I didn’t call it aggression. My point was that if you are going to assign human rights to a fetus, these rights must be consistent with the rights of any other human. No one, adult or unborn, has a right to use another’s property without the owner’s continued consent. When a home owner decides its time for his guests to leave, they don’t get a say in the matter. They must leave. If a third party attempts to force the homeowner to allow the guests to stay, that is aggression. When a woman decides to remove a fetus from her property (body), any attempt by a third party to prevent her from doing so is aggression.
A fetus on the other hand did not act to get itself in the womb, doesn’t have the capacity to go places, any anyway can’t be resonably expected to take instructins to do so when doing so would mean it’s death, so it can’t be an aggressor. In fact for as long as it is in the womb it would be absurd for the mother to claim it is there against her will. The new human life is guiltless and can not be forced to repay being carried to birth, somehow against the mother’s wishes.
So, your argument is a fortioti. Yeah, you can’t throw the fat bastard out; it is even more obvious that you can’t expel a fetus.
But if the mother can’t get the fetus to pay up, isn’t that an argument for abortion? The pilot may be able to get compensation from the fat guy upon landing. The mother cannot get such compensation from the child upon birth. So, the pilot has reason to endure his plight; the mother does not.
The purpose of abortion is to remove the fetus from the mother’s body. Death may or may not be an unfortunate side-effect, but it is certainly not the purpose. Even granting that the most common procedure is to kill the fetus and suck out the remains, like I’ve said a few times in this thread, such a procedure is not necessary for abortion qua abortion. That a particular method for removing an intruder may be aggression in no way implies that the removal of an intruder is in itself aggression.
Intrusion implies trespass implies agression. Fetus is incapable of force, resistance, complicance. It can neiter resist eviction, nor comply with a demand to leave. It is absurd to acuse it of something when it doesn’t have the capacity to do anything. Since it can not act, it is incapable of intruding.
Even granting that the most common procedure is to kill the fetus and suck out the remains, like I’ve said a few times in this thread, such a procedure is not necessary for abortion qua abortion. That a particular method for removing an intruder may be aggression in no way implies that the removal of an intruder is in itself aggression.
JackCuyler, so a Proper Rothbardian Abortion may have 3 outcomes: (a) the fetus is non-viable, cannot be saved, and dies; (b) the fetus is viable, and someone chooses to adopt it, and it lives; (c) the fetus is viable, but no one wants to care for it, and it dies. You follow Block in saying somewhat “progressively” that (b) and (c) are inherently OK, and as technology advances, cases like (a) will become increasingly less frequent. Hence, “in 100 years, libertarians will be considered to be 100% pro-life.”
No, the two aren’t alike, so one can not be a stronger example of the other.
Let’s put it like that, it’s not an argument against abortion.
Fetus is incapable of force, resistance, complicance. It can neiter resist eviction, nor comply with a demand to leave. It is absurd to acuse it of something when it doesn’t have the capacity to do anything.
Marco, the fetus is an intruder in a metaphorical sense, like a piece of wood stuck in a woman’s uterus. She can remove a splinter, can’t she, if she does not desire that it remain there? Well, then, why not the fetus? Well, because it’s valuable to itself, it’s a potential adult, it’s a person, whatever. I have suggested by studying the Sadowsky-Rothbard debate that many people may consider eviction to be violence disproportional to the offense subjective harm inflicted on the mother, and hence going beyond purely defensive. I think that’s where we are at this point.
That a fetus is not morally evil and cannot be “accused” of moral turpitude, I think, will be accepted by all, but that’s beside the point.
The fetus did not break any laws and is, indeed, guiltless, but Rothbard and Block argue that the mother does not break any (natural) laws either by evicting the fetus. We are trying to establish if that claim is plausible and how.
dchernik, I’m not even sure what a “Proper Rothbardian Abortion” is. Rothbard wrote that rights are acquired at birth, and that a fetus has no rights whatsoever.
If you dislike the word intruder, pick another word that means one who has no right to be where he is.
A drunk passed out on my porch is an intruder, even though in his unconscious stupor, “[he] is incapable of force, resistance, compliance. [He] can neither resist eviction, nor comply with a demand to leave.” That doesn’t change the fact that I do not want him on my porch, and he therefore has no right to be there. Nor does it prohibit my right to remove him, using the least amount of force necessary to do so, in the gentlest possible manner.
It does not matter how the drunk got on my porch or how the fetus got inside the woman’s body. Without the owner’s consent at this very moment, neither have a right to stay.
JackCuyler, well, see above. I define it in two posts. A Proper Rothbardian Abortion is one in which the fetus is “evicted” from the womb, but every care is taken not to kill it in the process. I differentiate it from a more realistic type of abortion, in which the fetus is first killed and then taken out.
I deal with the problem of abortion as developed in The Ethics of Liberty and later on by Walter Block.
dchernik, that seems to be in direct conflict with Rothbard’s writings on the issue. Perhaps you should call it a Proper Block Abortion.
Fetus is incapable of force, resistance, complicance. It can neiter resist eviction, nor comply with a demand to leave. It is absurd to acuse it of something when it doesn’t have the capacity to do anything.
That’s actually an interesting twist. Take a cat. How can it “have a right” or fail to have a right to be anywhere? Cats don’t have rights or duties. You can do anything you want with them, more or less. How then can a fetus (have or fail to have the right to be in the womb)? It has no rights to be or not to be anywhere, whether inside or outside anything. Its only right is not to undergo direct assault.
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We have it that a stowaway is harming the pilot unjustly while on board. The pilot can defend himself by throwing the stowaway out. But that is use of force that’s not proportional to the harm done. Hence, it is also unjust and unlawful.
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A fetus, though guiltless, is sort of hiding behind its innocence while it harms the woman carrying it. Rothbard thinks that she is authorized to defend herself by evicting it “properly.” When these formalities are kept, this is not unjust. Hence, it would be lawful. Etc.
JackCuyler, I don’t want to have to defend myself from accusations of gross incompetence, so I’ll just point out that The Ethics of Liberty is Rothbard’s most prominent contribution to political philosophy. What he says in the Sadowsky debate, “if I had to ‘vote’ on the issue, I would probably say that the foetus only acquires the status of human upon the act of birth,” is his personal morality, of biographical interest only, not his philosophy.
Why would you think you have the right to initiate violence against another’s property, in this case his self, simply because he is stading on your property? You have the right to remove him from your property, using force proportional to his resistance. Anything more, and you become the agressor.
Patent nonsense. Why do you think that criminals now have such a strong incentive to become bolder in their criminal activities, not just in the types of crimes they commit but also the number of crimes they may commit in one single act? Because they know they have legally been granted “rights” and that even if there is a response to their crimes that it will most often be less than proportional to their crimes. Do you think criminals would reconsider the criminal life, much less be so bold about their crimes, if it was understood that the mere fact of being caught on anyone else’s property could mean being killed? It may be a tough way to view the world, but it at least appropriately sets the boundaries for potential criminals to weigh risk/reward.
Again, it is my right to choose whatever level of punishment I desire for someone who is caught agressing against my property; it is not the right of the criminal to be treated proportionately to their crime. If, after consideration of how the community I depend upon might react to certain levels of punishment, I decide that I will not punish certain crimes in certain ways if committed against me, that is a privilege granted to the criminal; it has nothing whatever to do with their rights as a human being, which they have effectively risked in aggressing against my property.
So, if that is your basis for determining humanity, I repeat my question: do you consider it a crime (violation of natural rights) to kill a newborn baby, an Alzheimer’s patient, someone who is asleep, in a coma, severely intoxicated, or under general anesthesia?
Much as I mistrust some of Rand’s writing, she properly articulates, in terms of abortion, that the very notion of “rights” presupposes an actual, fully formed and separate human being. That’s the fundamental difference, which is separate from the moral issues of abortion.
The fetus doesn’t come into the mother’s body for a “mysterious” reason. It appears BECAUSE of the mother.
Lung cancer in smokers doesn’t appear for a “mysterious” reason either, that doesn’t mean they’re obligated to let it thrive.
In what way is a fetus trespassing when its existence cannot begin without the mother directly involved in its creation?
See above. And Rothbard’s “potential human” argument doesn’t apply; it is little more than a convenient rationalization.
Patent nonsense. I have the right to be free frem aggression, in all times and in all places, and that right does not disappear simply because I am standing on your property. My body is still my property. If I am physically assaulted by you anywhere, including on your property, that is aggression, and you are the criminal. A non-proprtional response to aggression is itself aggression. You do not have the right to aggress upon others, even on your property.
It is beside the point, but it is a point I wanted to make. Besides I don’t think you are right. JackCuyler here didn’t seem to accept this and Rothbard himself spoke of a “coercive parasite”.
I’m glad you’re modifying your stance. You went from “they must leave!” implying that by not complying they are committing aggression to “they do not have the right to stay!” implying only it is the right of the owner to throw them out.
I’m sure you can see that if it was you yourself who dragged the passed out drunk onto your porch it would be a little silly to claim he ever did anything to you.
Proportionality has nothing to do with it, that plays a role in retribution, not defence. What matters is that if the fat guy can be made to work off the damages caused throwing him out represents force greater than the minumum force needed for a successful defence. But that’s another debate.
There is no harm being done. She put the fetus in there and as long it is in there it is there by her choice. So any “harm” being done is continously being select to be done by her.
Again, this isn’t a matter of defense. It is a matter of selection, choice. It would be absurd to claim your dragging a passed out drunk from a porch is defense when it was you yourself who dragged him there in the first place. Stop demonizing the fetus! I don’t imagine even ultra-feminists do that!