What’s the view on this.
The thing is:
While usually libertarians don’t have a “view” on things; either it is amoral and taste-based, or immoral and universally condemned, abortion seemingly provides a problem.
When does a ball of cells become a potential person?
The problem is, I don’t want to have another “children’s rights” debate.
It’s murder. And Rothbard is wrong, the parents accept responsiblity for the child and the positive rights that go with it.
I can’t think of any other point libertarians can have a differing view on except IP, and that seems to be going down the drain. Are there any more?
As for abortion, I believe that at the point the child is no longer inside or attached to you it becomes a person. Not that one that is premature inside the womb can not function as a person. But bring up the idea that if a child is part of your property, and a child in the womb is a person, is your body not his property too.
As for the NAP, if you are a conjoined twin, is your other twin property of your body, or another free individual? (Nothing serious but I wonder if anyone has brought this issue up for sake of principle. Would punching him be a violation of NAP or just homesteading.)
Say it is murder. What is the punishment?
Yeah, you’ve said that. But every time we ask you with whom the contract was made, you can’t answer. Every time we ask you how the positive right obtained, you simply repeat yourself. That’s not good
http://media.mises.org/mp3/block/block8.mp3
Walter block puts forth an argument that the woman’s body is her property and she may evict a baby from her body in self defense (that’s more or less his argument) because an unwanted baby may be considered a trespasser. Here’s a summary and some arguments against his position. I’m still not sure how I feel about the abortion debate myself.
In a private justice system there cannot be a punishment.
Even if one assumes that the baby is an “invader” (which is ridiculous because the nature of the sexual act holds the possibility that it will occur, therefore by having sexual intercourse you are consenting to potentially having a child), abortion constitutes a horrendously disproportionate response to the “invader” similar to how throwing a stowaway off an airplane onto the Himalayas is a grossly disproportionate response to the initial trespass.
And it can be argued that the parents have an obligation to the child by virtue of forcibly placing it in a defenseless state of being (the child didn’t ask to be born)
This has been done before, you know.
This is what Walter Block brings up in his case for eviction.
If you are sleeping on my couch, and I tell you to leave but you are unresponsive - property rights grant me justification for eviction, but not for murder. I could not kill you while you are sleeping just because you are on my property.
I think both issues share the same dilemma: usually the differing camps are talking past each other.
What many libertarians overlook is that you can have any law you want as long as you pay for it yourself and or enforce it yourself on your own property. So, if you are anti-abortion and I am anti-IP, our difference in opinion is irrelevent. When I walk on your property, I have have no right to abortion. If you walk on my property, you have no IP rights.
We are free to ostracize eachother.
When I push a man who can’t swim into the lake, I don’t make a contract with him. I have the obligation to rescue him nonetheless.
What if I decide you have no right to life on my property, but invite you over without telling you, then shoot you when you step on my property?
I would be in a sorry state.
What were you expecting? Libertarianism does not compell people to share a code of ethics nor does it prevent disputes. It offers a market for their resolution and arbitration. Ultimately, you have no way of knowing whether a person follows a code of ethics because he believes it to be a moral truth or whether he believes it to be purely pragmatic.
Free markets also provide incentives to everybody to resort to peaceful interactions. If you shoot me when you step on my property, you would likely invite retaliation. Is that worth the risk? It might be but I doubt it. I am sure there would be many people – all of which who probably could not care one with about me – willing to form an angry mob and pillage you. After hearing that you killed me in cold blood, I would expect every other nefarious person to think: “Hey! Nobody would give a damn if I did the same to him!” and the odds are that he would be right. Nobody would give a damn about you.
Does shooting me in cold blood sound like a clever risk to take?
My first thought to this was “well what’s the point of debating anything then if everyone just makes up their own rules”. However, if everyone makes up their own rules it makes debate even more important doesn’t it?
Charles,
So you would say that I would have no “legal” recourse if you shot me while I was on your property (assuming I was invited)? Only that I would have to hope that your reputation is diminished.
Note: By “legal” I mean based on rights associated with property (including property over self).
False analogy. You’ve had this explained to you many times, Giles.
Why is the analogy false? And please, explain, one more time.
That is my best bet. Would you not agree?
I do not think your conception of “legal” provides much clarity. Specifically what do mean by “rights associated with property” here?
I will tell you what I think you mean. My guess is that you are referring to the non-aggression axiom as a moral standard. If that is correct, I most certainly do believe that the non-aggression axiom is violated if I shot you while you were on my property, in the situation described up above but I do not think that matters much in practice.
In practice, I can not compell you nor anybody else to adopt the non-aggression axiom as a moral code of conduct. Although, I would like everybody to do so. Regardless, I can never know for sure what your motives are.