I can’t believe no one else has posted this–and perhaps someone did and I just missed it–but Domino’s founder is trying to establish a community where abortion is prohibited. I’ve talked with Walter Block before about this type of thing, and I believe his only concern was that children born into the community might suffer “unlibertarian” things that they never agreed to.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/4761/private-law-and-pizza/
Private Law and Pizza?
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Neither is the mother separate from the fetus; does it follow then, that she as well, is not a separate human?
Sure. Thus the fetus presumably has the same right (to have itself separated from the mother; hence, aborted. But, as ns says, a fetus isn’t actually capable of acting or expressing preferences)
Peter,
I think i need to back up to the start, to see if I jumped to invalid conclusions regarding your point here.
We started with your first comment:
John: A fetus is considered a separate person.
You: By some
My interpretation of your statement: A fetus is not a person and so if it lives or dies is of no ethical consequence, much like if an egg had not been fertilized in the first place.
But you concede it is human, just not a separate person because it in fact not separate from its mother. But you concede that the mother is also not a separate person because, of course she is not separate from her fetus.
So we have agreed that neither the mother, nor the fetus is physically separate from each other. Does it then follow, according to you that neither are persons? Or are both persons, just neither separate persons? I would argue that the physical separateness of the two is not relevant to them being persons from a legal perspective. So what I’m driving at is on what criterion, if any, would you argue that the fetus is not a person and the mother is? Or do you concede that the fetus is a person, just like the mother, just that neither are separate persons.
If the fetus is a person, albeit not a separate person, then we are justified in protecting it from murder via expulsion from the womb, in a similar way as the airplane passenger would be so protected from expulsion from the plane at 10,000 feet.
The fetus is human: that’s a biological fact, and irrelevant to the issue at hand. It’s not a person, capable of acting in the Misesian sense, until it’s sufficiently developed (I don’t know precisely how or where to draw that line, but it’s certainly well after the point of conception). The issue of separateness too is not really relevant; either party can, if capable, choose to sever the connection; the point is only that the mother can survive in the absence of the fetus, while the opposite is not true. A fetus is no more “a person” than, say, my left arm would be a separate person if you removed it from my body and connected machinery to keep it “alive”. It’s still biologically human.
AFAICS, an airplane passenger is only “protected” from expulsion mid-air by the relative ease of landing and removing him safely (or, perhaps, giving him a parachute). If it was impossible to remove him for a long period, and he unavoidably inconvenienced the plane’s owner in the meantime, I can’t find a way (absent religion) to justify forcing the owner to keep him around. So no, I don’t think you’re justified in prohibiting either “murder via explusion from the womb” or “explusion from the plane at 10,000 feet”.
The abortion conundrum cannot be solved by defining terms in a manner favorable to one’s own position. I have struggled with this myself for years. I personally find the concept of abortion in general to be, not just morally reprehensible, but supremely nihilistic and demographically suicidal. But as a practical matter, until the point of viability (which gets earlier and earlier), there is no conception of libertarianism that can logically support preventing abortions. The fetus has no other way to survive than “trespass” on the mother’s (?) body. However, once viability is reached, the mother’s claim against trespass is no longer by definition in conflict against the fetus’ presumed right not to be killed.
Vince,
It is indeed a tough one. It is the toughest one. And in the past i have argued the Rothbardian argument, i have argued precisely your position Vince. But that was before i was confronted with the invited/invitation expired airplane passenger analogy.
Peter says if you change your mind mid-flight and decide your invited passenger is no longer welcome, and you have no parachute, and no way to land and let him off safely, you are justified in kicking him out to his death based on consistent libertarian ethics.
With Peter’s ethical view of airplane passengers, abortion should be very easy. I, on the other hand, have a problem with the former, and hence also a problem with the latter. I am waiting for someone who believes like me that booting your passenger out of the plane at 10,000 feet is surely murder to explain why an abortion is surely not.
Any takers.
The pilot has agreed to fly the airplane. Thus, the passenger cannot be legitimately evicted before he is safe. Otherwise, it would be murder.
Thus, abortion is murder, but eviction, if the baby survives, need not be so. I am adding to Block’s evictionism on the grounds that just like the mother must wait, due to the obligation to the child, untill the eviction results in a non-death, so must the pilot wait to evict until the passenger is safe, otherwise, I should be able to kick anyone out of my car while I’m doing 100mph.
Abortion means removal AND death. Eviction does not. You must remove the “intruder” in the most gentle way. If a person walks into your yard, you do not pull a Shotgun Cheney on him.
Folks –
stop concentrating on what happens to fetus and rather think of what happens to a mother which had an abortion.
Who has a right to punish her?
(Besides “this is murder” argument applies just as well to those of us who like good steaks, and is consistently applied by the ideological vegans).
I believe that libertarian laws must be just and we must be satisfied with nothing less than completely just laws. To be just they must be justifiable via consistent application of libertarian principles through argumentation. The principles of argumentation ethics I am advocating are those presented by Professor Hoppe.
Therefore, I think it is important to hammer out such important life and death issues through argumentation to see just how far we can go with libertarian ethics and argumentative justification to determine honestly and to the best of our ability, what is the principle that brings justice.
I believe that a society not interested in complete justice will eventually be enslaved by their own slack ethics. They will fall into slavery to the state because they cease to care enough about or understand enough about justice and how to arrive at it. A small con that takes, will lead to larger cons that will again eventually take.
When I used to argue for the woman’s right not to be a slave to the fetus, I felt bad for the fetus when someone said “but the fetus is a living human, and the abortion kills it”, but I said to myself, only what is justified is just! Now that I am arguing the other side and people will say “but what of the mother’s rights to her body, and how can you judge her a murderer and who will execute the penalty?”, but I will still say, whatever is justified is just. So obviously, I can allow that i may be mistaken, and my conclusions can be wrong. But I will never be wrong in seeking justice. So disagree with my arguments, nail me, and show me I am wrong. Show me my inconsistency and how my propositions are performative contradictions. I don’t mind. I will gladly fall on the side of what is justified if I can be made to see it.
But questions of determining what is justified, and questions determining how courts and society will deal with the implications of these determinations are two separate questions that really must be answered in the order of the former first, and the latter second. That is: let’s keep the horse before the cart.
Averros,
If your murderer-meat-eater rebuttal is serious, let me know and I will answer it. Hoppe answers why killing of animals for food is justified and why killing humans through aggression is unjustified. I would argue similarly.
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