How do you figure?

That's not a "form of eugenics", it is eugenics.

I didn't ask for a legal argument, I asked for a moral argument based on Objectivity.

You sidestepped the morality.

Very cowardly of you. That is easy, take the difficult side and justify your position.

However, at some point in time, and prior to birth, that being achieves a sufficient state of development that it can exist on its own. And there have been experiments that show that in-utero stimulus does have a long-term impact on the entity.

I would say that even after birth, that same being is totally dependent upon other beings, and often the choice by the one birthing the child is that it is them.

I don't see that those arguments meet the essence of owning oneself.

"Rehab" in this context means learning to walk with artificial legs, manipulate with artificial arms, learning to speak again, etc. Recovery from battle wounds, not drug addiction or stress.

I don't think I would say that going through rehab is a terrible experience. I've never been, but it seems to me like it would be a healing process. The battlefield is where I would think the terrible experience of a solider truly lies. It would be nice if we could create a society in which there were no wars, but unfortunately, I don't think that's possible. War is an inevitable and unavoidable aspect of human society. Forcing a woman to bear a child to term against her will, however, is not inevitable or unavoidable, so that analogy is invalid. Yes, it's true that some harm is unavoidable in life, but that fact should not be used to justify imposing additional harm which is avoidable.

"if the person never wanted the pregnancy".
Okay, let's set aside rape for the moment (which includes incest in most cases)...

If a person doesn't want a pregnancy, wouldn't you agree they should avoid doing the act whose function is to get them pregnant? (and I include men in this)

And isn't part of Objectivism being responsible for one's actions?

The case of rape is a unique one; I've been trying and can't think of another situation in which a human being is entirely dependent upon another without any possibility of passing the responsibility to another.

Are embryonic transplants possible, now? So a woman pregnant by rape could "donate" her embryo to either a woman who wanted to have a child, or to a surrogate for that woman?

Whether you like murders or not, they're going to happen. We still discourage murderers.

The only "safe" way of defining "human" is to say that a human is someone with a uniquely human genetic code. Otherwise, if you based it upon appearance, ability, or any other arbitrary criteria, someone will be able to declare a class of people as not human. Such as was argued about blacks under slavery, as the Nazis attempted with the Jews, and as I would argue in order to be able to persecute illegal aliens (if I thought I could get away with it). A human genetic code is about the only thing you can find in common with all humans.

I favor abortion in cases where the pregnancy threatens the mother's life; abortion would then simply be self-defense.
As for rape, yes, carrying your rapist's baby to term is a terrible experience. So is going through rehab for a soldier torn up on the battlefield; life is full of horrible experiences, sometimes. But, the baby can be put up for adoption; he's raped no one and his (or her) very life is a result of that vicious act.

Biden's assertion that it's good that "single mothers" will now be able to stay home and care for their kids thanks to Obamacare is related to the idea of abortion as birth control. To avoid responsibility for their actions, having sex, too many women now take the easy way out and abort. Likewise, to avoid the responsibilities of marriage, too many couples take easy divorces, creating many single-mother households. Likewise, too many single-mothers support the idea that they *should* be able to stay home with their kids (which they could do if they had stayed married).

I personally have mixed feelings about the issue of abortion. On the one hand, I think it should always be an option in the case of a rape, and probably for incest as well. But on the other hand, some doctors recommend abortions for fetuses that they think are developing abnormally, which makes me uneasy, as it almost sounds like a form of eugenics. Plus, doctors aren't always right.

Though at the end of the day, I have to admit the fact that regardless of what I feel, and regardless of what the law says, abortions are going to happen, whether I approve of them or not. Even if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, and abortions were made illegal once again, all that would do is cause a black market for abortions to open up and fill the economic demand. And in lieu of standardized, professional grade procedures being preformed by trained doctors and nurses using specialized surgical tools in sanitized clinics and hospitals, abortions would instead take place in dirty basements and back alleyways, preformed by any unskilled layman or hack who a woman, in her hour of darkest desperation, could persuade to stick a metal rod or rusty egg beater up inside of her.

And then on top of that, making abortions illegal would require the dramatic expansion of the industrial prison complex, as well as reinforcing the police state and enabling it to hunt down, capture, and prosecute any would-be abortionists who provided their seedy services to desperate women in need – and there's no guarantee the court system would not attempt to prosecute the women as well. After all, if abortion were to be legally reclassified as a form of murder, would that not make every woman who had one, if not the primary perpetrator, then at least an accomplice in the act? Can you imagine the effect this would have on society, on women, and especially on young teenage girls who simply wanted to erase that awful drunken mistake they made on senior prom night, but instead found themselves being prosecuted and inducted into the criminal justice system on charges of murder? Is that really a more preferable alternative to what we have now? Somehow, I just can't bring myself to say it is.

I don't know how many people here have seen it, but there's a movie called "The Cider House Rules" in which the theme of abortion actually plays a major role in the story. It's a really good movie, and I highly recommend it, especially to anyone who has concerns about the issue of abortion.

You can watch a trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4D2Hog1t...

Wow, geez. I'm sorry to hear that.

My grandfather on my dad's side passed away about five years ago, so I can sort of relate to what it's like to lose a family member. But in the case of my grandfather, he was already in his late 70s, and had been very sick for a long time, so it really wasn't a big shock to anyone in the family when he finally passed. Honestly, considering how sick he had been towards the end of his life, many of us were surprised he held on as long as he did.

I can't even imagine how it must feel to lose a family member suddenly and unexpectedly, especially at such a young age. I'm sorry for your loss.