The Other Side

Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 3 months ago to Culture
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Most of you know my attitude toward abortion. Due to a difficult pregnancy my wife was told to abort her second pregnancy. After consulting with me, she refused and subsequently our second son was born without a defect. However, I've been thinking about the other side and the more I thought about it, the more I understood it. It is the Ayn Rand perspective. First of all, I noticed that the anti-abortion advocates rarely acknowledge the woman who does not want to be pregnant. There are a multitude of reasons for this and I don't think I need to list them all. By the omission of the woman's perspective, she is being treated as a non-person, non citizen, not worthy of mention. By making abortion illegal, the woman is stripped of her free will and she is subjugated into carrying out the dictates of the state. It posits that a woman must suffer an unwanted pregnancy, possibly a painful childbirth, and the possibility of legal battles, and paying child support. But worst of all, particularly from an Objectivist standpoint is giving the government power over the woman's uterus. The government is constantly seeking ways to exercise more power over its citizens and controlling a woman's reproduction forces her to submit to the edicts of the government and the exertion of her full rights as an American.


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  • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    If something is needed or found to be desirable, people will get it, participate In it and sell and distribute it, whether it is prohibited or not. It's the definition of insanity as Einstein put it -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. How many times prohibition of anything has been tried and has failed? So you are quite right. As to birth control, as you know, it is against Catholic law. Anything that subverts the possibility of life is prohibited, and sex for pleasure and not procreation as well. And, there are some who outwardly espouse this attitude who are not Catholic, but I wonder if I were a fly on the wall....
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 10 years, 3 months ago
    Hello Herb7734,
    Indeed all parties involved must be given consideration. The 'Government's involvement" or interest is negligible at best it should certainly not not be paramount. I do not understand the resistance to common birth control (the pill) or the morning after pill at all. Yet, some would outlaw even these measures. And, I find it completely objectionable that some politicians would not even make exceptions for the life of the mother, rape or incest... Just from a pragmatic perspective we will never stop the practice entirely and back alley abortions would once again be the result. Prohibition does not work.
    Respectfully,
    O.A.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And the answer to that? Surely it's not vote for the same two parties with the same old answers. Even if the vote is largely meaningless it's a sign of non-support and utter contempt. Especially if applied at all levels.
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  • Posted by Technocracy 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am very pro 9 & 10, but the problem is the fed itself is the opposite. They grab and grab and grab powers they should never have.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ah but it is up to the States. California's version is particularly instructive. As long as the baby is not a viable citizen.Yet even the courts didn't touch the issue of when leaving, as far as I could tell, up the Doctors. As for the husband? Amend that. As for the birth father? Too damn many have no clue which one did the necessary deed. the only wedge I see is none. I got my whole loaf. Others had to settle for 18 slices instead of 21.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The decision was made a number of years ago to limit the woman's choice until viability and to ban the barbaric partial birth option. Unless it was a choice of one life or the other - purely medical decision. The amount of late term and all partial birth abortions have all but disappeared since then. I had to eat crow on that one myself and become more up to date. It was the subject of a discussion a few months ago..... I'm happy to say my views won and i didn't even know it.
    Abortion OK up to viability, then not OK. No one gets to eat a whole cake but everyone gets the majority of their view point. After that it's up to the States. Unless you are anti 9th and 10th Amenedment and pro ACLU.
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  • Posted by Technocracy 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Agreed. Ultimately the woman must make the final decision.

    However, legally taking away all rights from the father is also a major problem. Which is why this is, and will remain a wedge issue.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 10 years, 3 months ago
    Ayn Rand believed in the individual, and I believe that every single decision to abort or not to abort is a decision made by an individual. No matter who else has input, that individual is the woman who is pregnant.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 3 months ago
    Well said, Herb. On this point, I think all here can agree.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Excellent point. A still further complication. Several things to look at. Is the father there at all? If he is, is he pro or con abortion? Since it is the woman's body, does she get more of a say than him? The answers sure as hell can't be found in a sound bite.
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  • Posted by SaltyDog 10 years, 3 months ago
    Fair enough, Herb. But if we're going to look at all sides, as we should, what of the father? He's a party to the process as well, and presumably going to be financially responsible for the child. Or does the father not have any rights in the situation?
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