I still do not understand why we draw the lines where we do, both for life and capacity to enter contracts. For being held responsible for serious crimes, we take capacity on a case-by-case basis. In a hypothetical case where we could save a fetus and move it to an incubator without harm to the mother, maybe we're justified in using force to do it. I have heard selective pressures led birth to happen when it does because if the fetus grew larger the risk of death during birth would be greater than the risk being born earlier. Birth is clearly defined, but I don't see why it's a milestone for rights.

The decisions was whether or not to keep trying to save a non-viable newborn for a little bit longer or not.
It's not different to death-bed care for adults.
At no point did he suggest anything remotely relating to infanticide.

I know this is off topic, but the fact that conservatives reject/don't understand the concept of rights and are prepared to sacrifice the individual for some allegedly higher purpose, as we see with abortion, makes them collectivists. As such, they should be considered left wing too, just like any other collectivist. I refer to them as politically illiterate and religious leftists.
I know this isn't the mainstream view, but it's high time Objectivists start putting forward the proper political definitions, based on the fundamental issue of individualism vs collectivism.

You've given some of the best explanation as to why abortion should be perfectly legal that I've read anywhere, yet it's like you're talking to a wall.
The same nonsense just keeps getting regurgitated back at you, despite being thoroughly and repeatedly addressed.

No one called for "infanticide", let alone with "deadly accuracy". The deadly inaccurate misrepresentation in the dishonest article and the hysteria it has generated is the "propaganda of the religious right" outdoing the left.

A woman has no duty in her own life to bear a child, whether or not it would take extraordinary care under the 'politically correct' euphemism of "special needs". That a woman does not want that for any reason whatsoever at some or all points of her life is not subject to your "inclinations" and sarcastic demeaning as "crimping a social life". Nor is there any duty for what you misrepresent as merely "extending kindness" under penalty of forced sterilization and your desire for it.

Such pronouncements underscore the anti-abortionist utter contempt and lack of concern for other people's individual values and rights in their own lives, specifically those of the women they regard as cattle.

That man-hating attitude seeking and demanding sacrifice of women to mystic "rights" of the unborn is right out of its origins in the Catholic Church and its later expressions as discussed in Ayn Rand's article "Of Living Death", already referred to in this thread https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post.... "Of Living Death" is "an extended analysis of the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, laying bare the vicious motives behind the Catholic Church’s views on sex, contraception and abortion." https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1968...

I'd be more inclined to listen to quality of life concerns, rather than how dealing with a special needs child crimps someone's social life. There are some devastating birth defects that would make it impossible for the child to enjoy life, and maybe it's best to let them go. I've seen people who made the decision to accept a special needs child, sometimes by adoption, and they seem able to have a full and joyful life. People who can't extend kindness beyond their own self should be sterilized at puberty.

Killing children is not abortion at all. Repeatedly running to the the imagery of infanticide is not a defense of anti-abortionists forcing women to bear children they don't want.

Neither is demanding "adoption" as a substitute for abortion. This has nothing to do with the excursions into "protecting identity" and "medical ancestry". There are many reasons why a woman may not want to bear a child, or not bear a child to put it up for adoption, or not want to put it up for adoption at all if it were to be born. None of those reasons are the proper concern of the anti-abortionists imposing their will on others in their barbaric forcing of women to bear children.

LOL Now they're even 'downvoting' the forum moderator in their crusade. They don't intend this one, like the historical crusades, to be "fun". His sustained, defiantly repetitive personal attacks should not be tolerated at all. A written code of conduct for the forum should not be needed to know better than this for any civilized person, let alone on a forum for Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason. The goal is not to personally "attack" either "the man" or "the argument", which is the wrong mentality.

There is no such thing as an abortion of a child that survived birth. Birth does not mean "draws its first breath". It is born alive or it isn't, whether or not prematurely.

The ridiculous argument that the brain must be fully matured before being human only at the age of 25 is your own ridiculous argument. A person does not have to be mature to be a person and no one has said that.

When deciding what extraordinary measures will be taken to try keep someone alive, the value to themselves of different kinds of lives possible and those taking care of it is necessarily a consideration. It is not undertaken by out of context dogmatic duty either in this kind of situation pertaining to patients of all ages or in abortion and contraception.

The context dropped for that quote is that he said he was talking about exceptional cases where the infant is severely damaged or not viable at all. The question then arises as to what to do or not do to take extraordinary measures to keep it alive. This has nothing to do with abortion and occurs every day for patients of all ages.

Conservative commentators have routinely dropped the context in their 'interpretation', edited it out of videos they show, and left it out of their quotes, replacing it with their own insinuations and worse, such Ex adding his own "waiting to be killed". They then use their own additions and imagery as an excuse to crank up the hysteria full bore with demagogic accusations of "nazis" and "murder" while misrepresenting and smearing the bill, the doctors and everyone else defending the right of a woman to not bear a child. That is what the article referenced at the top of this thread does, but it is only one example. It is all demagoguery intended to provoke hysteria against all abortions, employing a false imagery to smear abortions at all stages.

The woman can make a decision to offer the child for adoption, and her identity is protected from disclosure by law. With technology on the path it is today, I'd recommend she provide a medical history and DNA sample for the record. That way her offspring can get the answers regarding medical ancestry without requiring contact.

Legally, once a child is born alive, the doctor involved risks charges of murder if the mother asks that the child be terminated. It is no longer a part of her body, but a human being with a right to life.

At what point does the right of a mother to demand the death of a child end? Abortion, by law, recognizes that right prior to birth, but to extend that right to end the life of a living, breathing human being beyond birth is stretching the legal bounds to breaking.

And the decision involves the life of another living being, and its future. Her body health has already been resolved, since the situation being discussed is when the child has been delivered alive.Trying to get around the fact that her decision involves consideration that one human life is worth less than another is dishonest.

Of the options, one is to force the woman into parenthood. She says, no. do you force?

The woman is to make a decision about her body and her future. She takes into account technical specialist advice.

RE: "Do you think I give two runny sh*ts what you think?"
Boy oh boy, it sure looks like you guys are having fun in here. Let's take a down a notch though gharknees. You can do better than this. Please refer to the Gulch Code of Conduct and let's clean it up.

RE: "At least I pay my dues. I see you don't." ( from here: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... )
We don't do this here either. Take a breath. Attack the argument, not the man.

https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/faq#...

So, by your definition, a child isn't human until it draws first breath? Technically, the human brain isn't fully developed until about the age of 25, so one could make the argument that the death of a being before their 25th birthday isn't really the death of a human, but that's a ridiculous argument.

Doctors consider third trimester premature births as deserving of preservation, so what are they? Is the ability to breathe oxygen what makes one human?

What do you suggest be done with a child that survives an abortion attempt? The mother has already made the decision that she doesn't want the baby, but by your own definition, it's now a breathing human being, and its death by instrument or dehydration is now murder. I'm just looking for consistency.

He did say "waiting for a decision by the mother and her doctor." What other decision could he be discussing other than to let the child live or die? I'd be curious what you think he meant.

When a claimed "heart is developed", ignoring all the characteristics of what a person is, is not the basis of being a human person with rights. We do not have rights because a "heart beats". Claiming that it creates a "right" to an entitlement to be born six months later is an arbitrary assertion in an emotional appeal to irrelevancy, not "based on facts". Ycandrea has made the same baseless assertion about the "moment of conception".

'Sez you sez me' everything is nothing but opinion "We have a right to ours" does not justify a right to impose brutal use of government force under criminal law to enforce religious beliefs, which is theocracy, not a civilized free society. Repetitive, bald assertion of stark "opinion" is neither rational discussion nor a basis for government coercion to barbarically force a woman to bear a child.

Ycandrea's arbitrary 12 week deadline was decreed in the arrogant assertion, "If the mother's life is in danger or if the circumstances are such the mother feels a desperation (rape, etc) but NOT after twelve weeks! If it takes one longer than that to make up one's mind, they need help". The arrogantly authoritarian Ycandrea does not decide for another woman why and by when she needs an abortion. As originally stated, "You don't decide by when a woman decides not to bear a child for any reason she wants, including the accumulating knowledge of normal or abnormal progression of the potential birth." The accumulating medical knowledge over time does not imply that a woman needs Ycandrea's version of "help". Most late term abortions are for reasons of health, not inability to "make up one's mind". Nor is any of it any of Ycandrea's business at all to impose arbitrary "opinion" with theocratic force.

"Gharkness" can think anything he wants to with his unchanged mind and open refusal to read. These irrational outbursts and personal accusations, including speculations about other people's "biggest problem", do not belong on this forum. That is not "beating a dead horse".

You just keep on beating that dead horse. There are people who just don't know when to shut up. It appears you happen to be one of them. I think your biggest problem is that you haven't been able to change my mind. Nope, not even the slightest. And you seem to think that if you keep on you will make me change. Trust me: this is not the first time I have thought about this situation. I have heard all the arguments (and you have yet to come up with anything new or even slightly convincing). But hey, keep beating that dead horse.

Rage,hahahah!

Oh, and while you are at it, hey, get me thrown off. At least I pay my dues. I see you don't.

Backing up "opinions", i.e., conclusions, with facts and reasons is not "dismissing everyone's opinions" and is the opposite of the competing arbitrary opinions of faith and force. Your "opinions", i.e., bald assertions, have been rejected in reason with explanation. Your arbitrary opinions do not become true by denouncing "opinions" you don't like as nothing but "opinions".

Pointing out, after refuting your anti-conceptual argument, how anti-abortionist activists typically exploit your fallacy by expanding it beyond a single range of the moment does not "start arguing with someone else". It shows the consequences, which is not avoiding alleged "tough going".

The "nature of human development" cannot be understood or discussed by appealing to 'here now same organism', without regard to concepts and context, in the name of science and objectivity. Nor is such a context-dropping assertion about the moments just before and just after birth a discussion of the "nature of human development" at all.

The dramatic difference between pre and post birth most certainly has already been discussed, both in this thread and previously. Also already discussed in this thread is the simple fact that before birth the fetus has developed the potential for the functionality it will begin to use after birth.

Understanding what a person is is a requirement for anything related to the topic of this thread, and cannot be banned as not "biological". It does not require technical biological concepts outside of general knowledge. And your "From conception on there is a continuity" does not mean that there is no difference between stages of development as if essential differences in attributes do not exist. It takes concepts to understand all of this, not staring at one event at a time out of context, ignoring the difference between functioning and its potential, then proclaiming from moment to moment: 'It's the same thing'.

To say nothing but "here now same organism" would be pointless by itself. To try to further conclude from that that it is "biologically identical before and after birth", in denying that a fetus is only a potential human being, is a non sequitur. The anti-conceptual, deliberately context-dropping perceptual argument of 'it's the same thing' has been refuted, not evaded as "tough going". In remaining on the anti-conceptual level of perceptual empiricism (as in Hume and the Positivists) you don't seem to know what you are missing.

A sleeping person has to first be a person. Sleeping is a normal part of life, included in the concept 'person'. That does not make nine months of development to become a person just 'not what you happen to be doing at the moment'. "Brain activity", regardless of what it is and what it accomplishes, does not imply being a person.

A fetus "capable" of what it could do if it is later born is a potential person. You are not an undead corpse, a kind of corpse, because you "just haven't been presented with the opportunity" to cease all life functions.