10.02.07
The Freedom Quandary
As some of you may or may not have noticed, I recently added the “Blogging for Life” widget over on my side bar. While I have tried to stay moderately neutral on such controversial and subjective topics, I have decided that it is time to be up front and bold about these things as the current series of events has raised some serious questions about people and their perceptions of freedom. In turn, I have decided to be blunt and hope for the best.
So what is freedom? While one would think that freedom is something of an objective constant, we are finding more and more that freedom is curiously subjective and is being constantly defined by those we have charged with upholding our freedom. What do I mean by this? Well, look at it this way, the very nature of freedom is under attack due to the fact that people are working so hard to define it. In other words, freedom cannot be defined because the moment it is defined it negates some other freedom.
I know this sounds odd, so let me cite an example here. The current smoking ban that just went into effect in Minnesota is a perfect example of one freedom being defined and another freedom being negated. The Minnesota law, cunningly named the freedom to breathe act, was put into place to give non-smokers the freedom to enjoy smoke free air on private property. However, by defining a freedom for non-smokers, the law overrode the freedoms of both smokers and private property owners.
The more freedoms are defined, the less free we grow as a society. What really raises the quandary, however, is how it is that some freedoms can be so viciously fought for while other are so willingly dismissed and given up. This is what brings me to the abortion issue, which is the pinnacle of the freedom paradox. For simplicity’s sake, I will only use smoking as a comparison, but you should get the general idea.
So we are prohibited from harming others with second hand smoke. We have taken away the freedom of choice and replaced it with the freedom to allow non-smokers to go wherever they please, falling just short of private residences. As such, we have essentially been told to do no harm. Choice has been replaced with mandate. However, we have been fed exactly the opposite when it comes to abortion. How can one be mandated to do no harm to to others via second hand smoke, yet have the freedom to kill a child at will be mandated by the same people? This seems backward to me, and it is because of these self-defeating definitions that I question the legitimacy of defining freedoms period. After all, shouldn’t freedom be a constant? If you have the freedom to harm a child, shouldn’t you have the freedom to harm another with your smoking? Or, if there is to be a limit on freedom, shouldn’t it be a constant as well? If you are forbidden from doing harm with smoke, why shouldn’t you be forbidden from doing harm to a child? This unequal definition of rights is perplexing to say the least.
While I may personally be pro life, I advocate for freedom of choice, and as such I cannot in good conscious demand a ban on abortion. However, I feel that the same freedom of choice should then be extended to other elements, such as the freedom to smoke on private property and the freedom to choose whether or not you will patronize a business that allows smoking. If we are to have our freedom to choose taken from us in piecemeal form, I can’t help but to revise my normal stance and demand that other choices be taken from the general population as well. In the case of this current argument, I propose that the right to abort a pregnancy be revoked. I may not agree with it (revoking the right), in light of the current push to limit everything from smoking to trans fats, I feel it is the next and most logical move.
However, and I open up this challenge to anybody who disagrees with me, I am willing to listen to anybody who disagrees with me that freedom (or lack thereof) should be a constant. I would like to hear from others out there - especially the people who advocate for supreme freedom (the freedom afforded a mother to kill her own child) while also advocating for the revocation of other freedoms (such as the freedom to smoke on private property). If anybody can explain to me what makes one right and the other wrong, I would be more than happy to entertain your argument and even consider it if it makes sense.
However, I do not want to hear anybody come at me and use the “public health” aspect of smoking, because harming another person is a constant, whether that harm is inflicted through second hand smoke or the end of a doctor’s tool (a’la abortion), the harm against another has not changed. In fact, one could actually argue that second hand smoke is not intentional harm (the concept of even circumstantial harm here could even be refuted due to lack of hard evidence) while abortion most certainly is (as a choice to intentionally inflict harm on another living being that is). While that may be abusing definitions a bit, the point still remains a valid one. For the sake of argument, we’ll set aside the question of actual harm being done by second hand smoke and we’ll simply say that harm is done to others in both cases. So again I ask: what makes one right and the other wrong?
Until this quandary is adequately answered or the defined limitations on the freedom of choice such as smoking bans and trans fat bans are lifted, my stance is shifted to an outright ban on anybody’s right to choose to have an abortion.
patrioticamerican said,
October 2, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Very good entry. I like the exploration of how certain “rights” are redefined, and thus lost.
I would disagree, however, that abortion is a “right.” It may be viewed as a choice, but it certainly isn’t a right. Nowehere in the Constitution does it say we have the right to deprieve others of their own lives.
Would we call being able to premeditatively murder someone a right?
micky2 said,
October 2, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Is a pregnant woman violating smoking bans by smoking while pregnant ? If not, shouldnt she be held to the same law as those who cant smoke in public?
I havnt heard yet of a legislation that forbids an expectant mother from smoking or drinking.
She may be in her own house and on her private property. But should this law be extended to the fetus ?
I dont think half the shmucks in our goverment give a shit about our rights . Otherwise the same rule would apply to those that condone abortion who also wont let you light up within 200 ft of anything.
I believe that if it really was all about rights that baby would have more rights than some uppty tree hugger thats 199 ft away from someone smoking a cigarette.
You cant smoke at a bus stop even if you are all alone, but you can pump that shit right into your babys heart. And if you fuck up that babys heart before its born, just go ahead and rip it out.
The only way we can all have our rights and remain a somewhat peaceful society
is to each compromise and shave or trim the edges off some of our own rights.
I dont get to smoke everywhere and you dont get to walk around anywhere you want demanding that me and my Marlboros stay out of your way
Death penalties are handed down by juries.
I dont think there should be a blanket abortion law for all women. I believe all abortions should be decided by a jury or a panel seeing as how it is equivalent to a death sentence.
We are all individuals and the remnants of our existance should be treated as such also. This can only be done with cooperation and acknowledgement that one mans shit is another mans treasure
mpinkeyes said,
October 2, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Isn’t it strange how the same people can be on the opposite sides of personal choice and freedoms when it come to pushing their agenda? I am pro life, and i want Roe vs Wade overturned, this would simply return the abortion issue back over to the states where it belongs, not outlaw abortion, as it is being portrayed.
I also don’t believe I have the right to tell a woman what to do with her bodies (her body and her baby’s), although I find abortion to be the most despicable act that a mother can do to her child.
PheistyBlog » Blog Archive » Abortion and Smoking Bans said,
October 2, 2007 at 9:42 pm
[...] friend Arclightzero had a very interesting and thought-provoking post this evening. He was comparing the right of a woman to choose to end the life of her unborn [...]
Joey @ Pheistyblog said,
October 2, 2007 at 10:10 pm
My dear men,
I know that you men feel like you can’t really come out and say that you believe that abortion should be outlawed. I understand this, and I’m glad that you’re being so considerate of we women, and what we go through when we carry a baby around for nine months. But let me tell you a woman’s side of abortion that you may not have heard before. You just may change your mind.
When a woman has the choice to end her child’s life, there’s a variety of thoughts that enter her mind, obviously. But the thought that burdens her the most is the idea that she has the choice at all. She knows that she and she alone is the only person that has a say in whether or not her baby is born. Her husband or boyfriend may pressure her one way or the other, but in the end, she knows that she is the only one who holds the future of a life in her hands. This is a very, very, very lonely place to be in.
If abortion were illegal, we wouldn’t have to make that choice. We would have the weight of a baby on us for nine months, and then the weight of raising that child for years to come, but in the end, the heaviest weight is the one that says, “I was the only reason why my child didn’t have a chance at life”.
To me, abortion degrades a woman way more than any man ever could. Abortion veils its ugly face with “freedom” and “independence”, but really, it only places more of a burden onto we women. It places the burden of death on our shoulders, or if you prefer, the burden of a life that will never be.
Abortion also allows women to continue to have sex with men that they have no intentions of marrying, which in my opinion creates a “free love” environment that only causes men to look at us with more disrespect. It took me most of my twenties to figure that out.
It also does not take the man into account at all. Just because he doesn’t carry the child, does that mean that the child is any less his, and that he shouldn’t have any say in whether or not the child makes it outside of the womb? Abortion doesn’t allow for the father in any way, shape or form. This is wrong.
I have two beautiful children who were conceived out of wedlock. I found out that I was pregnant with my son shortly after I graduated from high school. I had the choice of ending his life, and I cannot tell you how often I look at him and thank God for the beautiful blessing that he has been to me. Did I always see him as a blessing? Of course not. It was hard, and I wasn’t at all ready to take on the responsiblity of a child by myself, at my young age. But my life did not end when I gave birth to my son. In fact, in many ways, he helped it begin.
To look at a life as a burden, as a ‘choice’, is a feeble attempt to negate your own actions that got you pregnant in the first place. ALL children are a gift and a life, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their conception.
Don’t be afraid to stand up for life, men. I’ll gladly stand with you.
viciemonkey said,
October 3, 2007 at 5:13 am
Another option being overlooked is adoption. I hate to say it, but there are more and more young girls getting pregnant every day. They do not have to make that terrible choice. There are so many great people out there hoping for the chance to raise a child and prepared to give he/she the kind of life that will prepare them to survive and thrive in society. Both my parents had children out of wedlock. My mother opted for adoption for her daughter. She was adopted into a wonderful and responsible family that in many ways was much better that if she had stayed with my mother. believe me, the love was there. My fathers girlfriend went away, as many girls at that time did, to have her child alone. I know they struggled as a single parent household. My point is there are options besides abortion. That should be the very last resort.
arclightzero said,
October 3, 2007 at 12:52 pm
There are all sorts of options out there. Adoption is certainly one of them. Or even more simple than that is simply taking some personal responsibility and accountability and taking precautions to not get pregnant. Abortion should be a last line of defense and should certainly not be available on demand like it currently is. Pheisty is right, there is so much more at work here with women, which of course comes full circle with my usual argument that people are so damned concerned with the “can I” that they blow right past the “should I” aspect of abortion. How many women who advocate for free abortion on demand for everybody have actually gone through one themselves? Which of course also means that men have no business trying to push women into it.
I guess as men we can advocate for it to be wrong much easier than we can advocate for it to be right. I say this because no matter which way you look at things, no matter how you distort the facts, no matter how twisted your logic may be… You are still extinguishing a life. This isn’t a matter of rights. I don’t challenge a woman’s right to her body. I do challenge the thought that it is ok to terminate a living human being. It is something that has been so dehumanized that it’s hard to even think of it that way. You might as well be going to the doctor to have a wart removed…
Which brings this rant full circle. Where is the respect for life? These same people that ignore the sanctity of human life when it comes to an unborn child are the same people who jump up and down about the dangers of second hand smoke. There is just no continuity to their logic. Why is some life sacred and others are expendable?
And Micky, you bring up a good point and something that you should expand a bit more on… Especially from the perspective that the same woman who supports abortion would probably go off the deep end if she ever saw a pregnant mother smoking. Can you imagine the response you would get?
And Patriotic American, you’re right. It’s hard to consider the intentional destruction of life a right.
harmonie22 said,
October 3, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Excellent post. Loved it. I loved the comments too. As a pro-choice smoker, it is easy for me to say that I too am anti-abortion however having never been pregnant, I am in no position to judge others for choosing abortion as an option. What if a fifteen year old girl was a victim of incest and became pregnant? Things like this do happen.
Joey: loved your beautiful response too.
harmonie22 said,
October 3, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I’m suddenly feeling like I need to go out and stock up on my favorite condoms.
Too elaborate on what joey says, an unwanted pregnancy (for a woman at least lets keep it real) can also be looked at as something that will deprive the potential mother of her rights and her ‘life’ for multiple reasons including economics, time, responsibility, investment of energy, etc.
Fathers (present or not) do not bear the responsibility of raising this new human as a mother does, the brunt of it falls on her. Nor do they suffer from the same degree lifestyle change that a woman does. Although I like and respect what you say, the decision on abortion needs to rest with the woman and the right to abort should exist-although it should not be used as a method of birth control.
I had this friend who, upon finding out she was pregnant, began to cry and yell “get it out of me!” She had an abortion, her third abortion as I found out, and needless to say we stopped being friends after that because her reaction was disgusting to me, it is incidents like these that remind me why I am antiabortion. However, we cannot take away a person’s right to choose.
Again, my core values are very antiabortion, but they are also very pro-choice. We cannot pass a morality judgment on women who opt for an abortion because we are not in their shoes.
antisocialist said,
October 3, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Your premise, if you’ll permit, is what’s in error: there is no redefining freedom; there’s only misdefining it.
Freedom is a very precise thing.
This is not meant to be a semantic quibble; much hangs on it.
Freedom, in a political context, is a specific thing. It means this: freedom from coercion. Fundamentally, there is only one way to violate freedom: through the direct or indirect use of force. That is why, from a legal perspective, the initiation of force is the one and only cogent determiner of injustice.
Actual freedom is simple: no person may initiate the use of force upon another.
That’s it.
But this doesn’t just mean that you may not initiate force upon me by punching me in the face, although that is obviously included. It means more, that neither you nor the government may have any rightful control over my person or my property, which is just an extension of my person. The only way for you to have that control is through the use or imminent threat of force. That is precisely why smoking bans are unjust: because they’re an infringement upon private property, with the threat of fines (fines, like extortion or fraud, are legallly defined as an indirect use of force, since they take the property — i.e. money — of the person fined.)
Such is the argument against government interference, as well as mob interference, in private property and private affairs.
The criteria for actual freedom is thus straightforward and uncomplicated: each individual is individuated and soveriegn. Therefore, the individual is the only legitimate standard of freedom.
Each indidual is free to pursue his or her own life, and in regard to our neighbors, their freedoms, which are identical to ours, impose no positive obligation upon anyone, but only negative: specifically, we must all abstain from infringing upon another’s freedom — which is to say: we are not permitted to initiate force, direct or indirect, upon anyone. This negative quality of rights is why individual rights are indeed often known as “negative rights”; because with regard to others, they only require that you abstain from violating their freedom. I’m redundant, but it is a crucial point, because abstaining is not an infringement on your freedom to murder. There is no such thing as the freedom to murder; by definition, that is not what freedom is.
Freedom is the right to your own life and property, and only your own life and property.
Self-ownership, thus, is not only a fact of freedom, but a necessity for human survival and human flourishing.
Government’s proper role is to ban the initiation of force from human interaction. That is all.
Under the absolute, objective, non-initiation of force definition of freedom, which is the only real definition of freedom — and this, of course, includes the necessary component of self-ownership — the proper stance on abortion readily follows: a fetus, by virtue of what it is, is not individuated; it is not sovereign. In fact, it is just the opposite. Science defines the fetus as a “biological parasite within a host” (in biological terms this is not as pejorative as it sounds). The host — i.e. the woman carrying the fetus — is the individuated enitity. She is sovereign. The fetus survives only through her, and for this reason the fetus does not have primacy or equality with the host. To grant the parasitic fetus rights is to deny the rights of the host who sustains it. This is a contradiction in terms.
Individuation means one thing and one thing only: “human personhood requires full organic development — to be a bodily individual, not a biological growth or dependency…. A biological growth, whatever it’s future potential, living inside the body of an individualted organism, and whose life is supported by that organism, is not yet a human being” (Andrew Bernstein). The absolute right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness do not — indeed cannot — apply to potential life; only actual. A thing is actualized, according to science, when it has reached its full development. On the other hand, it is still in “a state of potentiality” when it “has the capacity to reach development but has not yet done so.”
An unformed, non-individuated fetus is only in the potential. Rights do not belong to the potential.
Human personhood requires individuation.
Furthermore, (wo)man’s freedom is necessitated, defined, and guaranteed by virtue of the fact that human’s possess a rational faculty. That is the whole locus of freedom: because we, unlike animals, require our brains for survival. In this light, it is clear that no rights exist for a fetus, because the conceptual faculty is not yet formed. It is for this same reason that animals do not, by definition, possess rights.
To repeat, rights, which protect all individuated humans from the initiation of force, do not apply to potential life, but only actual. As long as the fetus is a biological growth dependent upon the life-force of an individuated person, the rights only belong to the individuated person.
The fetus does not have primacy over the host. That is a gross perverion of justice.
To say anything less than this is to once again misdefine freedom — not redefine it. And this, I hope, arclightzero, helps answer the quandry you close with.
micky2 said,
October 3, 2007 at 11:31 pm
But should the woman who freely chose to spread her legs be held accountable for the results of her actions?
And so who is to say at what point the fetus has reached a point of obtaining said ” required brains ” in order to have its life spared?
Their are guidlines as to when we think a fetus is developed enough to rule out the option of abortion.
But who is to say that in some cases it could of been a fetus that is abnormaly above the normal growth rate in its brains development ?
Who is anyone to just draw a timeline and say this is the point of no return ?
Who gets to be the judge of where that point is ?
Scientist ? Their studies may be factual in a general sense. But no two fetuses grow at the exact same rate.
Joey @ Pheistyblog said,
October 4, 2007 at 12:01 am
Harmonie, you’re a sweet gal, but I have to disagree with you.
You say, “We cannot pass a morality judgment on women who opt for an abortion because we are not in their shoes.”
Yet we pass judgement on murderers every day. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to “pass judgement” on the woman. Pass judgement on the law! Abortion is the ending of a human life. Plain and simple.
And as far as a man “not having to take responsibility”, that’s a load of crap. I take care of a dozen or more child support orders at my workplace, and I talk to fathers every day who don’t have custody of their children, and I have to say that for the most part I feel sorry for them. Granted, I dealt with a deadbeat father - my son’s dad - for over a decade, but to say that the man doesn’t have a say because he won’t be “raising” the child is hogwash. Many men don’t have the option of doing so, because custody was immediately awarded to the mother, or he felt guilty trying to fight the mother for custody.
Men are totally and completely overlooked on this issue, and IT’S WRONG.
Also, as I said before, we look at abortion as a “right”. It’s not a “right”. It’s a BURDEN. It’s a burden that we women have to live with the fact that we are the only ones who have the ultimate choice of whether or not our child survives. It is the most degrading choice for anyone to have to make, and it degrades women, period.
I’m what you might call an “ifeminist”. I believe in women seeking their true femininity, and their true “womanness”, and let me tell you, abortion is the last thing that makes you feel like a “woman”.
Sorry. I’m pretty passionate about this subject.
antisocialist said,
October 4, 2007 at 1:16 am
micky2, the point of no return, as you say, is not hazy: it’s the point of individuation; it’s the point when the fetus is no longer living as a (literal) parasite. There is thus no “who’s to say” about it. It’s objectively observable. It’s birth.
antisocialist said,
October 4, 2007 at 1:27 am
You don’t need to say you’re sorry, Joey. Strictly speaking, though, your statement “Abortion is the ending of a human life. Plain and simple” is not accurate. Neither zygote nor fetus is a human proper — science agrees with this. A fetus is not yet a human being in the full sense of the word because it is not yet developed and individuated. That is why the courts have unequivocally ruled (so far) that “abortion is not murder.”
To say that the destruction of the fetus or the zygote is “the ending of a human life, plain and simple,” is tantamount to saying that all women who have had abortions are the moral equivalent of, for example, OJ Simpson, or whoever. I.e. they are murderers. But surely, at the very least, we can agree that there is some a difference between them, no?
harmonie22 said,
October 4, 2007 at 1:45 am
Awww, thank you joey for calling me a sweet gal.
I’m a simple person with simple words I’m much older than you think, although I don’t have as much life experience when it comes to you I’m not a mother.
But you are right- my bad I stand corrected- men are left out of the picture when it comes to the whole abortion thing. You know, I hope I never know the burden of such a choice I think things over too much as it is. Where does life end and where does it begin? At conception, when there is a heartbeat? There is no clear-cut black or white answer, only the gray in each case-by-case. We can’t say abortion is wrong and we can’t say it’s right. But i still believe we have a right to choose.
And please don’t apologize for your words or how you feel you spunk is beautiful…I would have hired you on my team any day if I still worked in HR
micky2 said,
October 4, 2007 at 2:06 am
So Anti, what your saying is that my son who was born two months premature by c section actually could of been aborted at 7 months ? He was still dependent on his mothers body when he was taken out, he was a parasite. But modern medicine sped up the progression to individuism. Why should other fetuses not be afforded this right ?
Maybe 6 or 5 or even 4 months would make a fetus a viable candidate or life, whos to know at what duration do we make the judgement ?
Do the same laws apply to a test tube baby ? That would not be a parasite in the sense that it needs a human host.
Its individuality would be that it is a life potential.
arclightzero said,
October 4, 2007 at 7:22 am
Anti, while I normally whole-heartedly agree with you on things, I have to severely disagree with you on this one. Using strict (and somewhat flawed) legal and scientific definitions when discussing abortion is a liberal trick and a trick that has been used for quite a while now to defend the practice of abortion and to define a woman’s rights vs. the rights of an unborn child.
Interestingly, by your definition a child should still be subject to a parent’s choice for discretionary murder even after being born - since an infant is still helpless and cannot survive without assistance from its mother. Furthermore, an infant isn’t yet cognitive upon birth - any more so than it was in the womb anyway - and is still a parasite on the mother for all intents and purposes.
So like Micky says (and he brings up a great point), where do you draw a line? I read this story (which I’m sure many pro-choice people cringed at)
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/115844.html
I found it very interesting. A child born 15-weeks premature survived and was brought home last month. 15 weeks means the baby was born at roughly 5 1/2 months (second trimester) into the pregnancy, which means that a fetus is capable of life outside the womb at that point. So with that in mind, what would be the difference between aborting a fetus at this point and killing a child born at this point? Even if one would want to argue that abortion should be ok up until the point of a child being able to survive outside of the womb, where do we draw the line now? This simply creates more quandaries, because now we have to start trying to define life which is so subjective that it is nearly impossible to decide what factors indicate life. For example, if one defines life as consciousness, then you should be able to terminate a newborn since science has shown that a newborn’s brain has not developed enough to be aware of its own life. For all intents and purposes it would be no different than terminating a fetus. Yet morals tell us otherwise, which is a flawed way of determining the legality of something.
While I am all for rights and freedom, I have to concede that there are grey areas, and when there are grey areas we find this sort of quandary. While I understand a woman’s right to choose, I also understand a child’s right to exist. So that means we have to pick which right is more important to us. You can skirt around legal and scientific definitions until you’re blue in the face, but the fact remains that we cannot arbitrarily say that an unborn life has no rights because it is simply a “parasite” of the mother at that point.
Nordeaster said,
October 4, 2007 at 2:38 pm
An excellent post and discussion.
My position is this. The choice, as is usually the case, is a choice between limiting one freedom or another freedom. Absolute and universal freedoms are very rare.
Is restricting abortion an imposition on the prospective mother’s freedom? Absolutely it is.
However, it is not nearly the imposition as it is on the fetus if you consider that fetus a human life.
Science informs me that conception is the start of human life, therefore I support preservation of the greater freedom — the right to that life — at the expense of taking away the lesser freedom of choice of the prospective mother whether or not to abort that life.
To go back to the smoking ban tie in. To restrict the freedom of a private property owner to choose whether his or her establishment should be smoke free is a greater restriction on freedom than the restriction upon an employee or patron if places are allowed to choose whether or not to permit smoking.
antisocialist said,
October 4, 2007 at 4:34 pm
micky2, to answer your last question first, a test-tube baby is not individuated, no; to destroy it, therefore, is not equivalent to murder, and test-tube babies are destroyed for many different reasons, including defects. Do you think that they should not be? That this should not be permitted?
arclightzero, individuation, which is the absolute crux of this entire issue, and the answer to your primary question, is no gray area. On the contrary, it the clarifying point. Logically, rationally, legally, and morally, neither embryo, nor zygote, nor protoplasm has rights. It’s inconceivable that that can even be considered, in my opinion. How exactly, without using the word “right,” do you define “rights” in a poltical-moral context? To ascribe rights to protoplasm is a vicious, and dangerous, perversion of the term.
The concept of rights is almost stupendously profound, a philosophical discovery which, as has been noted by others, “very few people grasp in its entirety.” But once the concept of rights is grasped, the abortion issue is not dicey at all: in fact, it readily follows.
A child acquires rights only when it is born. Why? Because it is then individuated. It is actualized. The actual takes precedence over the potential; if one really thinks that abortion is synonymous with murder, then, no, you cannot, as you say, “understand the right to choose.” How could you? It would be the same as saying “I understand Ted Bundy’s right to choose murder. I just disagree with it.”
Protoplasm does not have rights.
All the supposedly hardcore pictures in the world don’t change that fact, and if they did, we’d have to do away with slaughterhouses, for example, and wars, because the footage is a hell of a lot more gruesome and brutal than any abortion footage.
To equate the potential with the actual is sheer madness. It’s equating a pinecone with a pine.
“Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, the antiabortionists obliterate the rights of the living…. If any among you are confused or takin in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix — and that cutting them out is murder, according to these notions proposed by antiabortionists. Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality — and that a human being’s life begins at birth…. A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as a ‘rational animal’ would not permit anyone to describe the status of ‘person’ to protoplasm with a few human cells.”
I quote that, arclightzero, in part to show you that one needn’t be “a liberal,” as you surprisingly say, to reject the so-called “arguments” for the rights of protoplasm. That quote comes from Ayn Rand (”A Last Survey,” The Ayn Rand Letter), who as you know despised liberals almost as much as the antisocialist does. Facile pigeonholing will only get us so far.
micky2, my good friend, to respond, with respect, to your questions concerning the later stages of pregnancy, let me first of all ask you: if, God forbid, your wife’s life had been threatened at her seventh month of pregnancy, and if it was indeed a fact that your wife would have died if the seven-month fetus were not aborted (which scenarios are not at all hypothetical), do you equate the two — your wife and the seven-month fetus — as equal, so a “murder” is unavoidably necessary? I do not. Your wife, a fully individuated and actualized human being, obviously has primacy, morally and legally, and if she had chosen to have the baby aborted, she would have been morally and legally within her rights, and not guilty in any way.
I do think, however, that in this issue, it is a very grave error to switch the discussion away from the early stages of pregnancy to exclusively the final stages. Statistically and otherwise, the third trimester has little to do with it. First, very few abortions are performed during this time. Second, during the third trimester, it is about as dangerous for a woman to abort as it is to give any kind of birth. Third, and most critical of all, a fetus, according to medical science, “does not achieve organic development until some time between the 28th and 34th weeks, at the earliest; so that even the minimal requirements of human personhood are absent through the first six months.” For all intents and purposes, the events of the third trimester — when the fetus’s lungs reach full development, when the fetus gains weight, and increases in strength prepatory to birth — are largely irrelevant to the abortion issue, because what is most relevant — even essential — is the first trimester, a period when the fetus is undeniably a biological parasite, and unambiguously not a human being. That is the time when the vast majority of abortions take place.
I actually think your test-tube scenario makes my point — certainly it makes it more clear: destroying protoplasm in a test-tube is the same as someone putting a gun to a woman’s head and pulling the trigger? Come, now. You cannot truly think this. You don’t really see these things as equal, do you? I mean, I’m asking. Surely if some scientist created life in a test-tube and then, for whatever reason, destroyed it, this is nowhere near tantamount to “murder.”
Rights by definition not only do not but cannot apply to the potential. “A thing is in a state of actuality when it has reached its full development; it is still in a state of potentiality when it has the capacity to reach development but has not yet done so. So although an acorn can and will grow into an oak tree under the right circumstances, it would be ludicrous to consider the acorn identical to the tree.” That is Aristotle’s distinction between the actual and the potential, and though he wasn’t necessarily speaking directly to abortion, it holds up completely for this issue.
An acorn is not the same as an oak; it’s not even the same as a baby oak. But it has the potential to become either on of these things.
The issue here is simple: indivduation versus non-individuation. Rights, by any valid measure, only belong to individuated human beings.
Define rights inside your own mind. Why don’t rights apply to animals? Why don’t rights apply to seaweed? Why do rights apply to any race and color of human being?
The issue here is the potential versus the actual. Sperm, egg, zygote, protoplasm — these are all potential; but it is a gross misunderstanding of the term rights to equate them with fully individuated, actualized human beings, even babies. And all the supposedly hard-hitting pictures and videos and articles you can come up with do not change this very basic fact.
Best of all possible regards.
micky2 said,
October 4, 2007 at 5:55 pm
First things first.
Who decides what and when individuism is obtained, what constitutes it and how ?
This will never be a winning or losing debate because it is always fought on an emotinal, spiritual, religeous, basis.
Two scientists will agree as quickly as two Chritians will.
Anti says;
“To equate the potential with the actual is sheer madness. It’s equating a pinecone with a pine.”
Neither one could claim anything without the other.
Is potential actual ?
(I am actually more of a person at 50 yrs. that I was at 1 yr.) Especially when dealing in humans. The two perpetuate each other to the point where none could exist without each other.
Anti says;
takin in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix — and that cutting them out is murder,
We must also remember that a cell at a certain point becomes an embryo and is not just a cell anymore.
Theory, religion, science and politics will never win or lose the answer to this question.
Its like a arguing apples and oranges. One side believes that there shoild be no interpretation at all. while the other will always define scientific resoning.
Oil and water.
Cloning ?
arclightzero said,
October 4, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Anti, this is, perhaps, where you and I are fundamentally different in our beliefs. While you choose to take an absolutely strict and literal definition, I choose to temper my interpretation with a bit of philosophy.
As such, I am just as concerned with the potential as I am with the actual. An acorn or pine cone is equally as important as the trees that they become. As Micky so eloquently stated, “Neither one could claim anything without the other.” It is so true and always important to remember. Bear in mind, under your logic there would be nothing wrong with somebody coming along and removing and destroying every acorn on an oak tree. While it is not the same as destroying the tree itself, you have now destroyed any potential for a new tree to be created.
While I have nothing but the deepest respect for you, Anti, I have to say that you err too much on a single side of the spectrum. It is noble and great to be a scholar, and it is equally as noble to be a philosopher, but the greatest men know how to entwine the two and spin reason.
part of why I take the stance that I do is because I wonder where Mozart is. I wonder where Einstein is. I wonder where Galileo, Beethoven and Davinci is. If people like these and all of the other greats in history were one in a million or one in ten million, then what happens to the odds when millions of potentials are arbitrarily exterminated. You have to be able to look at the possible - the “what can be.”
You see, Anti, and you’re going to blast me for this, but you are making the same classic mistake that the liberals are making here. You’re perspective is too singular and you have grown so concerned with the “right” that you have lost track of the bigger picture. Namely that life is not so easily defined as you seem to think it is. While I agree that the actual is important, I don’t think that it is any more important than the potential to be.
You quote Ayn Rand and speak of tonsils and the ruptured appendix, but there is a singular flaw in that logic; namely the fact that the tonsil, the appendix or the lowly cell do not have the potential to be anything more than what they are. They are not life. They are nothing but biological objects doomed to simply exist. A fetus, on the other hand, is capable of being more. It is capable of growth and learning and becoming something great. There is little difference between a fetus, an infant, a child or an adult. Each is in a state of growing, each is in a different state of consciousness, each has the potential to become more than what they currently are through growth. To exterminate a person at any stage not only ends that life but ends any further potential.
While I understand your concern for the rights of the mother (the actual) I can’t set aside the importance of potential in this argument.
But alas, the intent of this entire argument has been lost on semantics. The paradox still remains. Why are we afforded some rights when it comes to making choices, but the right to other choices is stripped away from us? Why is it ok to give the woman the right to choose to have an abortion but it not right to allow a private property owner to allow smoking on his property? I simply used the two for comparison because both involve “supposedly” inflicting harm on another being.
patrioticamerican said,
October 5, 2007 at 12:33 pm
A fetus will not develop into a sofa. It will not develop into a wrench. It will not develop into a cucumber.
Given the chance to live, it will develop into a CHILD. A human being. An individual. With rights.
Why are some so willing to denigrate a fetus as a “parasite,” and thus not “life; yet they will take the time to defend a murderer’s life by painting “Free Mumia” signs and singing ‘We shall overcome” outside the prison at 4 am?
A child is the most precious gift we can receive. To think of the MILLIONS of human beings who have been slaughtered in the name of “Choice” is staggering.
antisocialist said,
October 6, 2007 at 2:16 am
Well, boys, sorry it’s taken so long for the antisocialist to get back here. His hands have been full today.
micky2, you’re right in what you say about no one being persuaded by my arguments, especially if one’s convictions are fundamentally religious or dogmatic. But your question “who decides when individuism is obtained” is, to reiterate, not “decided.” Individuation, by definition, happens at birth. It means when the fetus is no longer living off a host.
Arclightzero, my brother, these convictions I hold on the issue of abortion are not only “tempered with philosophy” — they are entirely philosophical; that is the quiddity of the thing, (i.e. non-religious, non-emotive). The actual-versus-potential idea is as rooted in philosophy as anything can possibly get, and indeed this is a ancient philosophical question, if not specifically addressed to abortion. It is also absolutely non-partisan. Candidly, I’ve never in my life heard a leftwinger defend the right to choose on the basis of individuation and actualization, because leftwingers are as fundamentally dogmatic — non-philosophical — as the right.
Also, as an important point of clarification, the passage you and micky2 attribute to me about tonsils and ruptured appendix, et cetera, those were not my words, however much I might agree with them (and I do, very much). Those were Ms. Rand’s words, and I just want to be sure she gets the footnote.
Speaking of which, I’m no Objectivist, not remotely. Still, I imagine that your having the Rearden Steel widget above the blogging for life widget has Ayn Rand rolling over in her grave like a damn crocodile.
Patrioticamerican, you’re exactly right in what you say: the fetus will not develop into any of those things, although I think I speak for all of us, myself certainly, when I say that was never in question at all. In fact, the potential-actual argument adresses the very point. To wit: something is potential if it can be actualized into the given thing.
The key words in your excellent formulation are these: “It will develop …”
That is absolutely right, and you’ve managed to hit upon the very crux.
Also, as stated early on in this discussion, the term “parasite” in a biological context is non-pejoaritive — or, to use your word, “denigrating.” I specifically stated that right away because I knew some people would knee-jerk at it, as indeed you did. It is actually, in this context, a neutral term that denotes a being whose life utterly relies upon a host. That is all. We can change the word if you want, I’m okay with that, but the fact remains that the fetus lives parasitically; as long as the host is responsible for the life of the fetus, the right belongs to her. Anything less is, I’m afraid, a corruption of the concept “rights” and a downward spiral thereafter.
As for your bigger question — “Why are some so willing to denigrate a fetus as a ‘parasite,’ and thus not life;[sic] yet they will take the time to defend a murderer’s life by painting ‘Free Mumia’ signs …” — I’m afraid I can’t speak to that at all. Primarly because I would never defend a murderer, nor would I ever hold a sign saying anything — on the contrary, in fact: “Give them the horsewhip!” says antisocialist, and means it. As an aside, I’ve never heard anyone describe a parasite as “not life” — by which I take you to mean “non-living” — in part because the very term “parasite” presupposes life.
Fair enough, then. As micky2 said, I’m not going to change anyone’s mind here, nor did I expect to. I do, however, think it’s very important that you’re at least aware of the philosophical issues behind protoplasmic “rights” (so-called); also, please remember that if the courts ever see it your way — heaven forbid — a couple of the ramifications will be this:
In saying, as you have, that protoplasm has rights but the host does not, you’re saying that the thirteen-year-old girl raped by, for example, a man infected with HIV cannot be allowed to abort the fetus without committing murder; you’re saying that when we illegalize abortion, unsterile back-alley “murders,” which will instantly skyrocket, are simply another crime we must learn to deal with; you’re saying that the responsible fifty-year-old woman who gets pregnant by her husband but does not want another child for any reason, including the dangers it poses to her own health, may not legally abort because she’s committing murder … you’re not only saying all this and more, but also, on the exact same pretext that any free nation is morally justified in waging war upon a murdering dictator (which I wholeheartedly agree with), for this same reason, then, people like Eric Rudolph are morally justified in bombing abortion clinics, because, after all, who (as indeed patrioticamerican says just above) would not be morally outraged at all this “wanton murder”? At the most, Mr. Rudolph and his rational, non-psychotic ilk are guilty of vigilante justice, but not terrorism or murder. In other words, you’re saying — you’re actually saying — that these abortion doctors, as well as the women who have abortions, are the moral equivalent of the mass exterminators in history: Pol Pot, Mengela, Eichman, Stalin, et al.
Forgive me if we don’t see eye-to-eye.