Philsopher Benjamin Bayer on “why the embryo is not an individual with rights”:
If abortion only involved aborting the growth of a tumor, most would be willing to admit that the fight to remove it could be admirable, even heroic, and so surely a choice protected by right. But the embryo is a different kind of growth. It represents a distinctive stage in the human life cycle, and this fact allows the Augustinian opponents of individual rights to sow confusion.
Even though there are differences between the tumor and the embryo, the burden of proof on the opponent of abortion is to show why the embryo is different from a tumor in such a way that gives it rights while the tumor obviously has none. I will argue that there’s no reason to think it is different in the respects that matter to the Enlightenment–American conception of individual rights.
Recalling Rand’s definition, a right “is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” This last part of the definition reflects the important fact (as we’ve seen) that the concept of “individual rights” was developed by political philosophers to help structure a society to protect rationality and industry from the threat of violence and thereby enable individuals’ pursuit of happiness.
You may wonder why I decided to write a lot about abortion. As a man the issue doesn't affect me in a directly personal way, though there are women I care about for whom it's important. But my interest is mostly intellectual fascination. 1/
This is an excellent tweet thread by philosopher Ben Bayer at the Ayn Rand Institute:
You may wonder why I decided to write a lot about abortion. As a man the issue doesn’t affect me in a directly personal way, though there are women I care about for whom it’s important. But my interest is mostly intellectual fascination. 1/
Abortion is an issue on which Objectivism’s distinctive views in almost every single branch of philosophy converge to yield its distinctive position. 2/
Metaphysics: There is only natural reality, no supernatural God. Hence there is no God who ensouls the fetus and assigns it rights, or who demands women to sacrifice for his commandments. 3/
Epistemology: Reason is our only means of knowledge. Hence faith or emotions don’t tell us that the fetus has rights in case we feel disgusted about the idea of abortion, or in case we feel warm and fuzzy thinking about newborn babies. 4/
Ethics: Morality is about pursuing your happiness and living, not about sacrificing your happiness for others. Hence a woman is acting nobly by deciding against having children in favor of her career or whatever other positive value she chooses. 5/
Politics: Individuals need rights as conditions for the possibility of pursuing their happiness in a social context of other individuals doing the same. Hence rights apply only to actual individuals who coexist separately in society. They don’t apply to unindividuated fetuses. 6/
Those are at least the essentials. The abortion controversy is an excellent case study for exploring the implications of Objectivist philosophy. You can’t really understand its major positions without seeing the obvious implications for the abortion debate. 7/7
Andrew Bernstein demonstrates the problems with the “pro-life” arguments and elaborates on the proper way to view abortion. This includes a proper view of government, values, individual rights, and most importantly, the mother’s rights.
From the video description: “Abortion is an important issue consistently in the public discourse. What makes it so persistent? Should there be any legal limit on abortion? Much of the discussion about abortion revolves around differing views of when life begins. Is there something significantly different about an entity before and after it’s born?”
Contrary to conservatives, Ayn Rand supported the right to abortion; contrary to liberals, she opposed environmentalism; and contrary to libertarians (and others), she upheld a firm, assertive foreign policy.What unites these seemingly disparate positions? And what explains the moral fire with which she expressed her views on these issues? In this talk, Ayn Rand Institute fellow, Keith Lockitch, will argue that the answer lies in Rand’s view of self-esteem, which is key to understanding her perspective on issues of policy. Recorded at OCON 2014.
Dr. Bayer highlights several issues in regards to Ayn Rand’s defense of abortion including:
Rand claims that a child cannot acquire rights until it is born, which means that the fetus has no rights, not even in very late stages of pregnancy.
Many conservatives oppose abortion in the name of “personal responsibility,” but this is a sham.
Arguably, the law that only recently passed in New York legalizing all abortion after 24 weeks is the bill Rand would have supported.
Rand’s views on abortion are not only fundamentally at odds with religious conservatives, but also radically different from what most Democrats and sundry “liberals” offer to this day.
