There will be no legal protection for the unborn in an anarchy society.
-Brodie (isn’t worried about it, because abortion probably will not happen anymore than it already does today)
I can get on board with evictionism to a degree. It would be a step in the right direction. More than that and morality becomes more of an issue. If one doesn’t want to care for another’s child that’s been evicted I don’t see how that would be a crime, but I would think such a person to be inhumane and a bit of a scumbag.
Technically, it’s being sustained by an environment which happens to be provided by the mother. 
Anyways, I understand your point above, but it seems like you’re still using a certain implicit definition for “sovereign”. Can you explain to me what it is? I’m guessing it’s something like “the ability to express/assert oneself”?
Presumably the issue isn’t that the mother wants the fetus to die per se – it’s that she doesn’t want to have it in her body or she doesn’t want to have to raise it once it’s born. Were I to father a child and the mother didn’t want it, I would do everything in my power to buy her out. That means, at the very least, paying for any and all medical costs for her during the pregnancy, birth, and any complications that arose thereafter. If it also meant paying for a gym membership, personal training, plastic surgery, etc. for her to get back into the same shape she was before she got pregnant, I would be willing to do that as well. All so that the child would not die. But that’s just me.
I really see no difference between a baby “in” a woman’s property (her body) and a baby “on” her property (her home). If she can kill it one place she be allowed to kill it in the other.
But should she be allowed to remove the baby from either?
Allowed by whom?
I really see no difference between a baby “in” a woman’s property (her body) and a baby “on” her property (her home). If she can kill it one place she be allowed to kill it in the other.
But should she be allowed to remove the baby from either?
Allowed by whom?
A court, I would presume… Or a lynch mob… Or something in between… Whatever institution(s) the market provides to mete justice.
One presumes that such an institution would be paid by the mother, and so why would they stop her from doing anything with her body?
One presumes that such an institution would be paid by the mother, and so why would they stop her from doing anything with her body?
Were I in the jury, mediation council, lynch mob, etc., I would quite agree with you. We cannot, however, make that presumption with certainty. One can only guess what would appear on the market. It doesn’t sound too far-fetched that some abortion prevention/punishment “baby rescue” operation would spring up. The legality of such a firm’s actions would be decided by the courts, lynch mobs and mediators.
I was just making the point that from a strictly adherance-to-the-NAP point of view, even if a unborn child is recognized to have full rights (a big if, granted) a woman certainly has a right to remove an unwanted trespasser from inside her body.
Yes, something along those lines. I see the reductios, though, and I don’t like them. It’s difficult to put forth a precise definition that isn’t susceptible to absurdities.
I am, however, against abortion.
@ Clayton
If we can accept that a tresspasser does not maintain the products of thier labor, then the qustion becomes, is semen tresspassing?
Well then you run into the legal question of proportionality. Abortion involves the killing of the fetus, which, for the purpose of this discussion, is human at the moment of conception. If fetuses could be grown outside of the womb, then no problem would occur. But since we can’t grow them in a tank (yet), to “evict” a fetus is to kill it. This essentially makes abortion different from simple eviction. Yes you have the freedom to evict a trespasser from your property but it is not absolute. Not even the castle doctrine gives you the right to kill a trespasser if he otherwise posed no threat to your life - you can physically drag him out but you can’t kill him. For the use of force to be considered legal, it must be necessary and proportional to the threat. To put it another way, the trespasser has to be a credible danger to your life for the use of deadly force to be legal. You are only ever justified in killing an unwelcome guest if he was, say, armed and violent for example, simply refusing to leave is not good enough. Similarly, to justify the killing of the fetus, the mother must prove that its presence constitutes a grave danger to her life. Really I find the concept of absolute self ownership that’s so prevalent in this thread dangerous. Simple sovereignty violation is no ground for murder. “luzl he infringed on mai librty so I kild him” will never hold in a court of law. Try it in the real world where retributive justice, and to a degree, utilitarianism, dominate and it will land you in jail.
Well nothing, but it would create more problems than it would solve and I doubt anybody but the most ardent fundamentalists would attempt define it that way. People born with intellectual disabilities would starve to death for example, as their caretakers can’t decide what to feed them or whether to feed them at all. More people will die of medical emergencies as emergency responders can’t decide how to treat them if they were unconscious. There will be corpses on the streets yada yada… Because of the issues it would raise it’s easier for them to just claim fetuses as “human” instead.
Not if there is a blizzard outside. If you come home from the movies one particularly frigid evening and find a homeless person has broken into your home, it’s certainly not murder to force him to leave, even if the elements would surely kill him. It may be an asshole-ish thing to do, but it is certainly not murder to refuse to provide shelter from the elements.
Likewise, the fact that the fetus does not have the abilty to survive outside the mother’s body does not make the removal of said fetus murder. The mother is under no obligation to provide for the shelter against the elements.
Oh?
I see nothing here that backs up your claim that the right on eviction is not absolute. It seems you are granting that one has the absolute right to evict, but placing limits on how it is done (i.e proportional). If that’s the case, I quite agree with you.
The property owner may push or drag the tresspassor, as you said. If the tresspasser resists, the owner may increase the amount of force to overcome the resistance. This is still proportional. The property owner may do this even if the tresspasser would surly die outside. He is under no obligation to provide free room and board.
The woman can simply hire someone to push or drag the fetus out of her.
What the heck are you talking about? People born with intellectual disabilities, people with medical emergencies and fetuses all belong “genetically to the species Homo sapiens.” Autolykos is saying calling for all of these to be called human. Where’s the instead? Or are you saying only people without intellectual disabilities and medical emergencies, and fetuses, are human, and other Homo sapiens are not?
whether or not it’s murder is dependent on the attendant circumstances of the eviction but to evict a non violent homeless person from your property during a blizzard would likely make you liable for manslaughter/wrongful death should he succumb to hypothermia outside your property later on. It won’t take much to convince a judge/jury that your eviction was the proximate cause of his death. Even thought it might not have been your intention to kill him, the fact that you, knowing full well that your eviction would most likely result in his death, recklessly removed him from your property constitutes the mens rea of the crime. It is like putting your drunk friend in the middle of the road at night. If he got run over you’re still culpable even though you didn’t actually kill him.
Abortion requires the intent to deprive the fetus of life. The burden of proof is on the mother and her physician to prove otherwise. The prosecution won’t have to work hard to establish causation and culpability. Abortion is even clearer cut than kicking a homeless person out into the storm. It’s more like “evicting” a trespasser by throwing him off your 10th floor balcony. “lol i didn’t kile him the pavement and the fall killed him keke”.
It is not absolute in the sense that you can’t evict a non violent trespasser if it was foreseeable that doing so would most likely result in his death. You don’t have an obligation to provide free room and board but you do have an obligation to ensure that your eviction would not cause the trespasser death or serious injury eg you can’t throw him down a long flight of stairs, you must physically carry him down etc etc. If the owner knew that evicting the trespasser would surely result in his death and yet he proceeded to do so without even attempting to mitigate the risks, he is said to have acted with recklessness borderlining on criminal intent - elements necessary for the establishment of mens rea. The fact that the trespasser violated his property rights is no excuse if the trespasser was otherwise civil. Ex turpi causa non oritur actio is not without limit lest everybody get killed for petty crimes like fraud or simply for stepping on someone’s foot.
So? Just because you can hire a hitman to kill someone doesn’t mean you’ll be immune from prosecution if the use of force was not justified. If you’re so sure that hiring someone to commit a crime would shield you from all potential lawsuits then why don’t you go pay some thugs to beat up some random person and see how it works out for you?
It is sometimes (but not often) self-defense. Wow, that was pretty dialectical. I feel like Karl Marx.
The eviction was not the cause of death. The cold outside was the cause of death. The trespasser had no right to be in my home. My actions were not the cause of him being outside; the fact that he could not find shelter without stealing and was therefore exposed to the elements was the cause of death.
Throwing him down the stairs is a method of eviction – a how. I have agreed with you that there are limits as to how an eviction may take place. We disagree about the absolue right to evict – not how it’s done, just the right to do it. I am not talking about excessive force. I am talking about the absolute minimal force necessary to complete the eviction – ideally no force at all, simply a verbal order.
You are putting a positive obligation on the owner of the property to use his property in a manner he does not want. Either he has an obligation to provide the trespasser shelter from the elements (all the time or in circumstances) or he does not.
I paraphrased your words. “[Y]ou can physically drag him out but you can’t kill him.” Are you now saying I can’t physically drag him out?
I defined “human” as fully sovereign beings and that one of the criteria of “humanhood” is that a being must at least have the capacity for consciousness. Autolykos asked what’s to stop someone from ignoring all the other criteria and simply define “human” as “belonging genetically to the species Homo sapiens”. I contended that If we were to define “human” as “belonging genetically to the species Homo sapiens” and subsequently awarded them full sovereignty, then it would lead to the problems I proposed. Corpses are genetically human but they don’t have the capacity for consciousness. People in a coma and people with intellectual disabilities are genetically human and yet they’re not “human” in the sense that I described in my earliest post : they do not have full sovereignty as they either can’t fully express themselves or we can’t interpret their wishes in anyway. They are partially sovereign - they have the right to life but not the right to liberty, their right to liberty is delegated to their caretakers, next of kin, physicians etc etc. Is it really that hard to understand?
They are partially sovereign - they have the right to life but not the right to liberty, their right to liberty is delegated to their caretakers, next of kin, physicians etc etc. Is it really that hard to understand?
To understand? Not really. I was a bit confused that you exclude the mentally disabled from your definition of human, but included a fetus. Other than that, I understand you completely. Does it make me agree with your disgusting vile point of view? Not in the least.
you’ll be surprised at the things that can be construed against you in a court of law.
Absolute rights exist only in the state of nature. In the context of a civil society your rights are contingent on the rules set forth by your community, state or pda. If the only rule in your community was “don’t murder petty criminals” then your absolute rights of liberty and murder are abridged. You have the right to murder anybody so long as you don’t murder a petty criminal. Similarly, if your community had specifically stated that your right of eviction would be recognized in court if and only if the degree of the force used was reasonable, and subsequently you used excessive force to remove a trespasser, then your right of eviction won’t be recognized at all during your trial. natural rights=/= legal rights. Even though we have the absolute right to murder whoever we like whenever we like in the state of nature, we have agreed to give up that right and subject ourselves to the rule of law when we established civil society. If you don’t like this arrangement you can go form your own community where absolute natural rights are upheld. In a libertarian society no one is really going to force you to stay.
Whether the owner has an obligation to give the trespasser shelter from the storm depends on the values of the community in which he resides. If the owner’s community was collectivist in nature then he might have an obligation to provide the trespasser with clothing, food and shelter. If on the other hand his community was libertarian then he might only need to provide food and clothing for the trespasser before evicting him or he might owe him no obligations at all. What his specific obligations are in relation to trespassers are between him and his community/defense agency. However, under the current legal system where property owners do in fact owe civil trespassers a certain duty of care, you generally can’t evict a trespasser if it was foreseeable that it would result in his death. Doing so could make you liable for tort and or criminal prosecution.
you can drag him out or you can hire someone to drag him out. The use of force in this case is justified. You can’t however strike him with a crowbar, as it is neither necessary nor reasonable for you to do so. Also, hiring someone to commit a crime will not absolve you of blame.
It was a poor choice of words, I said “human” when what I really meant was “sovereign”. I’ve never held that a fetus is sovereign per se but for the purpose of our discussion it is. What’s so disgusting and vile about my point of view? Would you rather grant people with mental disabilities etc absolute “rights” even if it would mean they would starve to death? What’s the difference between someone who’s mentally impaired and someone who’s passed out drunk in the middle of the road? We can legitimately intrude on the drunk’s liberty and not the mentally impaired’s? One can justifiably ignore the drunk’s right of liberty and remove him from the road so as to render him a reasonable standard of care until he regains consciousness or emergency services arrive. It may very well be that the drunk was actually trying to commit suicide so in a strict sense the good samaritan did infringe on the drunk’s right of life and liberty. Yet it won’t be a stretch to say that the good samaritan acted in good faith. Are you going to condemn him for being "disgustingly vile” and “unnatural” for his “initiation” of “violence” and “violation” of “rights”? Your rights are never absolute in a civil society.
They are partially sovereign - they have the right to life but not the right to liberty, their right to liberty is delegated to their caretakers, next of kin, physicians etc etc. Is it really that hard to understand?
To understand? Not really. I was a bit confused that you exclude the mentally disabled from your definition of human, but included a fetus. Other than that, I understand you completely. Does it make me agree with your disgusting vile point of view? Not in the least.
We must be careful not to declare someone sovereign on the basis of humanity alone. Sovereignty is a product of action. One must be an acting man to have rights, as only beings capable of action can make choices and be responsible for those choices.
Fetuses, and even babies for that matter, do not act. As such, they do not have rights.