my original post. With that said, cases of incest and rape are definitely rare cases. Further, a fetus/baby can survive outside of the womb, with some help depending on the development of the baby after the fifth and into the sixth month or so due to the lungs being developed properly. Thus, my conclusion that any decision should be made before the baby can survive on its own outside of the womb. Should rape and incest cases "get more time" as it appears you might be implying. Unfortunately, pregnancy does not allow for more time. With education and awareness I think it should be taught that late 2nd and 3rd trimester pregnancies now become a responsibility of the mother (and/or father) to either opt for adoption or raise the baby. Might that be "unfair" to the mother? Maybe, but four or five months is plenty of time as well, imo.

I simply don't believe it should be your call. Or mine. Or anyone's but the woman in question, and her doctor.

In my explanations above, I, or you or anyone else, but the mother is making the call. I believe there should be a limit and while you may not agree with that, pregnancy does have a limit. The fetus/child can and would survive out of the womb given the fifth and definitely into the sixth month with medical attention. By that time the option of adoption becomes much more viable rather than abortion. I think I am painting a pretty clear picture here and while you may not agree with it, how much time, in your mind, does the woman have to make the decision?If sex, pregnancy and so on did not have a negative stigma for teenagers and such and we, as a society, educated our youth to better understand choices and consequences, the results, I believe, would vastly be different.

 

[Harry Manback]

What if a 18 year old girl decides she doesn't feel like having the kid anymore? The father just dumped her, her job doesn't pay well, she flat out doesn't want it, doesn't want to have to go through labor, or have any ugly scares from a c-section and decides having an abortion after 6 months is best for her?

That looks like a situation where she's about to make a decision that she will probably regret, and will result in outright condemnation from almost anyone who knows of her action, and hopefully everyone who knows her will urge her to reconsider her decision (including the doctor she goes to).But I don't think this incredibly rare situation is necessary to create a statutory limit creating obstacles to every other woman facing a heart-wrenching decision based on the health dangers to her or the fetus.

Well I was trying to determine if Tim, or anyone else I suppose, felt the matter was so black and white, so cut and dry.That either they are allowed 100% or not at all, that there is no room for interpretation, and logic.

 

[timschochet]

Well I was trying to determine if Tim, or anyone else I suppose, felt the matter was so black and white, so cut and dry.That either they are allowed 100% or not at all, that there is no room for interpretation, and logic.

I do see it as a black and white issue. I don't agree with any logic that would disallow abortions some of the time. I suppose I am an extremist on this issue.

 

[Harry Manback]

Well I was trying to determine if Tim, or anyone else I suppose, felt the matter was so black and white, so cut and dry.That either they are allowed 100% or not at all, that there is no room for interpretation, and logic.

I do see it as a black and white issue. I don't agree with any logic that would disallow abortions some of the time. I suppose I am an extremist on this issue.

So you don't think there should be any provisions in place for my scenario?

 

[The Commish]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

 

[timschochet]

Well I was trying to determine if Tim, or anyone else I suppose, felt the matter was so black and white, so cut and dry.That either they are allowed 100% or not at all, that there is no room for interpretation, and logic.

I do see it as a black and white issue. I don't agree with any logic that would disallow abortions some of the time. I suppose I am an extremist on this issue.

So you don't think there should be any provisions in place for my scenario?

I strongly doubt your scenario ever happens. Late term abortions are extremely rare anyway, and when they do occur, it is not your scenario but more like the ones Orange Crush and I have described. However, if you pin me down, to be consistent, I will say that even in your scenario, a woman has that right, if she can find a doctor to perform it. I don't believe that most late term abortionists will not perform abortions under such circumstances, personally, if I were a doctor, I would not. But I don't want some government panel examining this situation and making a determination. That is not, IMO, the role of the state.Incidentally, this is one problem I have with universal healthcare. So far, there's been a lot of talk about "death panels" which I consider unlikely. I do consider much more likely the state becoming involved in reproductive issues.

 

[timschochet]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

 

[Aggie 86]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

I really don't think the baby is independent at birth. Independence comes much later. Maybe we should, since we were being "definitional' give the mom 24 months after birth to see how motherhood works out. Since she's supporting the little rug rat, it's just exercising her free choice. Right?

 

[Orange Crush]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's just the line that was drawn historically. At the time of our forefathers, childbirth was such a traumatic event that there was no way of knowing with confidence whether the child (or mother for that matter) would survive. Therefore the event was determined to be the point in time when rights to the individual came into existence.Modern jurisprudence has moved that time back to "viability." It's just as arbitrary, though. If the pregnant woman decides at 24 weeks that she no longer wants the child, it's not as if she can go through with a medical procedure to remove the fetus/child from her body and the state will swoop in to provide medical life support for it from that day forward. Instead in most states, the state prevents her from taking such action and yet forces her to incur all the medical costs from that point until childbirth unless she can find and convince another private (meaning non-state) party to voluntarily do that for her.

 

[Orange Crush]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

I really don't think the baby is independent at birth. Independence comes much later. Maybe we should, since we were being "definitional' give the mom 24 months after birth to see how motherhood works out. Since she's supporting the little rug rat, it's just exercising her free choice. Right?

Just 24 months? My mother said "I brought you into this world, I can take you out" to me until I was 18 years old.

 

[Aggie 86]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

I really don't think the baby is independent at birth. Independence comes much later. Maybe we should, since we were being "definitional' give the mom 24 months after birth to see how motherhood works out. Since she's supporting the little rug rat, it's just exercising her free choice. Right?

Just 24 months? My mother said "I brought you into this world, I can take you out" to me until I was 18 years old.

Now that's funny.I was trying to make a point.About 10 years ago (yes, this is true) a young girl went in to have an abortion. 2nd trimester according to the test. Cost was too expensive, but it would have been within budget had she still been in the 1st trimester.She decided to place the child for adoption because she could not afford the abortion. We "matched" with her. The baby did not arrive on time - the original test was wrong. She was in the 1st trimester when she went in for the abortion.That little "almost abortion" is nine years old now. She is the light of my life. I would storm the gates of hell for her.This is not just some message-board issue for me. It is real.

 

[bentley]

Christo's doing great work in here. I proxy my opinion to him for the rest of this thread.

Either Tim's position on this issue is way strange or he's on some LHUCKSian fishing trip to try and prove a point to us about the concept of when life begins. I haven't made up my mind yet.

 

[piratemike]

Ok with it? I prefer it.

 

[timschochet]

Christo's doing great work in here. I proxy my opinion to him for the rest of this thread.Either Tim's position on this issue is way strange or he's on some LHUCKSian fishing trip to try and prove a point to us about the concept of when life begins. I haven't made up my mind yet.

Not a fishing trip- just for the record, I don't do that. I acknowledge that my position may not be popular, but it is genuine.

 

[timschochet]

That little "almost abortion" is nine years old now. She is the light of my life. I would storm the gates of hell for her.This is not just some message-board issue for me. It is real.

Aggie, I am very happy for you. I have a 9 year old daughter and a 7 year old daughter and I feel the same way about them. Although you and I disagree about abortion, let me assure you at least that it is not some message-board issue for me either. I feel very deeply about it.

 

[bentley]

Christo's doing great work in here. I proxy my opinion to him for the rest of this thread.Either Tim's position on this issue is way strange or he's on some LHUCKSian fishing trip to try and prove a point to us about the concept of when life begins. I haven't made up my mind yet.

Not a fishing trip- just for the record, I don't do that. I acknowledge that my position may not be popular, but it is genuine.

Christo will hopefully be along shortly to provide my rebuttal.

 

[Running with scissors]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

I know you're a reasonable sort, so I'm curious to hear; how is that magic different from the magic of conception?

 

[Orange Crush]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

I know you're a reasonable sort, so I'm curious to hear; how is that magic different from the magic of conception?

Or implantation?Or viability?Or when the brain is formed? Or the heart? Or ... ?

 

[The Commish]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

Can you explain this to me? I'll be out most of the day, but will return to read this evening. What do you mean by "independent being"?

 

[The Commish]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

I know you're a reasonable sort, so I'm curious to hear; how is that magic different from the magic of conception?

I don't know that there is magic at conception. My wife and I have "conceived" several times to lose the baby a week or so in. FWIW, I respect the woman's right to choose and understand the way the laws are and why they are. I have no problem from that perspective, but for one to say there aren't two individuals affected here, they are simply being willfully ignorant IMO.

 

[Balance]

I found it strangely disturbing that the Carhart article talked about his performance of abortions on Sunday. I realize not everyone goes to church on Sunday so I am not evoking a morality issue here, but how often are other elective surgeries performed on Sundays? I'd venture to guess not too many.So long as they are legal, someone has to perform these procedures. However, I don't think he is too much of a hero when he is snuffing out a defenseless fetus. Scum bag. Try something else heroic, like performing genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries. Surely many more of these people would survive if only their genital mutilation was carried out in a more professional and antiseptic manner.

All my cases are elective and I have cases every weekend. They tend to be on saturday in general, but it is common practice here for docs to perform surgeries on your call weekends... since you are working anyway. You are reading way too much into it.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

I like how you just keep asserting this as if was a self-evident fact to all reasonable observers.(Hint: Anybody who ever disapproves of an abortion, even if they're generally pro-choice and only disapprove of third trimester elective abortions of viable fetuses, disagrees with you that women have absolute and unquestionable control over their own bodies on this issue. Your're assuming the thing you need to prove, and then weirdly accusing others of being inconsistent because they don't beg the same question that you do.)

 

[Possum]

why the hell does it take so long for him to say anything? my god, that's annoying.

Life of the party, this guy.

 

[timschochet]

why the hell does it take so long for him to say anything? my god, that's annoying.

Life of the party, this guy.

 

[timschochet]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

Can you explain this to me? I'll be out most of the day, but will return to read this evening. What do you mean by "independent being"?

Any detailed explanation I give you is going to trap me in my own use of language, and its unnecessary, since I'm pretty sure you already know exactly what I mean.

 

[timschochet]

I still don't understand what the magic is that is tied to passing through the birth canal. Seems like a very bizarre place to draw the line on this "black and white" issue. I do, however, understand why some are forced to look at it in black and white terms. Ironically enough, the fact that one feels it necessary to do so, should be a flag that it really isn't that type of issue.

It's not magic, but it is defintional. One side, the fetus is inside a woman's body, and a woman, IMO, has the right to do as she will to her body. On the other side, the baby is an independent being with rights of its own.

I like how you just keep asserting this as if was a self-evident fact to all reasonable observers.(Hint: Anybody who ever disapproves of an abortion, even if they're generally pro-choice and only disapprove of third trimester elective abortions of viable fetuses, disagrees with you that women have absolute and unquestionable control over their own bodies on this issue. Your're assuming the thing you need to prove, and then weirdly accusing others of being inconsistent because they don't beg the same question that you do.)

It's a self evident fact to ME- obviously, it is not to everyone; otherwise my views on this subject would be widely popular, and I acknowledge that they aren't. But I don't believe I need to prove that a woman should have control over her own body. The shoe, IMO, is on the other foot: if you want to prevent a woman from control over her body in any situation, YOU need to prove compelling reason to do so. In this instance, I don't believe you can.

I know that you call yourself a libertarian, Ivan. This issue seems to me to strike at the heart of libertarianism. Should the state be allowed to restrict human freedom based upon moral virtues? I say no.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

It's a self evident fact to ME- obviously, it is not to everyone; otherwise my views on this subject would be widely popular, and I acknowledge that they aren't. But I don't believe I need to prove that a woman should have control over her own body. The shoe, IMO, is on the other foot: if you want to prevent a woman from control over her body in any situation, YOU need to prove compelling reason to do so. In this instance, I don't believe you can.

If there's anything more exciting than an argument over who has the burden of proof in a debate, I haven't seen it.

I know that you call yourself a libertarian, Ivan. This issue seems to me to strike at the heart of libertarianism. Should the state be allowed to restrict human freedom based upon moral virtues?

Should the state be able to restrict your freedom based on moral concerns? No.Should the state be able to restrict your freedom to protect the lives of others? Maybe.Does the state have an affirmative obligation to restrict your freedom to prevent you from willfully killing others? Yes. If you think that libertarianism requires you to be pro-choice, you haven't studied the issue very carefully. Which is no surprise.

 

[timschochet]

Should the state be able to restrict your freedom based on moral concerns? No.

Should the state be able to restrict your freedom to protect the lives of others? Maybe.

Does the state have an affirmative obligation to restrict your freedom to prevent you from willfully killing others? Yes.

If you think that libertarianism requires you to be pro-choice, you haven't studied the issue very carefully. Which is no surprise.

Don't know why you feel the need to throw in insults at the end there, but whatever. To answer your question, I will paste an article which explains it far better than I could:The Right to Abortion: A Libertarian Defense

Although libertarians have discussed various aspects of the issue of abortion and abortion rights, this essay represents a more systematic philosophical defense of the moral case for abortion from a libertarian perspective. The purpose of the present essay is to establish this case, both by answering the anti-abortion arguments that some libertarians have put forth and by offering a general treatment of the subject that examines abortion on several levels--philosophical, psychological, and legal. In our treatment we make no reference to non-libertarian anti-abortionists, but the arguments offered by libertarian anti-abortionists are essentially the same. We also analyze some already-existing arguments that have been presented as pro-abortion but that we consider either flawed or even detrimental to the case for abortion.

In developing a philosophical base for the morality of abortion, most libertarians would seek to use some theory of natural rights. We concur with this approach but differ with the particular view of natural rights commonly held among libertarians today. This view is an essentially Lockean economic one that posits control of one's body based on self-ownership. The rights of life and liberty are, then, aspects of a kind of property right to one's body.

Some people may question the need to argue an alternative theory of natural rights, especially in an article on abortion. However, we have found that serious problems arise out of the propertarian model. In particular, the question of abortion does not resolve itself unambiguously under the "self-ownership" model.

We will mention here certain general problems involved in the Lockean model (but in outline only, as a more elaborate discussion would be out of place). For instance, we recognize that any kind of physical property--be it animal, vegetable, or mineral-is a thing, not a person. Abolitionist Theodore Weld's definition of slavery--"holding and treating persons as things"--expresses the point exactly. Yet, the Lockean theory of rights holds that we are, in fact, property. To be sure, we each own ourselves; this still leaves us with the curious equation that self-slavery equals liberty.

This seems a small matter practically, only a detail to be cleared up, or ignored. But a few such theoretical trifles in physics caused new paradigms (relativity, quantum mechanics) to supersede the old (Newtonian physics) in a mere two decades; a few such loose ends may be more than the theory of self-ownership can tolerate. For example, if "self-ownership" is merely an argument by analogy, then it really only approximates, or substitutes for, a working theory. Actually, proponents of the Lockean theory have clearly meant "self-ownership" literally. But why create such a concept in the first place? The physical body, after all, is not separate from the psychological self; they are both aspects of the same entity, the same process of existence. And if there is no discrete "self" owning a separate body--and short of the supernatural, there cannot be--then the concept of self-ownership dissolves into the absurdity of a "self" owned by the same self, ad infinitum. We find it simpler to accept the idea of a whole person, who acts and who is not reducible to smaller selves.

Furthermore, if rights are property, then inalienability may mean only that a person must consent to any disposal made of his or her rights. As property can be alienated (in the legal sense) by consent, so may rights be when defined as property. (Many natural rights theorists, from Hugo Grotius onward, have supported this argument.) The proposition that a person can enter slavery by voluntary agreement, though utterly repugnant to us, is not easily--if at all--refutable within this frame. This, as David B. Davis concluded (in The Problem of Slavery), "was the fatal flaw in the traditional theories of natural rights."

A contrasting view of natural rights defines them as the protectors of individual conscience rather than of property. Human beings are free moral agents and their liberties derive from the right of self-determination. Such rights, once we grant their existence, are not by nature transferable. This was the liberty of conscience of the English Dissenters, the "inner light" of the Quakers, the "individual sovereignty" of Josiah Warren, the "moral accountability" of the abolitionists, and was, far more than property, a motive behind social and religious revolt from the Middle Ages onward. A person is a moral agent by virtue of having and being aware of the possibility of choice (that is, the capacity to choose and act). The whole person is the self and the actor.

Our discussion of rights commences with this definition of a person as a being with rights, as a free moral agent. From this concept we derive both the general nature of rights and particular arguments in support of a woman's right to abortion.

The Lockean model of rights uses the term "freedom" in the sense of control over the finished product of human activity; by contrast, the sense of liberty defined by self-determination is the control of choice in human life and development. A person--a free moral agent--has the right to choose the process as well as the product: the right, that is, to make the choices believed necessary to a desired emotional or psychological, as well as purely physical, condition. (The right to control one's body is meaningless, after all, without the right to control how the body affects the rest of one's self.) No obligation rests on anyone else to provide the means to effect these choices; indeed, quite the reverse is true, for the ability to recognize or create choices is part of being a free moral agent. But to interfere with self-determination --life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to follow Jefferson rather than Locke--is to deny the human capability of moral agency, to treat a person as a thing. When such interference occurs on a regular or systematic basis, as exploitation for political or economic ends, we give it a name: slavery. Chattel slavery is the variant that necessarily involves the continuous and direct physical control of the individual's body. It includes such forms as the former race slavery of the United States, the forced labor camps of the Soviet Union, conscription anywhere, and--as we shall argue--proscription of abortion.

The basic issue: a woman's right to self-determination

Those who believe abortion to be morally wrong have focused all their attention on the fetus. In their view, the rights of the woman and the consequences to her life and well-being are secondary to the alleged right of' the fetus to life. In contrast, we maintain that the proper focus is the woman and that the real issue is her right to self-determination. It is the woman who has the prior moral claim because she is the already-existing free moral agent. It is her life, her body, and her physical resources that are being claimed, not the other way round.

In the model of rights we are suggesting, the woman's right to self-determination includes not only the right to control her physical body and all that happens within it, but the psychic and existential components of her life and well-being as well. That is, she has the right to make choices about how her body will be used to further her own happiness and self-interest.

In the case of an unwanted pregnancy, the existential choice for a woman is not abortion vs. no abortion, but, as Garrett Hardin has pointed out, abortion vs. compulsory childbearing. (See his Mandatory Motherhood for a biologist's look at the case for abortion.) If others can force her to be a mother (and she is the biological mother even if she does not raise the child), then she is coerced into putting her body at the disposal of the fetus as if she were an unclaimed natural resource or a chattel slave. Even if the fetus is removed and raised separately, she is still forced to be the manufacturer, the baby machine. Thus, the woman's most fundamental right of choice, the right to control her own body and happiness, is being abrogated.

Seeing the issue only as "control of one's body" rather than as self-determination--that is, emphasizing the physical body to the exclusion of the psychological self--can seriously sidetrack the moral question, and weaken the libertarian case for abortion. Two arguments that have been suggested in libertarian circles fall prey to this problem.

The idea of the body as property, for example, has led some libertarians, such as Murray Rothbard and Walter Block, to use a "trespassing" analogy. In this view, the fetus is a trespasser on the woman's property, i.e., her body, and she therefore has the right to eject it. In response to this argument, anti-abortionists assert that the act of trespass alone is not sufficient justification for killing the trespasser. We could not, they say, throw a stowaway out of an airplane just because s/he is a trespasser. Rothbard answers that "stowing away" in another's body is a much more serious offense and does merit ejection.

While we agree with Rothbard's conclusion, we do not think the trespassing analogy is the best way to reach it. Analogies are imperfect at best, but this one just does not fit well enough to be useful. It is a classic example of two conceptual problems rampant in libertarian thinking: property fetishism and economism, i.e., insisting on describing all concepts in economic terms, whether appropriate or not.

First of all, as we have said, the body is not and cannot be property, except under a system of slavery. More important, the fetus cannot properly be considered a trespasser, because inherent in the standard definition of trespasser is the concept of a conscious person who intentionally enters the property (though not necessarily with the express intent to trespass). But the fetus is not, as we shall attempt to show later, a conscious person and therefore is not capable of intentional action. (Rothbard does not, of course, attribute consciousness to the fetus, but he fails to recognize the danger of using an analogy with such a glaring flaw.)

The trespass analogy concedes too much and can lead to the second fallacious argument, which is far more insidious. Block, for example, maintained in his 1978 article that "the trespassing fetus should be removed in the gentlest manner possible ....If and when medical science devises a method of abortion which does not kill the fetus (this has already come to pass in some limited cases) then it would be murder to abort in any other way." Thus, argues Block, if the fetus can be removed without killing it, it should be raised independently of the mother. Only if no one else is willing to raise it could the fetus legitimately be killed.

Although Block made this claim in an article that is allegedly pro-abortion, the argument is, in fact, anti-abortion. In the not-too-distant future, technological progress will make it possible to remove the fetus at any point in the pregnancy after conception. Thus, following Block's line of reasoning, the time will come when abortion will always constitute murder. Indeed, many of the recent legislative proposals drafted by anti-abortionists explicitly require that every effort be made to keep all fetuses alive, and that the woman forfeit all claim to it if it lives; some of these measures have been enacted into law.

In thinking that his position is pro-abortion, Block fails to recognize (or else discounts) the real point of abortion--not that the woman does not want to be pregnant, or that she does not want to raise a child, but that she does not want to bear this child. If the fetus is removed and raised independently, as Block suggests, the woman is still the biological mother with all the psychological significance that implies. She has still been forced to be the baby machine. But, we maintain, a woman's right to self-determination includes the right to refuse to bear a child as long as that choice is still physically open to her.

Thus, even if the fetus were a person, it could not justifiably claim a right to live at the expense of the woman's resources or her right to self-determination.

Is the fetus a person?

The anti-abortionists rest the bulk of their moral case against abortion on the assertion that the fetus is a "person" and therefore entitled to the same rights as born human beings. Thus killing a fetus is killing a person and is therefore murder. If the fetus is not a person, the case against abortion fails.

Yet in spite of the crucial importance of this concept, libertarian anti-abortionists never define the word "person" in any intellectually precise sense. Their usage is sloppy and confused, shifting in its implicit definition from article to article. Usually they employ the word as if it were synonymous with "human being," a mistake also made by Block in his 1978 article on abortion.

Their usage of the term "human being" is, in turn, sloppy and imprecise. The anti-abortionists fail to distinguish between two different senses in which "human" is used--biologically or genetically human, and psychologically human. Marshaling evidence to prove that the fetus is biologically human, they think this automatically proves that the fetus is a person. One Libertarians For Life article even goes so far as to claim that the issue of whether the fetus is a person is a purely biological question, an assertion that would surprise philosophers, psychologists, and lawyers of the last few thousand years. But in spite of the earnest desire of the anti-abortionists to emulate Humpty-Dumpty and make words mean what they want them to mean, the term "person" does not have the same definition as "biological human being."

To blur the distinction between biologically and psychologically human is a useful trick for the anti-abortionists, since the fetus is obviously genetically human. That is, the information encoded in the DNA of the fertilized egg in a woman's body will tell the egg how to develop into a human being. But this fact alone cannot have moral significance. Since every cell in the body has the same genetic information, it is theoretically possible to clone a human being from any cell. But no one would argue, for example, that it is murder to destroy skin cells. The anti-abortionists would argue, of course, that the fertilized egg is different from all other cells. We will discuss later the sense in which we think they believe it to be different.

To further bolster their implied claim that there is no significant difference between the biologically human fetus and the psychologically human child, the anti-abortionists insist that the fetus is not part of the woman's body. It is, they assert, a separate entity in a symbiotic relationship with her but is not part of her. Although the fetus and the woman have different physical structures, the fetus is not an independent member of the species. It is not only physically attached to the woman, it is metabolically dependent on the woman's system. It does not pump its own blood; it does not do its own breathing; it does not have a separate (or any) consciousness. To say that the fetus is a separate entity as if it were the same as a completed, self-sustaining structure simply makes no sense even in biological terms.

The clear dependence of the fetus on the woman has led Rothbard to argue that the fetus is a parasite and therefore may properly be ejected. Just as the State and ruling class can be called parasites on the productive forces in society, he says, so can an unwanted organism feeding off the body of a person. The anti-abortionists respond by pointing out that, biologically speaking, a parasite is an organism living in or on an organism of another species and comes from an outside source.

The problem here is that Rothbard is using the term as an analogy while the anti-abortionists are taking it literally. As a metaphor, there is some merit in Rothbard's argument, especially since pregnancy can be detrimental to a woman's health just as a parasite can (see Cheriel Jensen and Lynette Perkes' amicus brief in the cases leading to the 1973 Supreme Court decisions, for a detailed exposition of the argument against the coerced use of a woman's bodily systems). But using a biological analogy in a biological context is just asking to be taken literally. If the analogy is not exact, as in this case, it is unavoidably misleading. We prefer to argue from a different base.

When the anti-abortionists are not putting forth their biological definition of "person," they go along with one prevalent in libertarian pro-abortion circles: "a person is an animal with the capacity for reason and choice." However, at least one anti-abortionist, Edwin Vieira, Jr., criticizes this definition, claiming that what constitutes "rational thought" is not spelled out nor is it clear who will decide what is "rational." This criticism is ironic, considering that Vieira never makes his definition of "person" any more precise than those he criticizes.

Vieira's criticism begs the question, since the term "rational" in this definition does not mean "reasonable" or "correct." It is a philosophical term being used to describe a general cognitive faculty, not to characterize a particular result. Whether a specific action is "reasonable" may be open to debate, but the possession of the power of cognition is a directly observable behavioral phenomenon.

It is, however, possible to define what is meant by the term, "person" in more precise terms than simply the term "rational." In addition to the requirement that the organism be genetically human, there are several interrelated major aspects of "personhood" that are generally agreed upon by philosophy and psychology. "In a general philosophical sense," says the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, a person is "a self-conscious or rational being." Reason is "the intellectual power or faculty which is ordinarily employed in adapting thought or action to some end." That is, a person is an organism that can engage in what psychologists would call "purposeful action" and philosophers would call "making choices."

From a psychological point of view, the necessary condition for rationality and self-consciousness is the capacity for cognition--that is, the process of integrating perceptions and sensations into a mental organization, which in turn enables the individual to engage in intentional, purposeful action and other intellective activities, including remembering, etc.

But none of these faculties can be manifested until after birth. The perceptual process necessary for cognition can begin only when the organism is subject to outside environmental stimuli, that is, when there is something to perceive. In the uterus, a strictly limited sensory environment, only the most primitive level of sensations and reflexes is possible for the fetus. Sensory deprivation experiments with isolation tanks (an environment similar to the uterus) have shown that, even for cognitively functioning adults, the perceptual field dwindles to almost nothing under such conditions.

Birth is also the point at which purposeful action can begin. "The birth of the child is marked by two fundamental changes in his functioning," say child psychologists Mussen, Conger, and Kagan. "He is now subjected to states of imbalance, deprivation, or discomfort that must soon be repaired and he encounters a variety of events and ' experiences which shape his perception of the environment and his reactions to it. These states are important psychologically for they force the infant to do something to alleviate the discomfort." That is, to engage in purposeful action.

The argument that a newborn infant is not rational or cognitive, thus leaving the door open for infanticide, stems from ignorance of infant psychology. The fact that a newborn cannot discuss the nuances of economic theory does not mean it is not functioning cognitively.

"The newborn is a remarkably capable organism from the moment he begins to breathe," say Mussen et a. "He can see, hear, and smell and he is sensitive to pain, touch, and change in position .... The infant is biologically ready to experience most of the basic sensations of his species from the moment he is born ... Contemporary psychology views the newborn with considerably more respect than the scientist of the 16th century who saw the infant as relatively insensitive. We have exploded the myth of newborn insensitivity and incompetence."

The anti-abortionists try to get around these differences between fetus and infant with one of two assertions. Some say that the difference is only one of degree, a notion that is contrary to the findings and conclusions of developmental psychology, as we have seen. Or else they try to claim that there is no significant difference in value between potential capacity and actual capacity to be a person. This idea flies in the face of most human experience. People do see a difference, in most cases, between the information or parts needed for a structure (the DNA or fetus; the plans or materials for a house) and the completed structure (the infant or the house). The potential, after all, is only the hypothetically possible. The potential capacity will become actual only under the necessary and sufficient conditions and therefore cannot be assigned the same current value.

To discredit the criterion of "actual capacity" as opposed to "potential," anti-abortionists also argue that comatose or ######ed individuals are "not capable" of rationality or choice (or cognitive functioning), yet we all agree that they are persons and we cannot justifiably kill them. This argument betrays a misunderstanding of what the concept "definition" means as well as the concept of "person." The definition of a particular kind of entity describes the unique characteristics of an entity in its normal state. Partial fluctuations from the norm do not change the essential nature of the entity. A car does not cease to be a car because its brakes don't work. If the impaired condition of comatose or ######ed persons could be corrected, they would function cognitively, since all the necessary apparatus is otherwise already developed. (######ed persons do function cognitively, but at a lower level than the norm.) But a fetus in its normal state does not function cognitively or make choices. Just as the unassembled parts of a car are different from a car with broken brakes, so a fetus is conceptually different from a comatose person.

Thus, the fetus is not self-conscious, cannot function cognitively, and is not capable of purposeful action; it is therefore not a person in any commonly accepted philosophical, psychological, or legal sense. The anti-abortionists have presented no objective evidence that the fetus fulfills any of these criteria; they can only assert that it can potentially fulfill them. Therefore, to call the fetus a "person" makes the term meaningless.

But the anti-abortionists do argue that the fertilized egg, even immediately after conception, is imbued with something special that makes it unique and a person. "The critical fact of life that is accessible to any rational study, of course [sic] " says one Libertarians For Life essay, "is that we are each of us the same unique identity that we were a year ago, or at birth, or at the moment of conception. The prima facie case is that the 'I' was always 'me'." But what can this mean objectively? To speak of an "I" in an entity that has no self-awareness is a meaningless statement, a null set. We can speak of a core set of memories and traits that continues throughout the life of a person once a personality has been established, but the only provable "identity" that remains the same from conception onward is the genetic encoding in the DNA. If the anti-abortionists wish to claim otherwise, the burden of proof rests on them. So far they have only asserted their alleged prima facie case and offered no evidence.

We maintain that they cannot offer such proof because none exists. If there is no objective evidence that the fetus possesses the psychological qualities that define "person," then the anti-abortionists are left with asserting that the fetus has a special "something-somehow" that imbues it with personhood, or, to say what they really mean: a soul. But the soul is an unprovable mystic/religious concept that is inadmissible in a general libertarian ethical philosophy or in a society that maintains a separation between church and state. People are free to believe in such religious concepts if they want, but they have no right to impose them on others, as the anti-abortionists are trying to do.

Two questions remain: at what point does the fetus become a person? And, until what point is abortion morally allowable? Libertarians have quibbled endlessly over the question of when the fetus actually becomes capable of rationality and therefore a person. The fact that there is no exact biological point of change that can be ascertained has presented a slippery problem for those who base their moral case on biological or even psychological criteria. Regardless of the (undefinable) point at which a fetus could, if separated from the woman, become a person in the sense we have defined it, the second question can be resolved only on ethical and philosophical grounds--not biological ones.

We maintain that a woman's right to self-determination logically entails the right to control her pregnancy totally until the point of birth, dictated by natural forces; that is, until the onset of labor directly resulting in a normal or premature delivery or Caesarian section. This includes the right to terminate the life of the fetus during the abortion procedure, at any time prior to delivery. If the woman's life is endangered during labor, she has, of course, the right to kill the fetus even at this point.

To argue that using the point of birth as the dividing line between fetus and person is arbitrary is to argue that reality is arbitrary. One might say that birth is nature's way of asserting that the fetus is ready to become a person. Rothbard has pointed out also that by defining the fetus as a person the anti-abortionists have reduced birth to an almost trivial event, like adolescence or "mid-life crisis." He is quite right in arguing that such trivialization is absurd. Just the psychological changes alone, at birth, make it a far more significant event for the newborn than anything that happened during pregnancy.

However, there is a crucial philosophical difference that occurs at birth. At any point prior to the action of natural forces, the only legitimate way the fetus can be removed from the woman's body is for her to make the choice to initiate the action. Because the natural process is not yet completed, she is still in control of it. She can still make a choice to bear the child or not. But once natural forces initiate the birth process, the situation is beyond the woman's control and beyond moral choice. She simply is a mother, whether she wants to be or not.

If a woman has a right to abort a fetus at any point prior to birth, this also implies the right to terminate the life of the fetus as well. Abortion is not a discrete act; it is an ongoing process that begins within the. woman's body and continues outside it. If she has a right to the procedure of abortion, she has a right to the entire procedure--otherwise the so-called right is meaningless. Since the purpose of abortion is not just to terminate the pregnancy but to avoid bearing the child, what is necessary is not just the removal of the fetus (otherwise she could just bring it to term and give it up for adoption), but its death.

One additional ethical consideration remains. Tibor Machan and others have argued that the husband (or the man who contributed the sperm) has a right to a say in the matter of abortion. But the man has no right to be a father against the woman's wishes. If she does not want to be a mother, then to insist that she produce a baby for his benefit puts her in the position of a chattel slave. The woman has the right, however, to choose to be a mother even if the man does not want to be a father. Since her bodily systems produce the baby, her right to self-determination requires that the choice ultimately be hers and hers alone. If she elects to make a solitary choice, of course, the ensuing responsibility for the child is morally hers alone also.

Physical, psychological, and social consequences of interference with abortion decisions

The anti-abortionists, we believe, have elevated the principle of "life" to the level of a mystical floating abstraction independent of any connection with the lives of actual individual people in the real world. To call for the survival of "life" at any cost, without regard for the quality of life for actual living individuals, is to live for the sake of morality rather than the other way around. The principle becomes a religious dogma, absolute and untouchable, sacred for its own sake rather than because it will benefit individuals.

To the anti-abortionists the physical survival of an entity that cannot yet even experience emotions, cognitions, or even physical pain, is of more consequence and value than the emotional and physical well-being of an already-existing adult for whom unwanted pregnancy will bring great emotional and psychological pain (and possibly even death from an illegal abortion).

Such a position is, as Mike Dunn suggests, "tantamount to the classic example of Randian sacrifice: the surrender of a higher value (the autonomy and well-being of a living person) for a lesser value (the biological survival of a pre-human being)." We maintain that such a position makes a mockery out of the concept of the value of life.

But if rights and principles are, as we maintain, interpretations of the relationship between ourselves and the world of reality, then we have the right to judge the reasonableness of these constructs by their results on our lives. If the principles we espouse result in immense human misery, we may justifiably ask ourselves if these principles are false and reexamine them in a new light.

If we examine some of the actual physical, psychological, and social consequences of abortion on the one hand, and of unwanted pregnancy on the other, we will see that the consequences for the woman are of a far greater magnitude than for the fetus.

If an abortion is performed, the actual consequences to the fetus are cessation of certain physiological functions such as heartbeat, and cessation of a primitive level of sensations and reflexes. Because the fetus has neither cognitions nor self-awareness, it cannot have emotions and cannot be said to suffer in the same sense as born humans. Furthermore, research has shown that, even as late as 28 weeks of gestation, the fetus is insensitive to pain (see Mussen et aL). No sensation the fetus is capable of could in any way be comparable to the complex network of emotional, psychological, and even physical pain that a cognitive functioning individual can experience.

Anti-abortionists refuse to take seriously the enormous psychological and emotional costs to a woman of bearing an unwanted child. They dismiss unwanted pregnancies as mere annoyances. But as one National Abortion Rights Action League leaflet has pointed out, referring to illegal abortions: "The urgency of women's need to end unwanted pregnancy is measured by their willingness to risk death and mutilation, to spend huge sums of money, and to endure the indignities of illegal abortions. Women only have abortions when the alternative is unendurable. Women take both abortion and motherhood very seriously."

Because many women do find the alternatives unendurable, they will continue to seek abortions, whether legal or illegal. But without recourse to legal abortions, most women will have to resort once again to back-street abortions, with the attendant greatly increased risk of infection or of dying in great pain from the consequences of unprofessional or self-induced abortion. In case anyone doubts this claim, it is a matter of public record that the mortality rate of illegal abortions is much higher than for legal abortions.

Without recourse to abortion, women and young girls who become pregnant as a result of rape will be subjected to the extreme psychological and emotional trauma of bearing a child fathered by a rapist, a hated aggressor. Many anti-abortionists cavalierly dismiss this situation, saying that the fetus is an innocent victim too and should not pay the consequences. They justify this position by claiming that the fetus pays a higher price if there is an abortion than the woman does if there is not. John Walker of Libertarians For Life, for example, trots out the cliche about "the hierarchy of life, liberty, and property" and argues that "Her costs of waiting nine months will be in property and in some liberty (assuming a 'normal' pregnancy and no psychological warfare from society), the child's [sic] cost will be life itself." Walker also adds, "it seems to me that the enforcer incurs obligations to recompense the mother for all her costs."

As if "all her costs" could even be economically calculated, let alone compensated! What a totally unthinking and callous attitude this comment betrays. Does Walker really believe the only costs are economic ones? Men such as Walker fail to understand the psychologically devastating effect of rape on women. Rape is a violent assault on a woman's psyche as well as physical integrity. Even for a grown woman, let alone an emotionally immature young girl, rape is a traumatic experience. To bear a child under such circumstances only multiplies the pain and anguish. To claim that this cost is less than the cost of stopping the biological functioning of a non-self-conscious entity is grotesque.

There can be other serious psychological and social consequences. An unwanted child may have unfortunate effects on the future life and happiness of the mother and of the family, too. It can present a financial as well as emotional burden that may seriously impair the woman's and the family's ability to pursue their own goals.

There can be negative consequences to the child as well. An unwanted child may become the victim of physical and psychological neglect and abuse, with all the psychological scars that will result from such treatment. Children who are loved and wanted are far more likely to be psychologically healthy than those who are not wanted.

Anti-abortionists seem to think that the solution to unwanted children is to give them up for adoption. Although some women would choose this alternative, most women find giving up a child far more psychologically traumatic than having an abortion. Furthermore, adoption is not the easy solution that the anti-abortionists claim. There may be a demand for healthy, white babies, but orphanages are filled with children who can't be placed because they are black, or physically handicapped, or ######ed. For those children who remain in orphanages, the institutional treatment and lack of loving care are likely to be as psychologically destructive as if they were unwanted children who remained with their families.

Some anti-abortionists try to argue that one of the consequences of a social climate favorable to abortion may be a climate favorable to euthanasia and infanticide. This claim is, first of all, illogical, since abortion is an exercise of control over one's own body and destiny while infanticide and involuntary euthanasia involve control over other individuals. There is little sociological evidence to support the anti-abortionists' claim. "In countries where abortion has been legal for years," reports a NARAL paper, "there is no evidence that respect for life has diminished or that legal abortion leads to the killing of any persons. Infanticide, however, is prevalent in countries where the overburdened poor cannot control their childbearing, and was prevalent in Japan before abortion was legalized."

Some anti-abortionists even go so far as to suggest a sociological link between abortion and the mass murders in Nazi Germany. But this makes no sense, since Hitler was opposed to abortion ("Nazi ideals, he said, "demand that the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand.") and indeed Nazi law made abortion a capital crime. The truth seems to be exactly opposite to such claims. A callousness toward the rights of adult, functioning women over their own bodies seems to be linked with a callousness toward human life in general--dictatorships routinely outlaw abortion.

Legal implications of interference with abortion decisions

Certain legal consequences seem to follow naturally from acceptance of the principle that abortion is murder and must be prevented. "Moderate" abortion interventionists may claim not to want these results, but even if they are not merely temporizing for obvious political reasons, the existence of more fanatical adherents to their ideology makes these scenarios likely.

The term "murder" is a legal as well as a moral one. Merely to disapprove of abortion as killing is not the same as to believe it to be murder. Assuming that the cry "Abortion is murder!" is not a totally empty rhetorical device, we should expect many (though not all) anti-abortionists to be abortion prohibitionists and to want abortion treated legally as murder. Logic and experience then suggest that we would have prosecutions for murder--of both the woman and the abortionist. Some prohibitionists favor prosecutions chiefly against the abortionist (presumably to deflect hostility they could otherwise expect from many women, but also to insure that patients can testify against the abortionist), but is the contractor less guilty than the "hit man"? Why are the women not murderers?

Abortion-murders would clearly be first-degree, since intent to kill and premeditation are obviously present. This aspect is never played up, if mentioned at all, in prohibitionist literature since many of their own supporters, let alone the "uncommitted", might find this idea unpalatable if taken literally. Too many people might also notice how many of the rabid proponents of the "abortion equals murder" idea are also rabid proponents of the death penalty. Does anyone feel a cold chill?

Pregnant women who engage in actions definitely or possibly harmful to the fetus--partaking of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, or other drugs, for example--could be subject to charges of assault or criminal negligence. An immense state apparatus would be necessary in order to scrutinize such actions; any apparent miscarriage might be a devious attempt to commit the "perfect murder." The pregnant woman's emotional and psychological state can also affect the fetus. Shall she be required to see a psychotherapist if she becomes disturbed or upset during pregnancy? Describing measures to enforce all of the above as "invasion of privacy" is a study in understatement.

Anyone merely advocating or advertising abortion could be subject to murder-conspiracy charges. Libertarians may not believe in conspiracy laws, but our federal and state governments do. Presumably, it's not our fault if the laws forbidding abortion don't appear in a suitably libertarian form.

If any or all of the above appears absurd or monstrous, we readily concur, but we believe that the absurdity and horror lies in the prohibitionist argument. If prohibitionists recoil from these positions, the responsibility is theirs to explain why these alleged murders should not be subject to the penalties that murder receives at present. If abortion is not to be subject to the same penalties, then we suggest that prohibitionists should not identify it with murder. Prohibitionists are fond of the supposed logic of their position--why do they fear to finish their argument?

We must in the following discussion refer to people who support the passage or the retention of laws restricting and, especially, prohibiting abortion. They are commonly known as anti-abortionists or right-to-lifers, but the latter is an undeserved misnomer and the former confuses them with individuals who disapprove of abortion to a greater or lesser degree, but who will not interfere with another's decisions and choices. (This is a matter of personal morality with which we have no quarrel here) We therefore refer to our opponents either as prohibitionists or, if they believe in the regulation rather than the prohibition of abortion, as interventionists.

The prohibition of abortion is sometimes referred to as an unenforceable law--of course, it has been and would be enforced, but many women clearly do not and would not obey it. There is another sense, however, in which laws prohibiting abortion are unenforceable.

When we speak of law today, we ordinarily mean what is called the "positive" law of the state--this is law of the sort we are used to, statute law whose mere existence must command obedience because of the (presumed) ultimate sovereignty of the state over the individual. In the philosophy of "natural" law, however, only those laws whose justice is "self-evident" to humankind can exist (these need not be written codes, but may be only common law or an agreement of conscience on the part of the community.)

If the laws of' conscience and the laws of the community are to coincide--that is, if we are to have only the natural laws of individual sovereignty--then the best social conditions for natural law to be practically expressed will be where the same people who create and enforce any law are also those who must daily live with its immediate results. More than any other institution, the trial by jury, rooted in and drawing its strength and legitimacy from the community it protects, formerly served this function--deciding not only guilt and innocence, but also the fairness and justice of the laws.

Since any conviction requires unanimity of a group of citizens--who decide the law as well as the facts and who are themselves subject to social and economic pressures from their neighbors--clearly only those acts universally abhorred will be held to be crimes. (Government-selected juries no longer require unanimity to convict; this has eliminated at a stroke both centuries of common-law practice and one of the most fundamental protections of the individual against state tyranny. This does not affect our argument, however, since we are not talking about these latter-day juries, mandated and ruled as they now are by the state.)

If one properly includes the doctrines of the presumption of innocence and of reasonable doubt as part of the jury system, then the likelihood of anyone being convicted for behavior not noxious to all is nearly eliminated. In this sense, then, anti-abortion laws are unenforceable as well as disobeyed. Our justification for supposing that a jury will approximate natural law better than will legislators derives from the reasonable assumption that jurors are unlikely to impose unjust or savage laws on themselves while legislators are more likely to create repressive laws for others to endure.

In addition, we would point out that the common-law tradition of the jury provides a partial answer to the libertarians' dilemma on the question of abortion. If we have doubts about the justice of any law, we should not support it or keep silent, but rather ought to oppose it. The concepts of reasonable doubt and presumption of innocence, bulwarks of defense for the individual against state tyranny. should be interpreted to mean that unless we are utterly convinced of the rightness of the law and a person's guilt under it, we must assume her or him innocent of any wrongdoing.

The libertarian tradition is one of non-intervention in others' affairs and of protection of the sovereignty of the individual. We believe that however heated the debate on abortion may have been in some circles, and whatever one's personal preference, qualms, or morality concerning abortion (as with drug use or gambling), the libertarian position on abortion is clearly one of no state or legal intervention. There is ample historical precedent for a non-interventionist legal position with regard to abortion. Prior to the early I 800s, there were no statutes whatsoever on the subject of abortion, the legal status being entirely governed by common law. As research by law professor Cyril C. Means, Jr., has shown, pre-19th-century Anglo-American common law was totally silent on the subject and did not even include "quickening" as a cut-off "point," as Means and others had previously thought.

Indeed, for libertarians to support new or old state regulation would be so extraordinary as to require arguments orders of magnitude better than any advanced by abortion prohibitionists. Nor is "neutrality" or silence an answer, as some interventionists propose; laws restricting or specially regulating abortion still exist and are enforced, and libertarians cannot and dare not pretend otherwise. (For example, the Libertarian Party at present has a platform position recommending no state regulation of any kind; to alter this to "no stand," as is proposed by Doris Gordon of Libertarians For Life, would be interpreted by no one as neutrality, but rather --as Gordon surely knows but refrains from saying--as support for existing laws.)

Conclusion

Rights, we repeat, are human artifices. Justice and morality are at best provisional constructions that attempt to summarize the wisdom gained from human experience and insight. But the results of behavioral codes are very real and final without appeal; we must have, then, the right to judge laws and morals by their results and correlatively the right to reject principles that in practice result--however noble their intent--in human misery. No authority for any ethic exists beyond self-determination or individual sovereignty; the creation of prescriptions and proscriptions is within the capacity of each person as a free moral agent. To establish any moral authority antecedent to human conscience--be it the law of identity, God, or Marx--is to lay the foundation for despotism. To sacrifice existing persons for the sake of future generations, whether in slave labor camps for the utopian nightmares of Marxists or fascists, or in unwanted pregnancies, compulsory childbearing, and furtive coat hanger abortions for the edification of fetus-worshippers, is to establish hell on earth.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Should the state be able to restrict your freedom based on moral concerns? No.Should the state be able to restrict your freedom to protect the lives of others? Maybe.Does the state have an affirmative obligation to restrict your freedom to prevent you from willfully killing others? Yes. If you think that libertarianism requires you to be pro-choice, you haven't studied the issue very carefully. Which is no surprise.

Don't know why you feel the need to throw in insults at the end there, but whatever. To answer your question, I will paste an article which explains it far better than I could:

The insult is because you have a track record of making Very Authoritative Posts about topics that you're not very well informed about. For example, the very first sentence of yoru very first post in this thread was flatly wrong. I'll probably read the article you posted at some point, but I doubt it's relevant. The point isn't that you have to be pro-life if you're a libertarian. The point is that you don't have to be pro-choice. The key issue here is the point at which the fetus develops "rights" that weigh against those of the its mother, and it's the point that you're ignoring.

 

[timschochet]

The point of my thread: my reason for supporting abortion rights is based upon my libertarian values. Despite Ivan's insulting comments that libertarianism and abortion rights need not be consistent, I find the opposite to be the case, and I pasted an essay in the earlier post that explains why.

But the point is: if we only support abortion during the first part of a pregnancy, and refuse to support it during the later months, we are destroying any philosophical defense of a woman's right to her own freedom. We are instead substituting a recognition that a fetus may have rights at some point while still in the womb, depending upon some mystical word known as "viability"- thus we concede to the pro-lifers their main argument, and set the stage, philosophically, for the removal of all abortion rights. This is why I believe that it's important for pro-choice people to support late-term abortions.

 

[timschochet]

The insult is because you have a track record of making Very Authoritative Posts about topics that you're not very well informed about. For example, the very first sentence of yoru very first post in this thread was flatly wrong. I'll probably read the article you posted at some point, but I doubt it's relevant. The point isn't that you have to be pro-life if you're a libertarian. The point is that you don't have to be pro-choice. The key issue here is the point at which the fetus develops "rights" that weigh against those of the its mother, and it's the point that you're ignoring.

It wasn't wrong. I was referring to the news response to Tiller's death, not to this forum. I can't help it if you misunderstood me. I don't claim to be "very authoritative", whatever that means, on any subject- I simply give my own opinion, based upon the facts I have on hand and my interpretation of those facts based upon my own personal philosophy. That philosophy is consistent and NEVER changes, but often my opinion on any particular issue does change when I am presented with new facts which I was not aware of. For me, this forum is a great tool for this, and I am grateful to posters who enlighten me from time to time, including yourself (minus the insults, of course.)I hope you do read the article, because it IS relevant. I won't say you HAVE to be pro-choice; you're free to call yourself anything you want. But it is my firm opinion, based upon my understanding of libertarianism, that to be libertarian and not to be pro-choice is inconsistent and contradictory. This opinion comes not from a lack of knowledge, as you assert, but from what I have been able to study about this matter. The essay represents a good summary.

 

[bentley]

The point of my thread: my reason for supporting abortion rights is based upon my libertarian values. Despite Ivan's insulting comments that libertarianism and abortion rights need not be consistent, I find the opposite to be the case, and I pasted an essay in the earlier post that explains why.But the point is: if we only support abortion during the first part of a pregnancy, and refuse to support it during the later months, we are destroying any philosophical defense of a woman's right to her own freedom. We are instead substituting a recognition that a fetus may have rights at some point while still in the womb, depending upon some mystical word known as "viability"- thus we concede to the pro-lifers their main argument, and set the stage, philosophically, for the removal of all abortion rights. This is why I believe that it's important for pro-choice people to support late-term abortions.

So.....I was right in post 77 about how this is really about defining when life begins and not wherever you started.

 

[timschochet]

The point of my thread: my reason for supporting abortion rights is based upon my libertarian values. Despite Ivan's insulting comments that libertarianism and abortion rights need not be consistent, I find the opposite to be the case, and I pasted an essay in the earlier post that explains why.But the point is: if we only support abortion during the first part of a pregnancy, and refuse to support it during the later months, we are destroying any philosophical defense of a woman's right to her own freedom. We are instead substituting a recognition that a fetus may have rights at some point while still in the womb, depending upon some mystical word known as "viability"- thus we concede to the pro-lifers their main argument, and set the stage, philosophically, for the removal of all abortion rights. This is why I believe that it's important for pro-choice people to support late-term abortions.

So.....I was right in post 77 about how this is really about defining when life begins and not wherever you started.

Umm... this is the opposite of what I'm arguing here.Why don't you wait for the Commish to respond for you?

 

[StrikeS2k]

But the point is: if we only support abortion during the first part of a pregnancy, and refuse to support it during the later months, we are destroying any philosophical defense of a woman's right to her own freedom. We are instead substituting a recognition that a fetus may have rights at some point while still in the womb, depending upon some mystical word known as "viability"- thus we concede to the pro-lifers their main argument, and set the stage, philosophically, for the removal of all abortion rights. This is why I believe that it's important for pro-choice people to support late-term abortions.

Maybe to some people the issue isn't black and white.

 

[Orange Crush]

The point of my thread: my reason for supporting abortion rights is based upon my libertarian values. Despite Ivan's insulting comments that libertarianism and abortion rights need not be consistent, I find the opposite to be the case, and I pasted an essay in the earlier post that explains why.But the point is: if we only support abortion during the first part of a pregnancy, and refuse to support it during the later months, we are destroying any philosophical defense of a woman's right to her own freedom. We are instead substituting a recognition that a fetus may have rights at some point while still in the womb, depending upon some mystical word known as "viability"- thus we concede to the pro-lifers their main argument, and set the stage, philosophically, for the removal of all abortion rights. This is why I believe that it's important for pro-choice people to support late-term abortions.

Tim, you and I have both maintained that the pregnant woman who decides on a whim in the 8th month to have an abortion merely out of convenience is a myth. I've argued that the obstacles any statutes erected to prevent this decision would unnecessarily burden women who would require late-term abortions for medical reasons, and you've argued that rape and incest should also be included in reasons for late-term abortions. 1) Do you agree on the "unnecessarily burdensome" argument?2) If not, then shouldn't you be ok with a ban on late-term abortions with exceptions for medical reasons, rape, and incest?3) If you do agree on the "unnecessarily burdensome" argument, would you be opposed to attempts to minimize that burden while keeping the "whimsical abortion" illegal?