Murray Rothbard on abortion

Economics Political Theory
181

I’d like to see a citation where Rothbard says there are no negative obligations toward the fetus. Because I think there are.
Again with the no-quote thinking. If you think Rothbard supports negative obligations to the fetus, then prove it, don’t say you think so. Although—and I don’t mean to beat a dead horse—the flow of the chapter is to show the mother’s rights against the fetus AND the newborn, and if Rothbard has so much to say on the negative obligations toward a fetus then show us.

JackCuyler, I’ve read a decent amount of Rothbard and my understanding is that yes, all rights are property rights. The distinction that he appears to be making then is specific to a newborn: it has a property right in its person—“the right of self-ownership”, the right to not be aggressed against—by virtue of being an individual human being, but it doesn’t have the right to property in other things (the “full rights of self-ownership”) until it acts. Maybe That’s an hour after its born, maybe its a month, Rothbard doesn’t say. An important point remains that there are other factors in the property rights equation.

Thus, the rest of the book. Particularly the preceeding chapters. Notice again, he begins this chapter by reminding of the previous chapters: “We have now established…There remains, however, the difficult case…”

182

Hashem,

As far as babies owning property goes, I’m not sure I agree, though I’m not even sure with whom I’m possibly disagreeing. It’s quite a dilema. There have been some libertarian writings mentioning inherritance rights of children, even the unborn, though they are few and far between. That’s why I wondered aloud earlier if Rothbard had ever touched on the subject of unborn rights outside of the context of abortion.

I’m just thiking virtually out loud here, so feel free to ignore…

A baby cannot mix its labor with the land, so it certainly cannot homestead anything. Can someone own a gift without acting? It’s conceiveable. I would think that a newborn owns its first teddy bear, even if its never seen it yet. On the other hand, I suppose a baby’s parents/guardians could confiscate any gifts and justify it as rent or some similar concept, so that pretty much covers gifts, anyway.

Actually, if you are interested in Rothbard’s opinions on child raising, and specifically his ideas of when a child sheds the custodial/trusteeship ties to his parents, check out the Kid Lib section of Egalitarianism as a Revold Against Nature and Other Essays. His writing in this is much more conversational and less textbooky, and he gets pretty snarky at times. I find this style much more pleasurable to read than some of his other works. I really enjoyed those other works,. too, but this one is just that much better. The man certainly had a gift when it came to communicating his ideas.

183

From the Libertarian Forum of July 1977:

But suppose that technology has advanced to the point where the aborted fetus could be kept alive in a “test tube”. Should the mother or the parents have a legally enforceable obligation to keep the now separated fetus alive? But, once again, this brings us to the general problem of the sick or the helpless. How much resources are the parents to be coerced into committing in order to keep the fetus alive? Two trillion dollars? We are back, in short, to the important lesson of the Karen Quinlan case–that there can be no legal obligation (though there may be a moral one) to keep “the plug” in place: that is, in short, a vital philosophical distinction–and one particularly vital to libertarians–between murder, a violent act of aggression, and “pulling the plug”, that is, deciding not to commit resources–not to engage in further positive actions–to keep someone else alive. Murder is criminal, pulling the plug is licit. Even if, in cases as the fetus or Karen Quinlan, the distinction seems to make little difference to the dying person, it obviously makes a great deal of difference to the alleged “murderer.”

In other words…pulling the plug on the extra-uterine fetus would be legal; murdering it would not! He overtly applies the idea here that there are negative obligations - not positive obligations! - with regards to fetuses.

184

WRONG AGAIN. THAT ARTICLE DOES NOT SAY WE HAVE NEGATIVE OBLIGATIONS TOWARD A FETUS.

I am not sure Rothbard wrote the article you’re referencing. Anyways, I read the article. It is about the property rights of the mother.

As a side note, if fetuses have so much property rights, where’s all the writing on them? This article was written because “The abortion question continues to be a difficult one for many libertarians, and hence deserves some extended analysis.” Well, if the property rights of—and negative obligations toward—fetuses was a difficult one for libertarians, then we should expect to see many articles extending analysis there. Where are they…? We don’t find them in the writings of Rothbard, because anyone who has actually read a lot of his stuff will understand that he doesn’t believe fetuses have property rights or that we have negative obligations towards them.

My argument is consistent with Rothbard’s, and I didn’t even get it from him. It’s just based on standard libertarian views on the origins and role of property rights. You should go back and re-study about that, because you are making mistakes. All anti-abortionist “libertarians” are making mistakes. The fetus doesn’t have property rights. The end.

The reference you cited is near the end of the article. It says that IF there was ever a world where fetuses could be kept alive in test tubes, that we would THEN have an obligation not to attack the fetus, but we would not be obligated NOT to pull the plug. It doesn’t say anything about normal fetuses, and rightly so.

Rothbard doesn’t argue that we have negative obligations against fetuses.

185

You guys are talking past each other. Disciple is using the strange term extra-uterine fetus (outside of the uterus) . That means it was born somehow – premature natural birth, some kind of induced labor or a Caesarian? Is there another way? In any event, if the fetus is still alive and on the outside, it has the right to be free from aggression. I wouldn’t call killing it abortion, though.

186

I would include that the umbilical cord needs to be cut. The point of an individual is that it is entirely separate (in the way white is entirely void of black). But the umbilical cord represents a significant connection, for many reasons other than the fact that it is literally a live support mechanism that joins them.

187

All anti-abortionist “libertarians” are making mistakes. The fetus doesn’t have property rights. The end.

I’m not an anti-abortionist, though.

(1) The reference you cited is near the end of the article. It says that IF there was ever a world where fetuses could be kept alive in test tubes, that we would THEN have an obligation not to attack the fetus, but we would not be obligated NOT to pull the plug. It doesn’t say anything about normal fetuses, and rightly so.

(2) Rothbard doesn’t argue that we have negative obligations against fetuses.

Proposition (2) contradicts proposition (1). Rothbard specifically states that, in this particular case, there are negative obligations with fetuses. What he is talking about is a fetus: simply an extra-uterine one. This also applies with normal fetuses, except that normal fetuses are parasitic invaders, so this nuanced point is rendered moot. I’ve acknowledged this the whole time. Also, Rothbard did write that article for sure. Please do your own research on things of that nature, if you like.

188

What he is talking about is a fetus: simply an extra-uterine one.
No. The distinction is not “simply” that the fetus happens to be outside the uteris! The X (call it whatever you want), being as it is A) outside of the mother’s body, B) not depending on her, and C) not physically connected to her with living tissue, has the right of self-ownership; that is, the right of an individual potential adult to be free from agression

Again, he is not arguing about the rights of fetuses, he isn’t even writing about negative obligations towards “fetuses proper”. He is writing about the application of property rights in a situation that he admits is purely hypothetical. In fact, the whole entire point of mentioning the extreme hypothetical is to distinguish (that is, to point out the distinct difference) between normal fetuses. The difference, of course, is that a normal fetus is not an individual.

HE NEVER ARGUES THAT WE HAVE NEGATIVE OBLIGATIONS TOWARDS FETUSES (INSIDE A MOTHER’S WOMB).

189

Rothbard’s position on child neglect was backed up with substantial logic. He outlined two principles: (1) Person A being helpless does not entail that Person B is responsible for Person A, and (2) Person B being the creator of Person A does not entail that Person B has a responsibility to provide for Person A. This is following strict voluntarist logic: there is no initiation of force involved in child neglect. The child does not have the “right” to shelter, food, etc. since these are positives, and “rights” is a negative term. If there is a disagreement with principle 1, there is no problem with socialism. If there is a disagreement with principle 2, parents must always be forced to provide for their offspring throughout their entire lives. It’s notable, however, that child neglect would be scarce in a free society since selling children would be permissible, and everyone who doesn’t care about their children that much would sell them to make a few bucks.

On the other hand, there is a contradiction with his abortion position. He lays out the fallacious line of though that pregnancy is a positive and abortion is a negative when, in fact, the opposite is true. Let me lay out a parallel analogy: you own yourself, you own your labor, and therefore own the fruits of your labor, thus establishing private property rights. You have ownership of your property just as you have ownership of your person. Let us imagine you have your baby in your car. You are on the highway going 70mph and the baby keeps crying – he won’t shut up! Because this is a LONG road trip and there is no way to stop the motion of your vehicle until you arrive to your destination, you take the baby and throw him out of your car window. The grabbing and throwing of the baby is the initiation of aggression and is therefore illegal in a voluntarist society. You have just effectively murdered your baby. Another parallel analogy: you live in Hawaii with a balcony over a volcano. One night, you have a cocktail party and realize one person on your balcony is VERY annoying. You push him into the volcano. Again, this is what we call “murder.” Following Rothbard’s principle that you would be violating your children’s rights by stabbing him, even if on your property, abortion must also be illegal.

A counter argument that was made to me for this was that property is alienable, while man’s will is not. However, the pregnancy is not the initiation of force to curve the woman’s will. The woman has the right to not consume the necessary nutrients to keep the baby alive. The woman has the right to not do anything during labor. Both these things would be extremely idiotic, but she has the right to do it, nevertheless. What the woman does not have the right to do is aggress upon the innocent child via “pushing him into hot lava.”

190

Josh,

You’re missing Rithbard’s point that rights (the obligations of others to refrain from aggression) are aquired at birth. If you assign rights to those Rothbard does not, it’s likely you will disagree. However, to your point, would you consider a Caesarian to be analogous to throwing a baby out a car window or putting a tresspaesser in your home out on the sidwalk as gently as possible?

191

This is his view, but makes no argument for it because, as he admits, there is absolutely no rational argument to make that would reach such a conclusion. This is why all his abortion arguments are assuming that the fetus has the same rights as any other person. From Ethics of Liberty:

“While birth is indeed the proper line of demarcation, the usual formulation makes birth an arbitrary dividing line, and lacks sufficient rational groundwork in the theory of self-ownership.”

“The proper groundwork for analysis of abortion is in every man’s absolute right of self-ownership.”

Scientifically, it’s irrefutable: a human being is a human being from the moment of conception. Drawling a line of obtaining rights contingent on the baby reaching a certain age is merely arbitrary.

It’s putting a person gently on the sidewalk (although “trespasser” would be a fallacious term in regard to the baby within the mother).

192

A counter argument that was made to me for this was that property is alienable, while man’s will is not. However, the pregnancy is not the initiation of force to curve the woman’s will.

Josh- The issue here is that you are not seeing the fetus as a parasitic invader, hence initiating a grave degree of force against the mother’s body by coercively leeching off the host. I note body because that is where the difference between the alienability of property and the inalienability of person comes up.

Hashem- Practically (note practically), I agree with what you are saying about Rothbard’s stance, but for slightly different reasons. Fetuses practically have no rights, since you can consider their rights nullified: they are parasitic invaders of a person’s body. And that’s what Rothbard says, clearly. Fetuses have already aggressed against an unwilling mother, hence why the mother can thus evict them. And, like I said, practically this amounts to a nullification of the fetuses’ rights. But, in my view, if someone took a shotgun to a woman’s womb, that would both be aggression against the fetus as a potential self-owner and the mother, presuming she didn’t consent.

193

“Body” and “will” are not the same thing. Your body is your property, just as property that you have acquired with the labor of your body is your property. To claim otherwise would be to say that you can’t donate a kidney, since the property can never be transferred if it is part of the body (or, at least, you would have the “right” to claim your kidney back at any time).

How is it aggression against the child? According to your logic, the baby is a mere “intruder” (false) and can be killed as an act of self-defense (although you advocate for proportional punishment and having no such right to kill intruders in any other circumstance). Therefore, the man shooting the baby would simply be saving the woman from the intrusion.

Applying this principle that you can’t shoot innocent babies (what a concept!), then you must be opposed to stabbing them. When fetuses get too big, their lower bodies can be pulled out of the womb, but their head won’t fit (worth noting that they’re fully conscious and aware at this point). Abortionists pull out the lower part of the body, and what do they do to make the head fit? They take a sharp object and jab it through the neck of the baby, crushing its skull in, and then sliding the baby out this way. This is called partial-birth abortion and was outlawed in 2003. Now, there is a contradiction: is partial-birth abortion murder, since you do not have the right to stab fetuses, or is it within the woman’s rights, since it’s “slavery” if she is “forced” to carry the fetus?

194

Newbie here. Question, Does the mother have any responsibility to the fetus because of the fact that she most likely had before hand knowledge of the possibility that she could become pregnant from having intercourse? I don’t see how a fetus can be compared to a parasite(in the sense that it is unwanted) if the mother willingly took part in the action of intercourse while having before hand knowledge that it could lead to pregnancy. Isn’t that kind of like saying if someone jumps off a freeway overpass onto my car with the intent to commit suicide while I drive down the freeway and it kills them that I murdered them? Or like if I tell you to punch me in the face, you do it, then I accuse you of assault for giving me a black eye even know I full well knew that you punching me in the face could give me a black eye before hand?

195

Fair point. Let me elaborate. To be more general, the person is inalienable, as an extension of the will. So, for example, if I signed a contract that said you could legally chop my arm off 3 months from now, that contract could not be enforced; for to do so, in violating my physical body, you have violated the objection of my (current) will. The will is mutable and ever changing. That is why the individual as a whole, in addition to the individual’s will, is inalienable. Now let me add that this is presuming your body is attached to you, and you have not legally sold a part of your body to someone else as property. Once a body part is no longer attached to you the individual, it is no longer ipso facto attached to your will.

Good question. This once again relates to the matter of the inalienable will and person. If the mother’s will is not to have the fetus in her womb - that the fetus is a parasitic invader of her person - the fetus can be evicted. So it’s merely a matter of if a woman wants an abortion. Now, if the woman wants the child in her own womb (inside her body according to her will), it would be a violation of the rights of the fetus and the rights of the mother for a man to shoot the fetus in the womb. I see the mother as having some property right in the fetus, as well as the self-ownership of her womb. The fetus is not a parasitic invader if the mother does not want to evict it from her own person, and hence is entitled to the full negative obligations of any other individual. The moment the mother does not want it, however, it becomes a parasitic invader, as it violates her right in her person.

EDIT- You ask about my proportionate punishment stance with relation to this. Well, you see, the fact that the fetus violates the mother’s very will and body makes this different than any other scenario. If a man climbed into your stomach and decided to live there, I would say you could evict him, even if this killed him. Why? Simple. He’s violating your inalienable traits, which is a far greater offence than violating that which is alienable. Consider the difference of degree between theft and murder. One of the chief differences between the two is that the latter violates entirely the individual’s body and will. The same could be said of why slavery is so great a crime. Now, how great a crime is the fetus’? Well, we know one thing. What the fetus did, the mother can do in proportion. The fetus appeared in the womb, due to intercourse, so the mother can do the opposite and proportionate act: evict it from the womb. This is regardless of whether it dies or not. Now, you may apply this to property owners’, and ask me such questions. Well, the thing is that property, contrary to the person, is alienable.

You ask about partial-birth abortions. My stance is if the mother consents or not. If the mother consents, it is legal to evict the parasitic invader however she pleases.

196

RothbardDisciple, It is well that you practically agree with me; and to the extent that you don’t you are wrong.

I never denied that Rothbard says a mother may legitimately evict the fetus, because it is the mother’s property right to do so. But that isn’t the only way to attack the abortion argument. Rothbard BUILDS my case piece by piece throughout that chapter as I’ve shown, without stating it step by step explicitly.

He couches his argument in my rhetoric. His argument is that a Mother has the right to evict. But WHILE he is building that case, he points towards all the pieces with which I build mine: rights are for self-owners, the the right of self-ownership is acquired at birth, in other words fetuses don’t have rights so abortion is legitimate de facto—that is, as a matter of objective fact, given the definitions of things like individual, property, action, and so on.

197

So…Do you think that Rothbard would argue that someone who kills a fetus (against the mother’s consent) is violating only the mother’s property right? I see it as three things: murder of a potential self-owner, violation of the mother’s property right in the baby, and violation of the mother’s body. Clearly, the reason why Rothbard doesn’t think fetuses have rights is ipso facto that they are a parasitic invader. The other reasons are but ancillary to this one. If a fetus is not a parasitic invader, according to the mother, why has it not the legal rights of any other potential self-owner? Again, if a man poisons a fetus in the womb without the mother’s consent (using an abotifacient let’s say), is he not legally a murderer?

198

So your will controls your body, so your body is an extension of your will, and therefore it’s just as inalienable as will? Isn’t all property that is acquired through labor or voluntary trade the extension of the will? Without will, property would be impossible to obtain. How is your body an extension of your will but your property that isn’t your body not? Where’s the distinction?

So, a few premises you propose:
1.) The criteria for being an intruder is being unwanted by the property owner.*
2.) Even though peacefully climbing into someone is not proportionate to the act of killing someone, there’s an exemption in this case because it interferes with will; therefore, the proportionality doctrine can only be used for property rights.
3.) Evicting a person, even if it leads to his/her inevitable death (e.g., pushing someone into a volcano) is proportional to the intrusion, but property is alienable, so you can’t proportionally punish the aggressor.

[Following premises 2 and 3, the proportionality theory is void.]

4.) The woman can evict the “intruder” however she pleases, even if that means killing the baby prior to the eviction.

Premise 4 is very important because it’s conceding that the entire argument that pregnancy is a positive and discontinuing that pregnancy is a negative as irrelevant and/or not true.

*The OED definition of “intruder”:

a person who intrudes

Definition of “intrude”:

put oneself deliberately into a place or situation where one is unwelcome or uninvited*: he had no right to intrude into their lives; she felt awkward at intruding on private grief.*

Also, it defines “invade” as:

(of an armed force or its commander) enter (a country or region) so as to subjugate or occupy it: Iraq’s intention to invade Kuwait

Since the fetus undeniably does not enter the womb, nor does it deliberately place itself there, it is wrong, by definition, to label the fetus as an invader or intruder.

199

__*__So…Do you think that Rothbard would argue that someone who kills a fetus (against the mother’s consent) is violating only the mother’s property right?

Precisely. Also, Rothbard NEVER argues that fetuses have property rights. He DOES argue that NEWBORN INDIVIDUAL BABIES have THEREFORE gained the right to self-ownership by BECOMING INDIVIDUALS, but that they are “IN NO SENSE A SELF-OWNER” and he argues almost to the letter “therefore, a fetus doesn’t have any rights a newborn individual baby doesn’t”.

SUMMARY: So far we have reminded repeatedly that A) Rothbard says both babies and fetsuse are “in no sense a self-ownwer”, but that by virtue of being a born individual human being (strictly as opposed to a fetus in the mothers womb) it has gained the RIGHT of self-ownership, B) Rothbard explicitly argues that fetuses don’t have any rights that newborn individuals don’t have, C) Rothbard NEVER argues that fetuses have property rights.

__*__why has it not the legal rights of any other potential self-owner?

For the reason Rothbard has been pointing out: IT ISN’T AN INDIVIDUAL. Property rights are for individual human beings.

200

Ok man. You win, mostly. =/ Just calm down, calm down. I’ve held this opinion for a long time, apparently only getting one side of Rothbard’s argument. Sorry.

Let’s move on to more interesting discussion, then. I think I figured out a reason that Rothbard doesn’t bring up, which is logically consistent to me, and which I think is part of the backdrop of his thought. A fetus cannot homestead it’s right to self-ownership inside the womb of another (since you cannot homestead inside another’s inalienable person). Hence, explaining why fetuses don’t have rights. Does that argument make sense? And that seems to make the foundation for your point of view a bit more cohesive. “It’s not an individual” is too vague. I think it is an individual, simply within another. Because it is inside another (not “separate,” as Rothbard puts it), it does not have any rights, as it cannot homestead its own rights. So, in sum, individual’s within other individuals are incapable of establishing their property right to self-ownership. In my opinion, Rothbard’s line of reasoning about the inalienability of the will expounds this view.

EDIT- I’ll add: If you’re defining being an individual in terms of “separateness,” I agree with you. You’re 100% right. The reason it has no rights is the fetuses lack of ability to homestead, though. You’re correct, I just think I provided the remedy to some degree of vagueness in your point. It’s not an individual contingent on its lack of ability to homestead, as a being within another being, who has only ever been within that being.

PS- I hope you don’t think I’m dumb, still? >_>