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Reproductive Freedom—Absurdity, Atrocity, and Common Ground

“Those who can make one believe absurdities can make one commit atrocities.”—Voltaire

Regarding reproductive freedom, I will show how there can be common ground and mutual respect based in reality, but to enable such progress, I will first have to give a hard lesson in reality to those holding back progress.

Although I am pro-choice and atheist, I have never called myself a liberal because I detest liberal hate, hypocrisy, and arrogance, but it’s even worse than that. So-called liberals are so thoroughly dominant in society and government that they can go 24/7 and never hear a serious challenge to their narrative; whereas, everyone else hears challenges daily.

To fully grasp the first hypocrisy, all sides must consider the current legal reality, which is that abortion is a choice, and if abortion is a choice, then birth is a choice, and if abortion is solely the choice of the woman, then birth is solely the choice of the woman, and if birth is solely the choice of the woman, then birth is solely the responsibility of the woman (assuming no contract such as marriage). However, if the woman chooses birth, the man must pay for 18 years.

(This was the epiphany that induced me to begin writing in 1990.)

In my experience, over 90% of people just can’t get their head around this concept, but for those who thoroughly get it, you can skip the next 3 paragraphs.

Many prerequisites are necessary for birth. For example, it is necessary that the couple had sex and didn’t use a condom. It is even necessary that the couple’s parents gave birth to them, but only one prerequisite is both necessary and sufficient. A woman’s choice is the only prerequisite that is both necessary and sufficient for birth.

Suppose a woman says a man she barely knows can help her plant acorns in her garden—because it is fun to plant seeds together. Suppose 50% of the acorns were given to her by that man. Of course, it is still the woman’s garden, and the choice to care for the trees or to extirpate them at any time is solely the choice of the woman because it is her garden. If the woman chooses to let the trees take root and care for them for the next 18 years, then the man is clearly not responsible for 50% of the care.

Likewise, suppose a woman says a man she barely knows can plant DNA in her uterus—because its fun to plant DNA together. Suppose 50% of the DNA were given to her by that man. Of course, it is still the woman’s uterus, and the choice to give birth or to abort at any time is solely the choice of the woman because it is her uterus. If the woman chooses to give birth and care for the child for the next 18 years, then the man is clearly not responsible for 50% of the care (assuming no contract, such as marriage).

The liberal hypocrisy around child support is very difficult for people to understand because child support affirms the very different biases of both liberals and conservatives. It may thus seem like both sides already have common ground on child support, but such common ground is irrational and not based on reality. It is necessary to overcome liberal hypocrisy if we are to be rational people and thus have the opportunity to achieve common ground and mutual respect based in reality.

The liberal hypocrisy surrounding child support can be summarized as a pro-woman double standard:
Liberals say that a fetus containing a man’s DNA is none of his business.
Liberals say that a fetus containing a man’s DNA obligates him to pay 18 years of child support.

This double standard for child support creates another hypocrisy in the form of a pro-rich double standard. Under thousands of years of “conservative” laws, a rich man and a poor man could impregnate many women; whereas, under today’s “liberal” laws, a rich man can impregnate many women, but a poor man cannot afford to do so.

The liberal hypocrisy around child support denies reproductive freedom for men. Then liberals add insult to injury.

Liberals say that men have all the reproductive choices, but consider:
A woman can choose to be pregnant or she can choose to not be pregnant; whereas, a man can never choose to be pregnant.
A pregnant woman can choose birth or abortion for her offspring; whereas, a man can choose neither birth nor abortion for his offspring.
It is thus men who have no reproductive choice.

The next liberal hypocrisy demonstrates that the pro-female double standard is actually a pro-female voter double standard. Under thousands of years of “conservative” law, a woman who reached reproductive maturity could compete with older women to get a man; whereas, under today’s “liberal” law, a woman who reaches reproductive maturity must wait several more years before she is legally allowed to compete with older women to get a man.

Now lets move from liberal hypocrisies such as pro-female, pro-rich, and pro-voter double standards to liberal hypocrisy surrounding abortion itself.

How is it that liberals say they are defenders of the little guy when it is liberals who say it is OK to kill the littlest of little guys—even as it is being born?

How is it that liberals say it is the responsibility of everyone to fight those fascists who oppress the little guy when it is liberals who say that anyone who defends a fetus—the littlest of the little guys—is a fascist?

How is it that liberals can label as heroes those who fight the fascist governments that exterminated millions of the little guys when it is liberals who label as “terrorists” those who fight the businesses and governments who exterminate millions of fetuses?

How is it that liberals say the powerful must pay to support the weak because the weak are innocent victims of circumstance when it is liberals who say that the most innocent of all must pay with their lives for the bad decisions of adults, who are infinitely more powerful?

How is that liberals can say that killing a fetus one minute before birth is no more wrong than throwing out the trash when liberals also say that killing a fetus one minute after birth is murder.

Liberals look a lot like slave owners to pro-lifers. Let’s look at a few examples:

To those who believe that a fetus is a person, arguing for the freedom to kill a fetus for one’s own convenience (as if they own it) because the fetus is weaker and not fully human, is tantamount to arguing for the freedom of slave owners to own slaves because most people thought of them as weaker and not fully human.

Liberals say, “Everyone acknowledges that abortion is an ugly thing, but many normal respectable people do it, so mind your own business.”
Slave owners say, “Everyone acknowledges that slavery is an ugly thing, but many normal respectable people do it, so mind your own business.”

Liberals say: Abortion is about freedom—the freedom of the mother.
Slave owners say: Slavery is about freedom—the freedom of the owner.

Liberals say: “The morality of the decision to abort is between the woman and her priest, so mind your own business.”
Slave owners say: “The morality of the decision to own slaves is between the owner and his priest, so mind your own business.”

Liberal men say, “I am pro-choice because I don’t have a uterus and I am not a fetus, so it’s none of my business.”
Poor whites said, “I am pro-choice (for slaves owners) because I don’t have a plantation and I am not a slave, so it’s none of my business.”

Pro-life activists are ridiculed for defending those who the mainstream feels are weak and not fully human.
Abolitionists were ridiculed for defending those who the mainstream felt were weak and not fully human.

As you can see, from the perspective of pro-lifers, they are the abolitionists and civil rights activists of our day, while the pro-choice activists are the slavery apologists of our day.

At this point liberals are screaming, “OK. I may have some double standards about child support, but those examples about abortion itself were not hypocrisies if I believe that a fetus is not a person! Please respect me enough to understand that such belief is rational!”

Liberals, I feel your pain—brief though it were. Perhaps now you can empathize with pro-lifers who you make feel that way all day, every day.

You big meanies.

What? You think liberals don’t do that?

Liberals say that pro-lifers are hypocrites who advocate a death penalty but oppose abortion, when the reality is that such pro-lifers are consistent by advocating death for the guilty and life for the innocent.

Like I said … You big meanies.

The corollary would be for conservatives to claim that liberals are hypocrites because they favor killing the innocent and not the guilty, and yet, I have never heard this accusation from conservatives. Why are conservatives so much nicer than liberals?

Although some liberal positions are not actually hypocrisies because liberals supposedly really do believe the fetus is not a person, it is unfortunate that liberals obfuscate the issue and bully others with so many logical fallacies. For example, liberal men say, “I don’t have a uterus, so abortion is none of my business,” which is a fallacy. It is tantamount to saying, “I don’t own a plantation, so slavery is none of my business.”

Even if you could not afford slaves, it is your business when millions of others buy slaves. Even if you don’t live in Rwanda, it’s you business when millions are being exterminated. Even if you didn’t live in Nazi Germany, Bolshevik Russia, or Maoist China, it would have been your business when millions were being exterminated. Genocide and slavery of other persons are always your business—if you want them to be. It is thus not relevant whether one has a uterus; it is only relevant whether the fetus is a person—that is what determines whether abortion is different than genocide—and it is rational to believe that a fetus is not a person, and it is also rational to believe that a fetus is a person.

The only difference between a baby one minute before it is born and one minute after it is born is whether it is inside the woman, which has no relevance to the rights of the baby because it was the man and the woman who put it there, and it was the woman who decided to leave it there. If you put someone in a position in which they cannot take care of themselves, and through no fault of their own, then it is your responsibility to make it right, such as by taking care of them until they can take care of themselves. It is thus a fallacy to claim that even if it is a person, it can be aborted simply because it is still inside the womb.

Even if one believes that a fetus is not a person, it is a fallacy to say it is not a person one minute before it is born and that it is a person one minute after it is born.

This does leave two final and rather disturbing hypocrisies …

When liberals can’t explain why a fetus has no rights and instead use logical fallacies to defend abortion, one can’t help but think that maybe such liberals actually do believe the fetus is a person, but are willing to kill it anyway—because they can.

Most liberals believe that people have souls, which is what makes them people, which is why they have rights.
Many of those liberals say that one can kill a fetus—even as it is being born—when they cannot possibly know whether that fetus already has a soul.

Liberals are able to be such extreme hypocrites without knowing it because for generations they have controlled the media, academia, and government. Whereas conservatives and libertarians are confronted and challenged all day, every day; liberals can go all day, every day, without being confronted by any serious challenge. Hence, they can get pretty nasty when challenged. Come to think of it. Liberals don’t sound very liberal at all. It seems almost as if conservatives and libertarians are more liberal than liberals.

Until liberals reject their fallacies, hate, hypocrisy, and arrogance … common ground and mutual respect will elude us. The reality is that both pro-choice and pro-life positions can be based on noble and rational values. Defending the rights of women is noble, and defending the rights of the little guy is noble (and liberal). It all depends on whether you believe the fetus is a person, and although a fetus is not a sentient being and is not a part of any society, it is a person in every other respect. Therefore, one can rationally hold either belief.

Regardless of one’s belief, the reality is that abortion is legal and enjoys wide support, and thus the reality is that sex causes pregnancy, and a decision causes birth. For several decades now, it is the woman’s decision, and only the woman’s decision—every day of a pregnancy—to choose whether to abort or continue.

Although I begin to get uncomfortable with abortion around the six week mark, I am pro-choice because it is none of the government’s business, so I think that pro-lifers get it wrong when they try to forcibly prevent abortion through legislation. Another reason I am pro-choice is because pro-lifers can’t justify enforcement of their beliefs because they just don’t have any compelling evidence that their religion is real, that souls are real, or that a fetus is a sentient being. Also, a fetus is not a part of our society and never was a part of our society. Therefore, pro-lifers simply have no compelling justification to forcibly prevent abortion.

One of the two strongest argument pro-lifers can make is that it really hurts their conscience (and psychologically damages most women) to allow what they perceive as innocent persons to be killed, but that is not sufficient justification to force a woman to carry a fetus. The other is that once a fetus can survive outside the womb, then equality under the demands that it have the same rights as a newborn.

So, where are all the people in the middle who take the position that abortion is wrong, and who would try to persuade other couples to choose birth, but who also take the position that one must never use the government to enforce one’s beliefs on others. Well, so-called liberals have bullied them all into fully adopting the liberal pose or keeping their mouth shut.

Pro-lifers, I feel your pain. This is what happens with Global Warming, political correctness, and thousands of other topics. [Update 2022: This is what happened with all things Covid.]

Nevertheless, I am not in the middle. The middle is no more or less rational than the two main sides. It is just a side that should also exist, but which has been extinguished by liberals.

The most rational position is: First, souls are purely speculative, and religion is purely speculative. Second, if I expect others to respect my rights as a sentient being, then I must respect their rights as sentient beings, and a fetus is not a sentient being—nor can it defend anyone’s rights. Third, although a newborn baby is not a sentient being either, parents value the lives of their babies more than they value other actual sentient beings, and if I expect other people to respect my values and especially my values as a parent, then I must respect their values. Fourth, equal protection under the law means that a fetus that is not a significant threat to the life of the mother, and which could probably survive outside the womb, is entitled to the same right to life as a newborn.

Constitutionally Correct Abortion Law [update 2022]

We covered much of the nuance surrounding abortion in: Reproductive Freedom: Absurdity, Atrocity, and Common Ground, but given the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, let’s look at what the law itself was, is, and should be.

It is paramount that we separate the question of when government should get involved from whether we approve of any particular decision to abort. Such separation is not just paramount for one who supports correct jurisprudence, but perhaps more importantly, because conflating the two is how we are played. It is one of the thousands of ways the Apex Players try to make us dislike, distrust, and distance each other, so that we are looking at each other instead of looking at them, and so that we cannot unite against them.

One could believe that the Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to ban or allow abortion, and one could simultaneously believe that abortion is ethical or not in a given instance and could thus praise, tolerate, or shame those who perpetrate it.

Certainly the Supreme Court did not make a serious attempt in Roe v. Wade to base its decision on the Constitution. The gist of its creation of a right to abortion is captured in this quote from its decision:

The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion.

Um …. Wut?

It went on to explain why there is indeed a right to privacy, but still …. Wut?

The people do indeed have many rights that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or the Bill or Rights. The entirety of the 9th Amendment states:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

So, why didn’t they base their decision on the 9th amendment. Why is it that the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the executive branch pretend that the 9th Amendment doesn’t exist?

The reason is probably the same as why I was shocked the first time I read the 9th amendment as an adult, which is that it directly contradicts how the government interprets the Constitution. It directly contradicts how Democrats, fascists, progressives, liberals, leftists, and collectivists interpret the Constitution, and let’s be honest with ourselves …. That is who the Apex Players have put in charge of America, and that is thus who created the Roe v. Wade decision.

Apologies to those self-proclaimed progressives and others on the so-called left who have begun to wake up after they saw what the DNC did to Bernie, and who were further jarred before they could go back to sleep by how Bernie sold out, and by such absurdities as Russiagate, and who now appear to have been permanently awakened by the establishment tyranny and deception surrounding all things Covid … but this awakening is a very new phenomenon and hasn’t become very widespread yet.

Nevertheless, I am very grateful for these new allies in humanity’s fight against the Apex Players, who have always waged war covertly against humanity, but who used one of their front men, Joe Biden, to openly declare war on humanity on September 9th, 2021 for the first time, when he declared a vaccine mandate.

Such a declaration against what is considered the freest, wealthiest, and best armed population in the world, and who the Apex Players see as the last thing standing between them and total global control, was qualitatively different than pushing around those in other countries who had previously allowed the Apex Players to disarm them. Such a declaration was thus tantamount to an open declaration of war against humanity.

Then the Apex Players tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube. They tried to unring the bell. They pulled the rug out from under us not long after they lost control of their convoy psyop in which the entire Western establishment tried to frame their opposition as Nazis, racists, psychopaths, and terrorists. However, the people took control of the psyop and turned it into a movement based on freedom, joy, and love known as the Freedom Convoy …. and it was working …. the Apex Players were losing control for the first time in a long time. They could have lost the illusion of legitimacy, without which, they are finished, so before that could happen, they pulled the rug out from under us with their sudden switch to Ukraine. Of course, we must never forget the unknown heroes who may have given their lives to release Omicron, and who thereby made the Freedom Convoy possible.

So what is the constitutionally correct decision that will end the ongoing abortion psyop?

Consider that immediately after reading the 9th Amendment and fully understanding it for the first time …. I read the 10th Amendment, whose entirety is:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Like the 9th Amendment, the 10th also tells us how to interpret the Constitution, and directly contradicts the establishment narrative, which is that the US government can do anything that is not directly and explicitly forbidden by the Constitution.

Amendments supersede anything earlier, so it is clear. The US government was created by the states, and has no powers other than the handful explicitly delegated to it by the Constitution; whereas the people have many more rights than the handful explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, and rights are not created by the Constitution. The Constitution has merely recognized some of the rights that exist independently of the Constitution.

To be clear, note that all rights are negative rights, which means they are a kind of individual liberty. There can obviously be no right to be given free stuff. For example, there can be no right to free healthcare, because doctors are not our slaves, and taxpayers are not our slaves. In a nutshell, no man has a right to the fruits of another man’s labor.

Now that we know how to interpret the Constitution, we see that the US government has not been explicitly granted any power to rule on abortion, but it does have the power to recognize any of the additional negative rights an individual has, so it could plausibly recognize a right to abort a fetus that could not survive outside the womb. Whereas, if a fetus could survive outside the womb, then it is ambiguous whether it also has rights, and the US government would thus have no power to decide one way or the other.

The power to decide what happens after a fetus could live outside the womb must therefore reserved to the states.

This is actually pretty close to the Roe v. Wade decision, and it is exactly what the Supreme Court decided in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This later decision also failed to cite the 9th or 10th amendments as a foundation. As usual, the US government simply exercised the power to do anything not explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

Roe v. Wade had previously decided that abortions were legal for the first trimester, that the states could decide during the second trimester, and that abortion was prohibited during the third trimester. Roe v. Wade was thus a pretty reasonable remedy, but it avoided citing the necessary parts of the Constitution that legitimized it, and it was instead founded on BS, because the Supreme Court does not want to draw attention to the the 9th and 10th amendments because they expose the fact that the Constitution is interpreted backwards and that 90% of what the US government does in unconstitutional.

Jim
 

  • April's Fool day is past us, but I'm still curios what was the basis for that statement:

    Under today's "liberal" laws, a rich man can impregnate many women, but a poor man cannot.

  • Jim says:

    @Dennis: In the past, any man could impregnate willing women without having to support his children, which was not fair of course because women could not terminate their pregnancy. We fixed that by adding child support and DNA tests, which means that a man must now have lots of money if he wants to impregnate many women and not live in poverty, which by itself would be fine – except – around the same time, we made it easy for women to terminate their pregnancy, thus making birth dependent solely on the women's decision, which by itself would be fine. However, the combination of forcing men to pay child support to women they barely know without giving men the chance to opt out – just as the women can do by aborting, is not only unfair to all men, who are never the ones whose decision caused birth, which is now a choice, but it is uniquely unfair to poor men.

  • Anonymous says:

    I follow, understand, and see the logic presented in the post. With that said, there is still one element of the abortion topic that has always been difficult for me to reconcile and perhaps you’d be so kind as to retort. I myself have concluded that I must take a pro-choice position simply because, as an objectivist, the rule of law should not be based upon a subjective platform that can be distorted to fit the majority at the expense of the minority. As personally conservative as I am, I understand that the injection of my own subjective view of the world distorts an environment of free will and rather harbors the opposite of my main belief; that people need to have the ability to choice success or failure independent of my own definition of those terms. Of course, this is granted in as much as the rights of another are not compromised. To me it comes down to right or wrong, which again is subjective. As a God fearing man, I have a belief that right and wrong originate from a higher place whereas an atheist might not. We, as a society, believe it is “right” to give people rights and “wrong” to take them away. But who is to say? Who is to say that either really means anything? If we all croak one day and never know that we ever were then does any of this matter? Does it matter if a man was a serial killer or a priest? And if not, why should we give any credence to right or wrong? And if we don’t give credence to right or wrong, why should I give a hoot about another’s rights? And if I don’t give a hoot about another’s rights, what the problem with changing the rule of law to benefit myself as much as possible even if it’s at the expense of another’s rights?

  • Jim says:

    Ethics, and thus "Rights," are simply enlightened self interest. If you want to thrive as part of a large population of sentient beings having the genetic makeup of humans, then you can deduce the concept of individual human rights, and of course, if you want to live in a world that respects individual human rights, then you must be willing to defend individual human rights. Of course, there is much opportunity for logical fallacies given such a sophisticated concept, and thus there is much disagreement.

    Self-interest is not necessarily rational. We are not robots. For example, in addition to trying to create the kind of world I want to live in, I am also trying to create the kind of world I want my children to live in – even though I will not be here to enjoy it.

    Of course, if we were not in a large population, and instead we were in a lifeboat, then enlightened self-interest might force one to logically deduce a different ethics.

  • Anonymous says:

    Great in-depth writing, I plan on reading more and writing responses. Site favorited

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