Dozens? Methinks most Gulchers have tired of this stalemate and are reading fresher stuff by now.

This thread is a reminder that there are people out there who will use this medium to hurl insults and say things they'd never say face-to-face. If you don't agree with somebody's argument, insult them. We've had very little of that at the Gulch in the past. If it continues this place will go to the internet boneyard like so many other forums.

Objectivism works. Questioning your own philosophy works. The problem here is the topic of abortion. It is like religion in that it drives people to behave irrationally. And, I'll bet $100 that a couple irrational, upset people apply to this comment. Please don't waste your time. I won't read it...

So NOT providing medical assistance to a baby born prematurely (which can happen naturally) would be considered murder then?

OK, thanks. You guys must be buddies. I hope you find happiness today. You must have typer's cramp from this thread...

It’s a complex question. What if she wants an abortion but waits until a week before she would have delivered. Where is the line drawn

It does relate to abortion. My initial point was that this whole area is very complicated. The woman could plan on delivering the baby but abandoning it as an alternative to abortion

I'm not anti-abortion. And, I've never seen you here before. Interesting. You're making assumptions and tossing accusations. You must be a hoot at a party.

Because NOBODY would dare eat the PATE !!

I don't cease to be amazed that people are willing to engage in a "debate" with ewv or Peter Smith.

It is an exercise in frustration.

I gave to the answer. It really isn't that hard to compehend and I'm sure you can figure it out. I don't have time to waste so this topic is over for me.

Actually, if you read the link, you would have seen a pretty good estimate of how many abortions are private and not subsidized. I have no problem with those, and shouldn't.

The original point was that abortion is a sacrament of the left, and I am quite sure that for quite a few, that is the case. For example, when my first daughter was five months in my wife's womb, her ob/gyn doctor spent several minutes trying to convince my wife to have an abortion because genetic testing suggested that there was somewhere between a 5-10% chance of what is now my daughter having birth defects. My now 23-year-old daughter is brilliant in every way. I asked the doctor to elaborate on why she thought the way that she did... She made the eugenics argument.

There is no "elephant in the room". Inventions attributed to what he said are dishonest, not "obvious".

Fetuses are not "tortured to death". You missed his point about awareness of pain.

A fetus is not a child. It hasn't been unborn. The concept "stranger" doesn't even apply, let alone justify banning abortions.

The right of abortion does not mean an entitlement to have you pay for it. Banning abortions to impose an entitlement to be born forces the woman to "pay" a lot more.

It was neither a response nor on the level of the serious discussion here.

?

You said you donated money to block a bill allowing third trimester abortions and advocate other restrictions. Banning abortion at any time and with any restrictions is banning abortions.

"Goofy 'tra la la' cartoonish parodies and playground-style taunting are not rational discussion."

You said "it's an interesting book". What is interesting about calling abortion a sacrament and claiming it as widespread? It isn't true.

There are many "true" divisions in this society. "Conscience" is not one of them, it is a subjective state that is meaningless without an objective moral standard.

Ayn Rand emphatically defended the right of a woman to control her own body and rejected laws banning abortion. That is the Objectivist position. Ayn Rand explained why in several articles, and reasons have been given throughout this and other threads on this topic. That is in contrast to the emotionalism, subjectivist dogmatic pronouncements, smears, and sniping wise cracks coming from the anti-abortionists, who not acknowledge or address the explanations on behalf of the rights of the individual against anti-abortionism.

The collectivist nature of the anti-abortion activists violating the rights of the individual is described in this thread here: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Anti-abortionist collectivism is sacrifice to entities not born https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

The collectivism of the 'rights of the unborn' movement is similar to environmentalism in that both demand sacrifice to a collective of non-human entities.

At least the Marxists claimed to be for people -- they were not because they sacrificed real individuals to a reified collective, in practice to the state claiming to represent the people, but at least sought to be oriented, though in an illogical way, towards people. Enviornmentalism and anti-abortionism are misanthropic by nature.

The viros sacrifice people to an alleged intrinsic moral value of nature regarded as superseding human rights and values in the name of the "rights of nature". Their collective is all entities in nature other than people. There is no such thing as 'intrinsic value', let alone intrinsic value of nature, which is a mystical, invalid concept. And there is no such thing as "rights" applied to nature, which treats 'rights' as a floating abstraction in promoting the invalid concept "rights of nature".

Its meaning in reality is politically decreed entitlements forcing people to sacrifice to nature, which requires the wholesale obliteration of (human) rights. The sacrifice is not even altruism in stated intent because altruism means living for other people, but the false nature morality requires in political practice -- as in all collectivism -- sacrifice to the omnipotent state, to be run by and for the viros, which claims to represent "nature".

Likewise for the anti-abortionists. They sacrifice people to an alleged intrinsic moral value of a potential human regarded as superseding human rights and values of real people in the name of "rights of the unborn". Their collective is any form of potential life before birth, ranging from fetuses to unorganized clusters of cells. The invalid intrinsic value is a mystical notion of soul, or in the modern version primitive entities with human dna, to which they emotionally attach "rights" as a floating abstraction in the form of the invalid concept "rights of the unborn".

It's meaning in reality is the politically decreed entitlement of a potential to be born, requiring the obliteration of the rights of women through the barbaric practice of forcing women to bear children they don't want. That sacrifice is also not altruism in intent (though it often postures as it) because a potential person is not a person. Even the founder of altruism, Auguste Comte, did not demand that people sacrifice to the unborn. But the mystical false duty morality requires in political practice -- as in all collectivism -- sacrifice to the omnipotent state, in this case largely theocratic, to be run by and for religious conservatives claiming to represent the inborn.

Both viroism and anti-abortionism, as well as the Marxist economic version of collectivism, are the antithesis of the Enlightenment philosophy of reason and individualism for human beings on which this country was founded, and especially Ayn Rand's pro-man philosophy of reason, explicit egoism, and freedom under the rights of the individual.

The mother takes on responsibility for children she chooses to have.