Tea Party Republicans disagree with Ayn Rand's defense of women's right to control their own bodies. They also lack the compassion to do what is necessary to prevent unwanted pregnancies which would decrease the incidence of abortions.
WARNING:This diary includes frank discussion about religion, sex and politics.
Iam trying to understand the thinking or reasoning of Tea Party Republicans. I had heard that Ayn Rand was popular amongst Tea Party members. So, I naturally goggled her name. An article in the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/ayn...), "Atlas Spurned" by Jennifer Burns described Rand as a "novelist of heroic capitalism". Burns writes that Paul Ryan, a federal Congressman from Wisconsin, regards Rand as "the reason I got into public service". Ryan has described the current political situation in this country as "individualism vs. collectivism". Ms. Rand favored the former. Collectivism in Rand's writings refers to Communism, Nazism, Fascism and Socialism. Tea Party members tend to favor individualism, or, at least, to be opposed to collectivism. I also found the Ayn Rand Lexicon at http://aynrandlexicon.com/.... Interestingly, Abortion was the first topic in the Lexicon.
It's interesting because Tea Party Republicans seem ultra-conservative to me whereas anyone who believes that a pregnant woman should have the right to decide to abort would probably not be considered conservative at all. So I was surprised that Rand had written favorably about abortion rights. This led to my focusing on the abortion controversy.
On one side, there are people who insist that "life begins at conception". Conception involves the union of a living sperm and a living egg. In order for something to "begin" it must be previously non-existent. But the human egg and the human sperm cannot be accurately described as "non-life". They don't suddenly become "alive" when they join. In other words, the egg and the sperm are life even before the two cells become one cell. How does the joining of two life forms cause "life to begin"? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say life continues at conception? What the "pro-life" saying, i.e. "life begins at conception “is trying to express be that a third person is formed when a human egg and a human sperm join. Or, in the case of twins, I guess they mean a third and fourth person are formed.
I used to think of the fetus as an extension of the woman's body. Thanks to my research on GMOs it has occurred to me that once the egg and sperm join, the resulting cell has DNA that is distinctly different from the originating sperm's DNA and from the originating egg's DNA. That means the embryo/fetus, as a collection of living cells, is not a mere extension of the mother's body. Ayn Rand and others claim the embryo/fetus is mere protoplasm and not human. I don't quite understand that reasoning. Under normal circumstances, the embryo/fetus is not dead or inanimate tissue. It does not consist of living plant cells. As far as I know, all living cells are either plant, animal, and rarely and possibly something in between or whatever. I would not say that a dog's fetus did not consist of canine cells. The living cells of a human fetus are not plant cells nor canine cells nor fish cells nor horse cells. What's left? Human cells.
This may sound like a pro-life argument. However, I see no logical reason to presume that a collection of living human cells with unique DNA must be a person, i.e. a human being.
According to Ayn Rand,
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.
I do not accept that definition of man. That definition might suggest to some people that a child is not a human being, i.e. a person, until he/she reaches the age of reason (at ap.7 years of age). I define a human being as a combination of a physical body and an immaterial soul. The soul is what allows a person to think, to reason, to feel emotionally, to be self-aware.
There are people who don't believe in the existence of the human soul. They believe that feeling emotions and thinking result from the bio-chemical changes taking place in the brain/nervous system. If your definition of a human being is one in which people have no souls, then why shouldn't a person be defined as a collection of living human cells? It seems ironic to me that the idea of abortion as the murder of a person would be more plausible to people who deny the soul's existence than it is to I who believe in the soul's existence.
Why do I believe abortion is not murder? (1) My definition of a human being is a combination of immaterial soul and physical body. (2) I believe the human soul can exist separately from the physical body. In other words, my soul existed before my body was conceived and will continue to exist after my body becomes lifeless. I do not believe the soul is "seated" in the human embryo/fetus before birth. Perhaps a soul might visit its body-to-be in rare circumstances before the birthing process. A Buddhist monk, whom I have read and believe in, explained that souls are much too busy to waste nine months in a vegetative state. (3) When an embryo/fetus is aborted, it has no soul. Therefore, it is not a human being. In order for murder to take place, the victim must be a person, which an unborn collection of living human cells is not.
Similarly, a human body in an unconscious state without measurable brain activity, i.e. brain dead, which is being kept alive by machines, is no longer a human being if the soul has "left" the physical body. If the body is soulless, then "pulling the plug" would not be murder.
I wish I could ask prolife believers the following:
If you could be compassionate to either an actual living human being or to a potential human being, but not to both, to which would you give your compassion?
Serious consideration of the question would not change the convictions of pro-lifers, but it would hopefully give them some insight into a viewpoint other than their own.
Anti-abortion advocates must insist that the embryo/fetus is a human being. If it's not, then it does not have the rights of a person. This is what Rand has to say about the "rights" of the unborn:
An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).
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?
Pro-lifers believe that life begins at the moment of conception, or, more specifically, that an autonomous full human being exists when egg and sperm unite. That belief as well as my own belief are matters of Faith. One accepts on faith that which is not provable. Ayn Rand describes people who try to deprive others of human rights based on their non-provable religious beliefs as "hateful". I hope she is mistaken, although there are undoubtedly some anti-abortionists who are hateful. I would hope that most people who claim to be "prolife" would not defend the actions of those who murder abortion doctors in the name of God. Considering how many girls and women died horribly and in pain as a result of illegal back alley abortions prior to
Roe v Wade, I think the people who are campaigning to return to those days seem to be lacking compassion for humans outside the womb.
Some anti-abortion advocates seem to have convinced themselves that all pregnant females who decide to abort do so almost thoughtlessly, motivated by their desire to avoid the inconvenience of carrying the fetus to term. They probably think that most women who have aborted never give it a second thought afterwards. Many, if not most, Pro-lifers are loathe to imagine what the decision to abort entails. Ayn Rand writes
The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are 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. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: 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. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.
If the pro-lifers get their way, abortion would be totally banned in all fifty states. Some pro-lifers would not be satisfied unless there were no exceptions, even when the mother would die unless the fetus was aborted. If pro-lifers have their way, desperate women who can't afford to leave the country to get an abortion will have no choice but to go to back alley non-licensed butchers to have their abortions. Or, worse still, they will do it themselves with a straightened coat hanger or whatever. Other low income conscientious couples will be forced to give up a promising future for "a life of hopeless drudgery" trying to provide for the children for whom they weren't ready. On the other hand, their misery and suffering might be thought of as the natural consequences of bad choices. Happens all the time. In any case, if the anti-abortionists ever get their way, hopefully they would support sex education to help people avoid those bad choices.
I agree with anyone, prolife or pro-abortion rights, who asserts that prevention of unwanted pregnancies is always preferable to abortion and that the importance of preventing unwanted pregnancy should be taught at home as well as in schools in all grades.
When children reach adolescence, there is the question of which method of pregnancy prevention is best, i.e., birth control or abstinence from intercourse. Perhaps you've heard that some parents assume their teenage children will naturally have sex. So they take the necessary measures to make sure their kids are "protected", i.e. use birth control. What's wrong with that? First of all, not all teenagers have a powerful, uncontrollable libido. If one happens to be someone with a lower sex drive than average and one's parents act as if one has at least an average strength drive, one may feel there must be something wrong. Which, of course, there's not. Secondly, birth control does not come with an iron-clad guarantee. Sometimes it's not effective in preventing impregnation. Thirdly, most methods of birth control are completely ineffective in preventing STDs (sexually transmitted diseases).
So, instead of using birth control, why not teach your children to abstain from all sexual experiences before they are married? That would be the most favorable choice for "good" Catholics, members of the Religious Right, and ultra-Conservative politicians. From a pragmatic viewpoint, complete abstinence from genital contact would be the simplest answer. Such abstinence would also have the added advantage of decreasing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). What's the problem with abstinence? For one thing the more you try to prevent certain behaviors, the more curious and the more desirable those behaviors can seem to the young and inexperienced. Also, it does not work for everyone. It may work fine for people who do not have powerful sex drives. Sexual abstinence seems quite achievable to those who have a low or non-existent libido. These people have no idea how difficult it is for people, especially younger people, to cope with powerful sexual urges. Some people (including females but more often males) seem to be born with more powerful sexual needs than other people. The needs of highly-sexed people are, at times, at least as compelling as their need to eat, drink, and sleep. At these times, highly sexed individuals need sexual experience. Sexual experience is the giving and/or receiving of sexual pleasure. I am not describing people with so-called sexual addictions. A high sex drive may contribute to the development of a sexual addiction but is not, in itself, an addiction.
Someone will be thinking at this point, "What about sublimation for those with powerful libidos?" In this context sublimation refers to the diverting of sexual energy into a more socially or morally acceptable non-sexual activity. I don't doubt that that is possible. Especially by those motivated by the belief that freely experiencing sexual pleasure outside the bounds of holy matrimony will result in a longer post death visit to Purgatory. Those possessing a good deal of self-awareness and self-discipline would also be more likely to succeed at sublimation. I suspect more people worked on developing those personal attributes fifty years ago than the number who do so these days. I wonder if sublimation was ever 100% effective for someone with a powerful sex drive. Acquiring an STD or causing an unwanted pregnancy requires only a single "slip-up". I don't think sublimation is a workable solution for preventing a lot of unwanted pregnancies and STDs.
Some sexual experiences involve one's genitals/genital discharges coming into contact with another person's body cavities. This intimate contact increases one's risk of impregnation and/or infection by STDs. Sexual experiences can occur without that risk. The following question occurred to me as I was writing this:
What if I had a teenage daughter and an angel appeared to me and presented me with a choice between two scenarios?
Scenario 1. The Powers that Be could arrange for my daughter's boyfriend to watch well-paid attractive young women voluntarily disrobing in a strip club. In this scenario my daughter would not have an unwanted pregnancy nor contract an STD.
Scenario 2. The Powers that Be could make my daughter's vulva the boyfriend's only sexual interest. The angel explains that in this scenario my daughter would eventually experience an unwanted pregnancy and/or an STD.
Would not be a tough choice for me to make.
Sex does not cause unwanted pregnancies. The problem is that society (meaning movies, sitcoms, bill boards, magazines, friends, family, teachers, etc.) broadcasts the message that sexual intercourse is:
(1) the only way to feel like an adult.
(2) the only way to prove your romantic love for another person.
(3) the only legitimate "natural" way to fulfill one's sexual needs.
If society really wanted to prevent unwanted/unplanned pregnancies the broadcasted message would be different. Something like "Genital contact is not the best way to fulfill your needs (for sex, for love, for feeling grown up) unless you want a child and/or an STD." Perhaps, if enough people would absorb that message as well as they have absorbed the message from the previous paragraph, abortion might become a rather rare occurrence.
I suspect, however, that most of us Americans would be more willing to tolerate more unwanted pregnancies, higher abortion rates (legal and illegal), world-wide starvation, homelessness, and the rest of the "blessings" of overpopulation, than to allow and/or encourage any non-criminal sexual experiences which are commonly associated with shame and guilt but that would not involve sexual genital contact between partners. That's something pro-lifers and many pro-abortion rightists have in common - the willingness to hold the moralistic line against non-criminal variant sexual activity.
Most people have sexual drives. That's not going to change. As long as they express those drives through intercourse, pregnancies, desired or not, will result. More unplanned unwanted pregnancies inevitably results in more abortions.
I am not condoning any sexual experience involving violations of human rights. Those offensive experiences include involuntary sexual slavery, rape, child sexual molestation, and the production of child pornography using living children. It also includes date rape in which the victim is unable to consent or in which the sexual experience is not agreed to by all parties. When someone says "no", it means STOP, regardless of how strong the sexual urges are or the nature of the sexual experience.
I am imagining an older distinguished person of the narrow-minded persuasion thinking that if this unconventional solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies ever caught on it would undermine and/or disrupt the social order. Actually, as long as existing laws governing human sexual behavior continued to be enforced to the extent they are currently and individual human rights were respected by all parties, the social order would probably experience an improvement.
I suspect most people are blissfully unaware of the myriad legal statutes prohibiting all sorts of personal sexual experiences in this country. There are two serious crimes involving sex that I think our legal system could do a better job of controlling. One is rape. The other is child sexual molestation. I think society has not only the right but also the obligation to defend its members against these crimes. How? My answer depends on how compassionate I am feeling when asked. The more compassionate answer would be to sentence a first-time offender to compulsory therapy for at least a year as a condition of probation. If the person re-offends, the sentence would be one year in jail plus compulsory therapy for that year. For the third offense, the offender would be given a choice between permanent chemical castration and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. If there was a fourth offense, the sentence would be life imprisonment. The less compassionate answer would be the same except that the sentence for the first conviction would be eliminated and the third conviction would result in life imprisonment.
The Tea Party politicians might object to stiffer compulsory sentencing of rapists and sexual molesters of children on the grounds that it would be too costly. But what if they somehow knew one of their siblings or children would be the next victim of a four-time offender? In that case, I wonder if they would think the proposed stiffer sentences were, in fact, affordable.
The 1973 Supreme Court decision in the Roe v Wade case was not proposed legislation. From listening to anti-abortion advocates, I sometimes get the impression that they think that decision removed all legal restrictions on abortions in the United States. That is not so. According to the Lawnix website , the Court held that, for a woman's first trimester of pregnancy, the states cannot lawfully prohibit abortions. The woman and her doctor must be allowed to use their own judgment in deciding to abort or not during the first three months of pregnancy. For the second trimester of pregnancy, the court ruled that abortion procedures related to the health of the mother may be regulated by the states. I believe that means that if an abortion during the second three months of pregnancy would endanger a mother's health, the state can legally prohibit that abortion. So, during the first six months, the states have practically no power to prohibit abortions. This is not the case for the last three months of pregnancy, however. The court ruled that states may regulate or totally prohibit abortions during the third trimester, except when the abortion is necessary to preserve the health/life of the mother.
I was wondering, why did the Supreme Court allow the states to prohibit abortion during the last trimester? Two possible reasons occurred to me. (1) They wanted to allow the states to protect the mother from the increased risks of surgical complications which late term abortions entail. (2) They wanted to allow the states to protect the potentially viable fetus from being harmed before exiting the womb. This explanation reinforces my opinion that the Roe v Wade decision was wise and compassionate.
Roe v Wade had the positive effect of supporting women's power over their own bodies. It ended the necessity for desperate females to resort to non-professional dangerous health-threatening abortions. From the prolife viewpoint, the Roe v Wade ruling had nothing but negative effects.
There are those who would like to cancel the above benefits to the whole American public based on their minority religious belief that abortion is evil. These people devote a lot of passion, energy, and expense in trying to change abortion laws. I hope they devote some of their time and energy to teaching young people how to avoid unwanted pregnancy as well as educating every child about the responsibility, hardships, and necessary sacrifices of child rearing. It's time we removed the proverbial blinders before the fact. One might wonder if people knew ahead of time what they were in for, would they not be more reluctant to start a family? And, if so, would that not possibly result in a smaller population?
I would hope so. One might think that people who favor life would be concerned about the quality of human life. When a population with limited resources increases in numbers, the average person in that population is going to have to get along with less and less. The fewer available resources like good food and quality health care there are to go around, the lower will be the quality of life for the average person. One might hope that those who call themselves "pro-life" would be intelligent enough to realize that.
Unfortunately, the problem is not a question of intelligence. You see, pro-lifers are believers in Salvation. Salvation is forever. A human lifetime is insignificant when compared to eternity. I can understand how that view of reality could result in one’s becoming indifferent to the quality of human life, or, at least, the quality of other peoples' lives. What importance is the problem of human population compared to the challenge of saving as many of those souls as possible? Besides that, isn't God supposed to provide for those who are the true believers?
I started writing this article to shed some light on Tea Party thinking. Although I have learned more about abortion, I thought I had no better understanding of the Tea Party. But then I remember wondering the other day at the seeming absolute lack of compassion in the Tea Party's desire to cut social program benefits as well as Medicare and Social Security. Now it occurs to me that perhaps the Tea Party politicians are true believers who think God will take care of His flock and to hell with the rest of us.