RoR: Forum

Thanks for that article Adam.

This law against abortion was and is still barbaric, and those pious "holier than thou" Christians are mostly hypocritical bastards.

There was a story in the paper recently that in China they are using injected fetal cells from aborted fetuses to treat patients with paralysis.

People from around the world have been going there for treatment, especially from the USA. In the article they interviewed one "anti-abortion" fundamental Christian from the USA who went there for treatment. His excuse was that he was desperate.

I get angry reading such things!!! It is righteous wankers like him that made such a technique illegal in his own country in the first place!!!

Post 1

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 5:24am

Thank you Adam for your moving personal story. It is a great illustration of why it is crucial not to allow the abortion laws to be resurrected.

Bill Perry

Post 2

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 5:38am

Adam,

Regarding other possible criminal offenses, what were the ages of minor, major and consent in your part of the country at that time? I have read stories of men over 18 going to jail for having sex with girls under 18. These are state and not federal statutes but prison is prison.

From the article, it sounds like you were 20 and she was 16 when you began the sexual affair. Even if the parents had been highly protective Objectivists who considered their daughter not yet mature enough to leave home, and even if abortion had been legal, they could still have placed her under lock and key and instructed you never to contact her again. They could have used the threat of busting you for sex with a minor as their ultimatum.

I find this implied attempt to interfere with parental authority somewhat disturbing, especially when the law still holds parents responsible for their children. Responsibility divorced from authority spells tyranny.

Luke Setzer

(Edited by Luther Setzer on 12/08, 7:38am)

Post 3

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 7:00am

Adam,

Thanks for a very moving personal story. Experiences from our own lives express things so much more eloquently than a hypothetical situation created to make a point.

Ethan

Post 4

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 8:30am

As a matter of taste, I find this kind of tyranny (i.e. anti-abortion laws) even more abhorrent than cannibalistic taxation laws. This is why I cannot support politicians who countenance anti-abortion laws, even if they wax lyrical about economic freedoms.

To those who claim they can vote tactically, supporting right-wing politicians to avoid left-wing governance, I ask, "Where is your passion?"

Post 5

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 10:46am

Luke,

Your treatment of "responsibility" and "authority" as simple on-off conditions, toggled together at some arbitrary chronological age, strikes me as unreasonably intrinsicist. Objectively, parents have obligations toward the children they have chosen to create; children, not having chosen their parents, cannot have corresponding obligations toward their parents. Under objective law, parents may impose on their children, and on third parties' interactions with their children, only those restrictions that are unavoidably needed for the parents to be able to discharge their own obligations toward their children. Anything more is initiation of force.

The parents' obligations, once they have created a child, are to assure that their child is able to become, if it chooses, a rational and independent (and therefore self-supporting) individual. Therefore the parents have an obligation to provide their child with room and board, education, medical care, and any other conditions needed for the child's gradual development into a self-supporting adult. In today's world, some of these obligations might not be fully met until the child completes professional or graduate studies.

Restrictions, on the other hand, are justified only until the child has acquired the ability to guide her or his actions by the exercise of her or his own rationality. Once the child has the abilities necessary for the exercise of its own judgement, subsequent restrictions on that exercise are a violation of the child's rights. There are some contextual complexities - for example, as long as the child lives in its parents house, which is their property, they may impose reasonable restrictions on how their property is used. But even after the child reaches the age of reason, and therefore of personal self-determination, the parents may still have unfulfilled obligations - such as the obligation to fund the completion of the child's education. The end of restrictions on the child, and the end of parental obligations, are separate events, and need not occur at similar age.

My own ancestral culture terminates parental restrictions on the child very reasonably. Sometime between the ages of 12 and 13, a young Jew performs a public demostration of his or her ability to read a passage of traditional writings, and to explain how that passage applies to his or her life. Having demonstrated those abilities, the new adult becomes the equal of his or her parents, responsible for his own moral judgement and free (except for obeying "house rules" when physically present in his parents' house) to make his own decisions about his life. The parents are still obliged to provide their now equal adult child with education and the necessities of life, until the young adult graduates from law school or medical school or graduate school etc.

Until the events described in my article, I had no idea that in the majority Christian culture in America, a "minor" was considered a prisoner in its parents custody.

Post 6

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 11:41am

Adam,

You addressed the moral underpinnings of objective law, but not the parent and consent laws themselves in 1966. I will not argue that we have a moral obligation to obey every law, but we do have a moral obligation to ourselves to understand laws fully and to act in our best interests when choosing to obey them, to disobey them or to change them. Retention of context dictates the canvas of this fine art of civil conduct.

In my own case, I opted to obey the hand that fed me and lived according to my parents' values until such time as I could sustain myself fully. I disagree with some of your arguments about parental obligations, but I will save that discussion for another day. The bottom line is that I support the Objectivist golden rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

I question the wisdom of the sexual affair between yourself and your young lover in the context of all the facts, both metaphysical and man-made. I have run into too many people old enough, intelligent enough and educated enough to know better who still manage to get themselves wrapped around the axle for want of governing their passions with long-term, full-context thinking.

Had you both been legally independent adults capable of supporting yourselves when the unplanned pregnancy occurred, I would have supported your article fully.

Perhaps you can enlighten us with a future article outlining the role of the state in protecting children from their parents and what obligations to their offspring, if any, the state should dictate onto parents. Most interestingly, I would like to see how any such state mandates onto very poor parents would get financed without welfare or even government licensing of parents.

Luke Setzer

(Edited by Luther Setzer on 12/08, 11:45am)

Post 7

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 11:44am

Adam,

I have some trouble with your argument that a parent's obligation to finance their education may include a graduate or professional education. The majority of individuals do fine without either, and some do fine without a college education altogether. Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world, does not even a college degree, and he earned his wealth running a high-tech corporation. My own view was that a parent's responsibilities extends only up to graduation from high school, and no further, since a high school diploma is a prerequisite for the majority of full-time occupations. I do not have hard statistics to back it up, but it is also my personal experience that students who have had to finance the majority of their own education (e.g. merit scholarships, savings from part-time jobs) are more likely to succeed in college. If you would please explain your view, I'm all ears.

Post 8

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 11:54am

Oh, in spite of my trouble with a minor detail, I should add that I loved the article. To use the liberals favorite catch phrase, it puts a human face to the abortion debate.

Post 9

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 12:09pm

Luke,

There are contexts in which Honor - the noble soul's reverence for itself - trumps social impositions. This was one such context.

Post 10

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 12:17pm

Byron,

I have epistemological qualms about reasoning from exceptions. Obligations are voluntarily assumed in a specific context. That contexts differ does not invalidate principles.

Post 11

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 12:44pm

Adam,

Yes, Bill Gates is an exception, but I did argue in my post that the majority of individuals can succeed without a graduate or professional education, and that the majority of individuals can take care of themselves with little more than a high school diploma. What I was asking was what specific circumstances were you thinking of when you stated a a parent's obligation may continue up to the point a "child" earns a graduate or professional degree. I wrote "child" in quotations since I am not comfortable calling a 20-something a child (the age when most people except Doogie Howser earn such degrees).

Unlike Luther, I do not think anyone of us is qualified to judge your relationship with (at the time) a 16-year old, but I do think there is a place for laws that prohibit adults from having sexual relationships with minors. Granted that any age a law specifies is, at best, arbitrary, but there has to be some kind of objective standard for judging when an individual is an adult and when they're a minor. If I may argue an extreme, without some objective law in place, I cannot see how a parent can then prevent 40-year old men from having sex with their 12-year old girl.

Post 12

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 1:34pm

Adam wrote:

There are contexts in which Honor - the noble soul's reverence for itself - trumps social impositions. This was one such context.

You had the privilege and honor of dealing with the consequences of those choices. Congratulations.

Byron wrote:

Unlike Luther, I do not think anyone of us is qualified to judge your relationship with (at the time) a 16-year old, but I do think there is a place for laws that prohibit adults from having sexual relationships with minors. Granted that any age a law specifies is, at best, arbitrary, but there has to be some kind of objective standard for judging when an individual is an adult and when they're a minor. If I may argue an extreme, without some objective law in place, I cannot see how a parent can then prevent 40-year old men from having sex with their 12-year old girl.

You reiterate my point. If such laws exist and we know of them, we deal with the consequences for the risk of violating them. The best course of action long term would be to engage in activism to repeal stupid laws and, more deeply, the stupid ideas that support them -- hence my activism in SOLO.

My values differ from Adam's and so we would have made completely different choices in the same situation. I would have chosen to delay sexual consummation on the basis of my concept of honor until after she reached the age of majority. Adam chose to consummate on the basis of his concept of honor before she reached the age of majority. Both Adam and I revere our own souls. I simply accept that social impositions still have painful consequences when violated but that I can bypass through the cool passage of time.

I do not mean to be a killjoy, but I certainly would feel hesitant to encourage a minor child still on my bankroll to engage in sexual intercourse. That part of my Christian upbringing still makes too much sense to me to dismiss readily.

Luke Setzer

Post 13

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 1:38pm

you still skirt the real issue - so long as the religious myth of prebirth having some 'soul' is not rebuted , and thuroughly - that is , that human life as such begins at birth , when it's 'all systems go' - then this will always be a thorn, and the religious will always find ways to twist secularity to their ends, ultimately yes once again achieving those anti-abortion laws.

Post 14

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 1:57pm

Hi Byron,

Thank you bringing this up. Objective does not mean intrinsic; it certainly does not mean arbitrary, which is what current laws, which terminate both parental obligations and parental control by age, without regard for the actual facts that bear on those issues in specific contexts, are: arbitrary.

I think that parental control should end - without ending most parental obligations - when a young adult demonstrates adequate intellectual maturity, as in Jewish Bar/Bat Mitzvah thresholds. As for age of consent, I think that current law in the Netherlands is reasonable: no possibility of consent up to age 12; contextual consideration of the possibility of consent, with a presumption against that possibility, between 13 and 15; rebuttably presumed capacity for consent, unless one of the partners is in a position of trust or authority over the other, from age 16 on. But according to American legal ideology contextual judgment cannot be objective, so I do not expect anything so reasonable to be enacted here in the immediate future.
(Edited by Adam Reed on 12/08, 2:08pm)

Post 15

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 2:01pm

Adam,

Thank you for the candid account of a very personal experience. What I can say is that you had been a very responsible young man and took care of the girl in the best way that you could.

However, I cannot condemn the girl�s parents for what they did. When you went to your family, you got both understanding and support (Oh, how lucky you were!). But the parents of the girl were in the dark until their daughter�s life was in danger. In this case I don�t think that they were treated fairly from the beginning. I don�t condemn them for writing the letter to you parents. Despite all their defects, they appeared to be loving and responsible parents for their daughter.

I have friends who were in similar situation when they were barely out of teenagers and had abortion

My mother, after having three children, aborted her fourth, because one more hungry mouth would put our whole family in the direst situation � my parents were already barely able to feed the three of us, plus our grandmother and our cousin who had been living with us.

I had an abortion during my first year in US. I was then married to my ex-husband and both of us were students struggling both financially and academically, with no family in US. We didn�t have a car then. So after the procedure, I walked a mile back to our apartment, rested for the weekend, and went back to my regular study and work next Monday. That was the only reasonable and responsible thing for me to do.

I have several married friends who had done the same thing as I. However, these are all Chinese people and we are rather open about this topic. I don�t know how common abortion is among American women. This is certainly not something that should be taken lightly. But to make abortion entirely illegal out of �faith� is just ridiculous.

Post 16

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 2:14pm

Adam,

Thank you for the answer to my second question. I have to explore it further but, from what you tell me of Dutch law, it sounds like a reasonable enough standard. I am sure we can all agree with you that the US law, as it stands now, does not take into account context as much as it should (e.g. some 16-years are more mature than others).

Post 17

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 3:23pm

Adam,

Thank you for writing this deeply moving and personal article.

Regarding the age of consent issue, I certainly agree that blanket ages of consent ranging in the high teens such as exist in most western countries today are irrational - precisely because we are all individuals and thus mature at different rates. As with so many other issues, the Dutch seem to have their hearts in the right place but their mode of implementation strikes me as immensely bureaucratic. Here in the UK, the age of consent is 16 and at least for heterosexuals has been for some considerable time. Unfortunately the recent Sexual Offences Bill over here defines sexual activity in a manner for broader than was previously the case, raising serious concern that under 16 couples might be breaking the law simply by activities such as petting!

Certain countries (notably parts of South America) apparently set their age of consent around 12 or 13 (!!!) yet by all accounts seem to have far fewer problems with teenage mothers and the like. I'm not advocating that as an appropriate age, but it does suggest that perhaps teenagers who are as treated mature and responsible people, and given a substantial amount of information about sexuality (rather than being locked away by prudish parents) will in fact behave responsibly.

MH

(Edited by Matthew Humphreys on 12/08, 3:26pm)

Post 18

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 6:12pm

Msr. Reed, thank you. both for your initial sharing of your story and your words since. It is wonderful to see adults who are actually concerned with children's souls, which cry out for freedom far more than most adjusted elders. And in regard to your former lover, I believe that you fought for everything right in this world, and that a terrible crime was committed against you love, and only a somewhat less terrible crime against you.

I do not mean to be a killjoy, but I certainly would feel hesitant to encourage a minor child still on my bankroll to engage in sexual intercourse. That part of my Christian upbringing still makes too much sense to me to dismiss readily.

These words are incitement to spiritual murder.

If anyone wonders why I want to bring bourgeois morality down to the dust (or at least tear it off its unbeatific throne), this is why. This is the same logic by which parents steer children away from their dreams in the arts, tell them to conform as a practical matter to get a good job, or pressure them away from all habits and joys that may turn the mind away from conventional success. In previous ages (and, actually, still today), it was this logic that led parents to push their children into loveless but secure marriages. This is the center of careful, live-carefully bourgeois economy. And Msr. Setzer is right to invoke it; it is implicit in the Objectivist ethics.

If this is "life as the standard of value", to Hell with it!

Personally, I will support, to the death, the passion of the adolescent whose parents use her or his dependency as a means of control, and I find the idea of parents confining their child's romantic love for the sake of their convenience so obscene that I am left speechless that people can agree to it.

What I will say is this: if there are any young persons here in San Francisco or nearby, who are reading this, whom I can help evade parential restrictions on the cries of their spirit if they are in love, I swear, my by mind, my desire, and my own will, I will do what I can to help, and I will at least promise to and listen at length, to talk, and give what advice I can, If anyone young in such constraints face such a situation: I am an escort; and can spare a little means and time. I mean this seriously; my contact information is on my profile. And no, this is not altruism, this is a fight for a world I care to live in, and I consider it a chosen obligation. Those who prize bourgeois authority and economy over romance, passion, desire are hereby warned; there are not many things I would give my life in defense for, but this is one of them.

As for obligations, I think that those people unprepared spiritually or materially to grant a child a space of maximum freedom should not become parents; that is my sense of obligation, and I support the contraceptive and abortionist's clinic as the proper fulfillment of it. Those who are parents have a human being in a state of total dependency before them, who they can give freedom or exact obedience, that to me is a situation that requires great empathy and ethical seriousness, that this freedom be encouraged in every possible way. But none of this matters: true passion is so rare in this world that the thought of Objectivism standing for parential financial prudence over sexual love is enough, right there, for every last possible doubt as to my own path to shatter like a thin sheet of ice.

I lack a word to describe what I see here, though I know it exists every day. Fucking Christians. Objectivist crypto-Christians included.

Msr. Perigo recently asked me if I could rapproach with Objectivism. The answer, as long as mere life is considered the standard of value by which to judge happiness, is (with all respects to his majesty's spiritual generosity) must be no. Any ethic based on this kind of principle will always kill the great passions.

And let those who can't "condone" selling sex yet who keep their daughters virginal and free from sex to keep their checkbooks safe bow under robes of lead.

in Liberty,

Jeanine Shiris Ring )(*)(
By the Life and my love of it.

Post 19

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 7:31pm