Objectivism and Abortion

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The Core Question Most Debates Evade

The abortion debate is usually poisoned by false alternatives:

“Is the fetus human?”
“Is abortion moral or immoral?”
“Is it compassionate or cruel?”

Objectivism cuts through the fog and asks the only question that matters:

Does a human being have the right to live as a dependent on another person’s body?

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The Fetus Is Human — But Not Independent

Objectivism does not deny biological reality.

A fetus is already a human being in the biological sense.
It is not a dog. Not a tumor. Not a “clump of cells.”

It is human.

But it is not an independent human being.

It has no autonomous existence. No ability to survive on its own. No capacity to act, choose, or sustain its life independently.

It exists entirely inside another person’s body — and by using it.

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Rights Require Independence

In Objectivism, rights are not mystical blessings. They are moral principles that apply only to independent individuals.

A right is the freedom to act for one’s own life — by one’s own effort — using one’s own body.

A being that cannot exist independently cannot possess rights against the person sustaining it.

Otherwise, “rights” would mean this absurdity:

That one human being has the right to live by force inside another.

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Forced Pregnancy Is Forced Servitude

A pregnant woman is an actual, independent individual — with a mind, a life, projects, values, and a future.

To force her to carry a pregnancy against her will is to compel her body to serve another human being.

This is not “pro-life.”
It is involuntary servitude.

Just as a taxpayer has no moral obligation to sustain a parasite by force, a woman has no moral obligation to sustain a dependent human being inside her body against her judgment.

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Human — Yes. Entitled — No.

This is the point most people refuse to face:

Being human does not grant the right to parasitize another human being.

No adult has the right to live at another person’s expense by coercion. No group has the right to force sacrifice. And no fetus has the right to override the bodily sovereignty of the woman carrying it.

Rights are not based on need. They are based on independence.

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The Myth of the “Implicit Contract”

Some argue that by having unprotected sex, a woman implicitly “agrees” to pregnancy.

This is a desperate attempt to smuggle in obligation without consent.

Sex is not a contract. Risk is not consent. Biology is not a moral agreement.

If consequences automatically created binding obligations, then every accident would become a moral debt, and freedom would vanish entirely.

Objectivism rejects this logic: no one signs away their bodily rights by engaging in a human act.

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The State Has No Authority Here

A government that bans abortion claims ownership over women’s bodies.

That is not protection of rights — it is their negation.

Just as the state has no right to control what you ingest (see Objectivism and Drugs), it has no right to force biological service to another human being.

The function of government is to protect individuals from force — not to impose sacrifice.

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Moral Judgment vs Legal Rights

Objectivism defends abortion as a legal right — without pretending it is morally trivial in every case.

Different women will judge their situations differently. Some will see tragedy. Some necessity. Some relief.

But the principle does not change:

No human being may be forced to serve as life-support for another.

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In One Sentence

The fetus is human but not independent — and no human, dependent or not, has the right to live as a parasite on another person’s body.