“The don’t want to live. They want you to die.” –Ayn Rand
Blank-out.
This is me fisking the arguments for abortion set forth in The Ayn Rand Lexicon. I don’t consider these very good arguments, so if there’s something I’m missing, send me a link and I’ll take a look.
Why bother with this? Because abortion is the hook on which the pro-liberty movement is snagged. Worse, if liberty-seeking people do not correct this awful error, the utilitarianism undergirding their political arguments will lead them, in due course, to complicity in mass murder.
Rand is quoted in bold with the > symbol, Usenet style. All quoted italics are in the original.
> An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being.
I’m not quarreling with Rand’s arguments of rights here, though those claims are also poorly defended. The assertion quoted here fails because an intrauterine Homo sapiens is already a real existent, not a product of the imagination. A is A. A thing is itself. This is simply Rand defining an inconvenient fact out of existence.
> A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born.
How then? What in the essence of the entity has changed, as a matter of identity?
> The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).
Utilitarianism defended with a false representation of fact: The baby is a discrete living organism at the instant of conception. Just as a heads-up, when people start talking about which life takes “precedence,” it’s a good bet your life doesn’t. The purpose of utilitarianism is to rationalize your eventual murder, should that prove necessary.
> Abortion is a moral right – which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
This is hand-waving, emotional rhetoric with no persuasively-valid content. To see how easily it fails, swap in a hitch-hiker for the baby: Under what circumstances do you have the moral justification to murder the hitch-hiker you regret having picked up? If abortion is a matter of political rights, which is the hidden agenda of this text, the rights are all with the baby, since his existence creates the de facto contractual arrangement under which both parents are putatively bound.
You will hear abortion advocates claim that the baby is a squatter, essentially a tenant-at-sufferance. This is an inversion of the idea of tenancy, since the relationship was not caused by the “squatter.” But even stipulating that insipidity, the “landlord” has not acquired a moral right to exterminate the “tenant” – nor to kill him in the process of some putatively-lawful eviction.
> Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.”
Every living organism has the ontological right and moral duty to defend its life to the full extent of its capacity. Only human beings have to be reminded of this obvious fact of nature. Rand is defining all of biology out of existence for the cause.
> A piece of protoplasm has no rights –
Every living mammal – including you – is a piece of protoplasm.
> and no life in the human sense of the term.
Every human being was once a genetic Homo sapiens with “no life in the human sense of the term.” Almost all of us will attain that state again, before we are gurney-wheeled off this mortal coil. Meanwhile, some genetic Homo sapiens never attain human consciousness, where others have that status cut off prematurely by a non-lethal head injury or brain disease. Among genetic Homo sapiens possessing “no life in the human sense of the term,” only those unlucky enough to reside within a womb are acceptable murder candidates, with all the rest being presumed by Rand to have “rights” solely by virtue of their being extrauterine.
“[L]ife in the human sense of the term,” as a matter of ontology – of the real nature of the entity considered – commences at about age 4 or 5, when a genetic Homo sapiens who has been appropriately reared by human parents graduates into the human state of consciousness: Reasoning in proportion to conceptually abstracted facts of reality and choosing accordingly by free will. “[L]ife in the human sense of the term” cannot begin before this bright-line event. As a matter of identity, this is the distinction between a genetic Homo sapiens and a human being. Do note that this is a distinction without a difference here, since, with the exception of intrauterine infanticide, no other form of homicide is being championed by Rand.
> One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months.
Rand cannot offer any basis for arguing against any sort of intrauterine infanticide, provided the baby has not managed to wrestle his way all the way out of the womb before his murder, since his “rights” are entirely an accident of location. Within the womb he is “potential” – which means “not real” – where once he is without, he is instantly “actual” and is therefore thenceforth possessed of human rights.
Doubt me?
> To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious;
The child is actual. Nothing to discuss – or to kill – otherwise.
> to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable…
When you murder that chattering hitch-hiker, who is being sacrificed to whom?
> Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives.
When you leased out your house, you ‘sacrificed’ your own right to use and enjoy that property for the term of the lease. In initiating a course of action that results in an enduring obligation, you have not ‘sacrificed’ anything. When you hew to that obligation, you are not being coerced. Much worse, when you abdicate on that or any other obligation, you are acting anti-egoistically, introducing ineradicable scars to your life-long self-image.
> The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly.
This is funny to me, taking account of the actual lifelong self-destruction that results from abortion. False to fact, of course. Only the comatose or a non-human genetic Homo sapiens can undertake childbirth “unwittingly or unwillingly.“ This is simply excuse-making.
> Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals.
Implies coercive conception, like a feminist science fiction novel. This is a false representation of the cause of virtually all pregnancies. Meanwhile, following through on your obligations – especially to your own children – is your duty.
> For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster;
So is a car accident. Is hit-and-run okay?
> to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice,
Likewise to oppose the hit-and-run strategy, if “sacrifice” means being obliged to pay for one’s own mistakes, as opposed to socializing them to someone else.
> not for the sake of anyone’s benefit,
Tell that to the baby. But I don’t need to say that: If you are materially involved in an abortion, you will never be able to stop trying to justify your atrocity to the baby you murdered.
> but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.
That’s why babies should not be killed, to make you miserable! Ayn Rand wrote to teenagers. Here you see her “thinking” like one.
> If any among you are confused or taken 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 is murder, according to the notions of that proposed law.
Speciously conflating the part with the whole and voluntarily-sought surgery with homicide – all while deliberately misrepresenting some piece of legislation. How can anyone read reasoning this poor and not laugh out loud?
> Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality –
A potential existent has no existential reality. The baby is undeniably actually in existence. You couldn’t kill it if it were not.
> and that a human being’s life begins at birth.
False to fact and daft on its face. This is not simply a rationalization, it is a risible rationalization – and the entire rationale for the abortion industry.
> The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents.
Very true, but not the way she means it.
> As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility;
So enormous that only a few billion people have managed to make the cut so far.
> it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor;
Why should Junior have to pay for the window-pane he broke? He’s “ambitious and struggling, but poor.”
> particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption.
This is pure utilitarianism. You’re too good to do the right thing. Besides, the baby would rather be dead anyway. Swap in a foolishly-adopted kitten for the baby and see where you get. Is it better for the kitten for you to kill it, rather than adopting it out? Would that be better for you – for your on-going self-image?
> For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence:
Hyperbolize much?
> parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child’s physical and financial needs.
Dang. Actions have consequences. Who knew? The claims are hyperbolic, as is the omission of the rewards of parenthood. None of that matters, though, unless you are prepared to argue that fleeing the scene of an accident is morally justified. You made your bed, you sleep in it. In any other context, that would be Ayn Rand’s position, too.
> The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.
How about the uninsured motorist? Not having unwanted kids is an excellent reason to practice chastity. It is not a valid justification for assassinating unwanted children.
> I cannot quite imagine the state of mind of a person who would wish to condemn a fellow human being to such a horror. I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object. Judging by the degree of those women’s intensity, I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today’s intellectual field, they call themselves “pro-life.”
This is all just Randian invective, and I don’t intend to quibble about it. If you can hear this rant in the voice of a teenage girl, you’ll have a better understanding of its philosophical merit, I think. Given that her vitriol is so acidic, I wonder what there is to know about Rand’s own reproductive history: Was she in her youth “an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover”? But since this harangue is nothing but projection, the specious characterization of unquoted arguments, I’m ignoring it.
> By what right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices?
Ahem. Tell it to the baby.
> A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as “a rational animal,” would not permit anyone to ascribe the status of “person” to a few human cells.
The same stupidities repeated for emphasis.
Vide:
An object is what it is for the entire time it exists as that object. A is A.
“Rights” are accorded to all genetic Homo sapiens, not just the ones capable of defending those rights in words.
Being rational, per Rand’s own poorly-argued claims about “rights” is not of the essence. It is simple necessary to be an extrauterine genetic Homo sapiens.
The relative size or cellular complexity of that genetic Homo sapiens is also not of the essence, since, also per Rand, considered conceptually, the object is what it is with its measurements omitted.
Accordingly, Rand’s sole argument in favor of abortion consists of location, location, location. If the hitch-hiker was unlucky enough to snag a ride with you on the wrong day, his life is forfeit. “Wrong place, wrong time, thumb-sucker. Don’t worry, though. All organisms wish they were dead – and I’m going to be rich someday!”
Yeesh! This is not just monstrous and ghoulish, it is a ghoulish and monstrous betrayal of everything Ayn Rand claimed to stand for: It is anti-man, anti-mind and viciously anti-life. You’re not asking the baby to live for your sake, a cardinal sin to Rand, but to die for your sake, to spare you the inconvenience of bearing the costs of your choices. This is simply rationalized homicide.
Don’t believe me? Put yourself on the other end of the forceps. How do you like abortion now?
Meanwhile, got guilt? That’s the enduring dividend of attempting to deploy utilitarianism – philosopher-talk for crime – as a moral philosophy.
And yet Ayn Rand wanted abortion so badly that she was willing to “sacrifice” not just morality but all of objective reality to it. She killed her philosophy and all of the children of her followers in the abortuary – thus dooming her long-term impact on the life of the mind, since philosophical movements grow by families.
Why did she make this awful error? You answer that. But it is by now painfully obvious that there cannot be any valid justification for abortion – intrauterine infanticide – and that most-gruesome form of homicide is necessarily morally repugnant.
