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Murray Rothbard on abortion

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Conza88 replied on Fri, Jan 27 2012 7:07 AM

"Personal/Cultural intuition is not a substitute for reason. A zygote or fetus cannot be considered a self-owner without contradiction. Sometimes conclusions are non-intuitive to some, than social sanctions replace direct violence. (I adress this in my post above)"

More strawmen. No-one has claimed it is. The claim is that it has the potential, and as such gets 'guardianship' or 'trustee rights' are given to it for those have a best claim to them.

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Gumdy replied on Fri, Jan 27 2012 8:13 AM

The quote you provided is very clear (as is your writing in general)

I've written:

                So, given that a fetus will most likely become a moral agent, can he be considered a sleeping man?

You've written:

"Go forth and provide this specific contravening evidence that a fetus is not a potential human, and that it is not part of its nature."

Surprising. I think you are missing my point here. The question is which specific moral agent owns the body of the fetus i.e. who has a better link to it. Ownership is, of course, not grounded in the immediate present, and so even if you are out of your home or car (or in a coma) and as long as you are not finally dead, ownership can still be objectively be traced to an existing moral agent capable with goals relevant to the use of the object. The property title claim is in principle always traced back to an agent. Only tracing to the future will assign a non-existing hypothetical agent ownership. To do this is to claim that a future late-comer objective link is more important than a presently ascertainable link grounded in well-known past. In any specific instance it is invalid to assign a present property title to a moral-agent who has yet come to existence, on the basis that someday in the future he probably will have a better link. To argue so (this will someday belong to someone so you cannot use it) is inconsistent.

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Conza88 replied on Fri, Jan 27 2012 8:49 AM

"The question is which specific moral agent owns the body of the fetus i.e. who has a better link to it."

You do not & cannot legitimately own another actor producer.

It is worth mentioning that the ownership right stemming from production finds its natural limitation only when, as in the case of children, the thing produced is itself another actor-producer. According to the natural theory of property, a child, once born, is just as much the owner of his own body as anyone else. Hence, not only can a child expect not to be physically aggressed against but as the owner of his body a child has the right, in particular, to abandon his parents once he is physically able to run away from them and say "no" to their possible attempts to recapture him. Parents only have special rights regarding their child - stemming from their unique status as the child's producers - insofar as they (and no one else) can rightfully claim to be the child's trustee as long as the child is physically unable to run away and say "no."[8]

Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, n.9 to ch. 2, on p. 212; emphasis added.

It is not your property. If you contend as such then you must also contend it is justifable to kill children who have yet to prove their full-self ownership, to kill babies, to end the life of those in coma's etc.

If you do not, then you absolutely concede another category (of 'possibility') that is which these 'coma patients' individuals not able to engage in communication, as well as babies (who it is assumed will.. much like children) enter the category of 'guardianship rights' where they remain until eventually they display and confirm their full self-ownership.

"Ownership is, of course, not grounded in the immediate present, and so even if you are out of your home or car (or in a coma) and as long as you are not finally dead, ownership can still be objectively be traced to an existing moral agent capable with goals relevant to the use of the object."

Those ownership rights are 'guardian ship' or 'trustee rights'. They are not full absolute ones. If you contend so, again as above, you must agree that you have every right to end the life of a child, coma patient etc. and it is justified.

The objective link is still present, just not of the nature you have suggested.

"The property title claim is in principle always traced back to an agent. Only tracing to the future will assign a non-existing hypothetical agent ownership."

Yeah, the parents - who have best claim. There is no tracing to the future. You still don't get it. The fetus is in the same category as a child essentially, it has yet to assert it's full self-ownership. The child is far advanced, the fetus at the very beginning... on the path towards self-ownership. The primary difference is of degree, not kind.

"To do this is to claim that a future late-comer objective link is more important than a presently ascertainable link grounded in well-known past. In any specific instance it is invalid to assign a present property title to a moral-agent who has yet come to existence, on the basis that someday in the future he probably will have a better link. To argue so (this will someday belong to someone so you cannot use it) is inconsistent."

Lmao. You still don't get it. I'm hard pressed to understand where it's coming from... clearly from a misunderstanding about reading Hoppe, because his position is what I am defending, what the author I just quoted is defending... you're the odd one out here, not my, nor his take. It's not inconsistent, your position is. And assign a property title of what exactly?

You are still yet to provide any specific contravening evidence. Whether the fetus makes it to be able to claim full-self ownership, or if it dies at any stage prior to doing so is irrelevent. Just as a coma patient may die before re-awakening. The fact is that they are to be treated in the same manner, as they are in the same category of 'guardianship' and 'trustee rights'.

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I think you are too quick to denounce things without asking for clarifications. When referring to by reason, I'm referring to Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics. If what counts for you is a cultural value-judgment, no sense in arguing about that. We just make different value-judgments. I think reason based arguments most-certainly can be made (not saying everything is based on reason). If you feel good with using violence solely based on what you feel like- again, all the best.


But since we both agree you cannot base anything of value on pure logic, in the end of the day, every conclusion you can establish about the world derives from some sort of feeling. The problem is that for complex decisions you have to sort out different feelings they may entice. And that requires effective logic and some patience. Maybe your first analytical attempts have not succeeded in carrying on all the implications involved, because you’ve left out important feelings that are associated to the issue.

The first intuitive guess will not necessarily be right. Most likely, you haven’t yet made all the distinctions of implications on feelings produced by a certain decision, and you jump on a hurried conclusion.

You can think that eating KFC will make you feel good, because you think fried chicken tastes really amazing, but then again, when you think of the medium or long term effects on your mind and digestion and weight and skin and overall health, you may see things otherwise and reconsider.

Eating KFC or not is a rather simple decision. And its effects are only felt by the individual that takes it. Abortion is far more complicated.

I can tell you that, because my first intuitive feeling on that matter was to regard fetuses as organic matter without any rights. So I felt that the power to get rid of such burden should be an essential freedom for women.

For many years I have espoused that view of things. But what are the non-trivial implications of thinking like that? How those level-two implications make me feel?

And that’s what I’m talking about here.

And after some consideration an horrible scenario unfolds.

That’s because embedded on that view lies the presumption that human beings can redefine themselves regarding some convenient criteria. That personal responsibility is something relative to our choices of lexicon, and that it suffices to change peoples language to proceed into the extermination of whatever we want to exterminate. That human dignity is something open to be debated and redefined by the eugenicists in vogue.

That’s the precise idea that is creeping beneath all abortionist ideologies. I say creeping because most of its defenders have not carried on their analysis to the depths required in order to reach those implications. And they would probably reconsider their views were they aware them.

The thing is that whatever you may call Justice it is nothing but a general moral feeling. It is the feeling that you live in a social environment where pre-established rules are somewhat well understood and accepted by people and they are generally applied, up to acceptable approximations and margins for errors. Systems of Justice are devised in order to satisfy such feeling.

You can call upon any libertarian principle, say the non-aggression axiom, which I generally agree with. It is nothing but a feeling of what is good and can work as basis of a justice system. It is understood that if many a people take up that principle and if mechanisms of enforcement of that are put into work, a better feeling of justice can be achieved.

But don’t fool yourself. No system of Justice is perfect or free of complicated conflicts, because it will always be based on somewhat imprecise feelings about a reality that in a certain degree will escape. And we never know how we are gonna feel about situations that have not yet manifested. What we can do is think of two imperfect alternative worlds, one where people are if necessary forced to carry on their responsibilities towards those affected by their consequential actions, and one where they are not required to; and than decide whichever one feels more just.
"Blood alone moves the wheels of history" - Dwight Schrute
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Gumdy replied on Fri, Jan 27 2012 4:08 PM

Thank you for the detailed reply.

First, I replied to Toxic Assets and not to you, in what you refered to as "more straw man". So no straw man intended.

"You do not & cannot legitimately own another actor producer."

I actually didn't claim otherwise, and with regards to children I completely agree. See:

I will also note that a child does not go from having no rights to being a full moral agent in an instant. As a baby grows older and develops some cognitive ability to respect the rights of others, he also gradually gains rights for himself. Once the child has shown he is able to fully respect the rights of others and maturely resolve disputes, he must be considered full moral agent, and has all the rights of a grownup himself.

If you will see my treatment of animals I ground the categorical imperative in argumentation:

"Normative distinctions based on skin-color, height or sexual preference is trivially arbitrary, as people of any skin-color, height or sexual preference can deny them in argument with no implied contradiction. Such a distinction has nothing to do with their ability to respect the rights of others, and implied in that, to resolve conflicts in discourse. They are fully capable moral agents.

However, what about the removal of moral distinctions, that is, broadening the category of moral agents to include animals, for instance? It can be shown that this is not the removal of a moral categorical distinction, but  in fact the introduction of one. It is because animals are cognitively “blind” to the notion of rights and the rights of others; they cannot then be logically held accountable for committing rights violations any more than a blind man can logically be punished for bumping into someone, after taking all possible precautions.  Therefore, to claim that the rights of animals should be respected by man is not to claim that animals are equal to man, but rather that animals are superior to man. Man will be punished for spitting in the face of a lama, but the lama will not be punished for spitting at his*. (*Again, to argue the lama should be punished is a clear reductio ad-absurdum)"

This is very important to my point. Catergorical distinction in the resolution of an actual conflict are based on symatry, not invented presumptions. From this, a child with some cognitive ability is indeed not like a fetus (i.e. they are not in the same category): I agreed:

" I will also note that a child does not go from having no rights to being a full moral agent in an instant. As a baby grows older and develops some cognitive ability to respect the rights of others, he also gradually gains some rights for himself. Once the child has shown he is able to fully respect the rights of others and maturely resolve disputes, he must be considered full moral agent, and has all the rights of a grownup himself."

That is, a child capable of expressing "no", verbally or otherwise, has some rights over his body and cannot be killed. It's a scale, not all or nothing. You are right that a fetus is also on that scale but since inclusion in a moral category for some right relies on you cognitive ability, it is on the zero of the scale.  In case of the mother wanting to put the cells, or body, of the fetus to some use-

So when you said:

The fetus is in the same category as a child essentially, it has yet to assert its full self-ownership. The child is far advanced, the fetus at the very beginning... on the path towards self-ownership.

I disagree, the category is not some "bucket" but a scale, when you acquire some conative ability to express one-self and interact with others, some of your rights must then symmetrically also be respected, but before that-none what so ever. So I agree you cannot own an actor producer, children included, but a fetus is not an actor producer. The categorical distinction grounded in argumentation relies on symmetry, not on some potential for the future (the reason Block got to this is that he does not explicitly build upon the APoA).

There is no imaginary "guardianship" agreement, this is just completely made up. There is a conflict and its resolution. There is only property rights grounded in inter-subjectively ascertainable claims. I deny there is any need for a special category for man in coma- this is completely regular ownership. Unlike a man in a temporary comma, a fetus's cells ownership cannot be traced (in any real terms) to any moral agent other then its mother. A man in a coma's body can be traced to him. This is not the same at all. What you are essentially claiming here is that non-human matter incapable of any rationality cannot be harmed because someday in the future it will be a part a human body (which indeed cannot be externaly owned)- then this has no objective grounding. The fetus's body is currently nothing but an organ of the mother. There is not even a clear physical distinction (due to the umbilical cord). Even conceding this invalid rule of ownership for resolving conflicts over what is essentialy a part of the mother's body, by prohibiting the mother from harming cells in her body, there is still an invented "presumption" introduced about what the future agent would want, which is also not grounded on anything. This is very artificial. Again, my problem with this is that unlike a man in a coma here you are resolving the conflict over the fetus's body using ownership based on a future event (which other than being special treatment, is inherently hypothetical).

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Gumdy:
What you are essentially claiming here is that non-human matter incapable of any rationality cannot be harmed because someday in the future it will be a part a human body (which indeed cannot be externaly owned)- then this has no objective grounding.

 
Actually, you have perfectly summarized the objective grounding.  The fetus is a potential rational agent.  That is an objective fact.  The question then becomes, do potential rational agents have the same rights as actual rational agents?
 
The fetus's body is currently nothing but an organ of the mother. There is not even a clear physical distinction (due to the umbilical cord).
 
All biological evidence, especially DNA, contradicts you.  DNA shows that the fetus is a separate organism, and not at all part of the mother.  If you had described it as a parasite, I might have agreed with you, but an organ?  That flies in the face of biology.
 
Further, it is very clear to all but those with extremely poor eye sight where the umbilical cord ends and the fetus begins.  By your logic, "There is not even a clear physical distinction," between a mosquito and your arm, due to its elongated mouth piercing your skin.


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aderwent replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:11 AM

i think it can be agreed that a 10 year old child is not fully reasoned as an adult, nor can he provide a life for himself. though one day he will. but we all agree this 10 year old child cannot be raped by his "owners" (parents). so where is the line drawn? when the baby leaves the womb? why is one "potential rational agent" more deserving of rights than another? my view is that you have the freedom to have sex with whomever you please. but a baby is not a choice. it's a consequence. you INVITED that baby onto your property. if you invited a friend over, then decided he was a nuisance, you couldn't just abort him from your home, violently, fatally in this case (unless he was doing harm to you or your property, which a baby is not doing to its mother). and don't say it's different, because that friend could survive after being kicked out. the baby doesn't need its mother to survive. it needs A mother. this whole choice movement is sickening, not so much for the disregard for human life (because some people don't claim fetuses are human life), but because it teaches, necessarily, irresponsibility. not taking responsiblity for your actions. after roe/wade the abortion rate went up, but so did teenage pregnancies and out-of-wedlock babies. history has proved these two situations are prohibiitive of the child reaching full capacity of faculties (knowledge, values, what have you).

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"But since we both agree you cannot base anything of value on pure logic, in the end of the day, every conclusion you can establish about the world derives from some sort of feeling."

The problem with this debate is a conflation of values with natural rights.  I love my baby more than any rights-capable entity I can imagine.  But it is a matter of fact that I observe my baby to be incapable and therefore devoid of any rights whatsoever.  The only rights that are relevant to my baby, are the rights of those I surround him with, which will help determine if my baby will thrive and mature into a rights-capable entity himself.  It may, or may not happen, that my baby will one day have rights.  If it happens, then my interactions with him will include his consideration of my lasting actions toward or against his development during his pre-rights period. But if he never reaches that stage, such considerations never happen, and rights never become an issue.

In just about any abortion debate, the only rights truly under consideration, are those of the debators, not the fetus--which has none.

Natural rights are a behavioral trait of an entity.  Like a Turing test, you know something has rights by how it reacts to you.  Any possible knowledge of biology is completely irrelevent.  Rights behavior in a nonhuman would still be rights behavior.  The purpose and advantage of rights is to allow a nonviolent option of affecting the behavior of another entity, *in defense of* your values.  Whether the other entity is incapable of rights, like a fetus or very young child or tornado, or chooses not to respect them, like a criminal aggressor, makes no difference when it comes to you determing what your options are for responding to that entity.

Normative questions like, "Should you abort a fetus?" are not solved by eliminating the confusion between rights and values, or by recognizing the fact that a fetus has no natural rights, since rights-capable individuals will still disagree from a personal values standpoint.  The only thing you can peacefully do is to try to pursuade someone to embrace your values.

But in reality, almost every abortion debate comes down to "Is violence a justified reaction?"  Those who say that a stranger is justified in violently prohibiting a woman from aborting her fetus are claiming property owership of the fetus and/or mother.  It is impossible that they are acting according to the wishes of the fetus, since the fetus cannot, and never could, wish anything.  There is no allying with an entity incapable of ever having entered into an allegiance.

I can get much more emotional and defensive over a fetus or Monet as compared to a mother wanting to abort or a collector wanting to destroy for insurance.  Frankly, I couldn't care less, in most cases, whether the latter live or die.  But natural rights are mundane features of the natural world.  The latter have them (or are at least capable of them), the former do not.  I have to decide if I am willing to aggress againt the latter, violating their rights, in defense of the former, which are my greater values.  As a libertarian, my calculus includes an even higher value--the nonaggression principle--which restrains me from automatically treating everything that I value as my personal property.  I know that such behavior cannot come in defense of civility, because violating the principle gaurantees conflict and is the unravelling of civility.

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MaikU replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 7:13 AM

Conza88:

"The question is which specific moral agent owns the body of the fetus i.e. who has a better link to it."

You do not & cannot legitimately own another actor producer.

but you've just said (implied), that a fetus isn't actor or producer. So it's fully possible for a woman to own a fetus in my book. Fetus gets all the rights once he is born. Until that, it is the property of the woman (an probably a man... not sure yet about it)

"Dude... Roderick Long is the most anarchisty anarchist that has ever anarchisted!" - Evilsceptic

(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)

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Gumdy replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 7:43 AM

MaikU,

I don't see how phisical birth is any more than a change of location. Moral status is determined via the agents ability to respect the rights of others.

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MaikU replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 10:29 AM

Gumdy:

MaikU,

I don't see how phisical birth is any more than a change of location. Moral status is determined via the agents ability to respect the rights of others.

 

then you have problems with biology, man. Actually, location is the same, maybe a few centemeters away from the host, but the point is, now the creature is sole owner oh his body and is not dependent on the fluids of its previous host. Birth is a first step towards independence and the beginning of rational human being.

"Dude... Roderick Long is the most anarchisty anarchist that has ever anarchisted!" - Evilsceptic

(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)

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hashem replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:22 PM

In my thread on abortion, I've challenged anyone to attack a few points, citing sources and using quotes. To this day, nobody has. I feel convinced my position is the only unique and consistent libertarian position.

• A fetus doesn't meet the requirements for property rights. Therefore abortion is strictly legitimate.

To attack this point, the opposition must note that rights are property rights in scarce resources, requiring action which implies a rational individual. A fetus isn't an individual, it can't be proved to be rational, it can't communicate about abstract concepts with us, it can't act in the economic sense—purposeful behavior towards scarce resources—nor does it need to (it's critical to note that a fetus doesn't need to act; the concept of rights is about justice concerning the needs of individuals in an environment of scarce resources upon which they can act in competition). To top it all, nothing about the entire concept of property is relevant to a fetus—whether from the fetus' perspective outward, or another's perspective toward the fetus. A fetus doesn't need property, nor can it to acquire any through trade or homestead. To talk about the property rights of a fetus is to ignore the very foundations of the concepts of property, rights,  and property rights (and action, scarcity, and the role of ethics, which deals with the just allocation of resources in an environment of scarcity and competition).

• In abortion, nobody (if not the mother) has a property right such that they can legitimately retaliate.

Self-evident, needs no commentary. If the fetus isn't considered an individual, there is no concern for whom it belongs to; the fetus is a part of the mother. If the fetus can be considered property, certainly it is nobody's if not the mother's, so if she murders it, nobody has any legal recourse.

• OK, enough about fetuses, what about the case of babies? Once a baby (individual, ex-fetus) acts it becomes a self-owner—this is as opposed to a fetus, which is neither a self nor capable of owning or even fathoming no less communicating about the concept of ownership. As a self-owner, nobody has a property right in it, so nobody can legitimately retaliate against someone who murders the baby. This is for a baby who has just become a self-owner, not a 2, 3, or 4 year old etc who can rationally contract for defense or insurance.

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Conza88 replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:26 PM

Maiku: "but you've just said (implied), that a fetus isn't actor or producer. So it's fully possible for a woman to own a fetus in my book. Fetus gets all the rights once he is born. Until that, it is the property of the woman (an probably a man... not sure yet about it)"

Yet. It has the potential. Which is a part of it's nature. It has begun the process, it is on the continuum.

No. Until then it is "on" / in the property of the woman, as a guest. Should it be 'uninvited' then it must be removed in the most gentlest means possible. Evicted. Not killed (aborted).

Can you have some damn decency and make at least a basic level of effort to educate yourself by reading the actual content of the journal article before bumbling in, in a massive state of ignorance?

There is a reason why you're "not sure yet about it".

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Gumdy replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:27 PM

Hashem,

Exactly the position I advocate here. I believe it is perfectly grounded in Argumentation Ethics.

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hashem replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:31 PM

Gumdy, how ironic, then, that we should fight an already-won uphill battle among our purported peers. I imagine this is how Hoppe feels with his argumentation ethics. He's got it figured out from the ground up, yet his own peers attack the up and ignore the ground.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. —Mark Twain
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Conza88 replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:34 PM

Hashem: "Gumdy, how ironic, then, that we should fight an already-won uphill battle among our purported peers. I imagine this is how Hoppe feels with his argumentation ethics. He's got it figured out from the ground up, yet his own peers attack the up and ignore the ground."

Nope.

Nice backslapping. I'll address both your objections when I have time.

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aderwent replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:45 PM

hashem, have you ever felt a "fetus" kick? is that not an action separate from its mother's? in any case, "action" is not the threshold for personhood. sorry, that is just dumb. plenty of people replied to, and excused your thread.  you didn't reply to my post. the baby isn't violating the mother's property. the mother INVITED the baby into her property.

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Gumdy replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:46 PM

Conza,

Given this was in Poland I think Hoppe was simply assuming the fetus is alive. He said "even so", and "even if". He did not seemed decisive. :)

We are not objectivists of cours and we can have an interesting debates instead of a party line. :)

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Conza88 replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:55 PM

It was an easy / natural rejection of Hashem's charachterization. I'm not sure what Poland has to do with it. He said the same thing in Australia.

As I've said elsewhere:

I don’t think there’s any conflict between Hoppe’s position -he is simply giving the private law framework- and Block’s, where he is specifically giving what he considers to be the ‘libertarian law code’ response. Here’s a great diagram that encapsulates what is meant. There need not be just one ‘law code’ that individuals voluntarily sign up to adhere by, but the libertarian principles of ‘self-ownership’ and ‘original appropriation’ naturally lay the foundation.

And yes of course. It'll be interesting too see some what 'new ground', it's definitely been awhile. I look forward to the exchange gentlemen :).

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hashem replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 12:56 PM

Interesting video Conzaa, not sure I have any idea what you meant by it......

I do have one thing to say of it, though I'm sure this has nothing to do with whatever you were trying to say:
Even Hoppe says he has "no clear answer", but that the situation should be resolved in the order of people who are most involved (he lists family). In my understanding, what he means is that the mother should make the decision and nobody has any say in the matter LEGALLY, but if people want to treat her differently than that is their right.

Aderwent: I have requested only objections that cite sources. I'm sure your feelings are very important to you, but when life and limb is concerned I'm more focused on the logic and justice. If you are aware of any important libertarians that reject my case, I'd love to see what they have to say about the origin of property rights—but I'm not interested in a 10 page emotional landfill.

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aderwent:
the baby isn't violating the mother's property. the mother INVITED the baby into her property.
 
Thsi is just silly.  You are equating participation in a act which may have an unintended consequence as an invitation to that consequence.  If I leave my front door open, a homeless guy may wonder in.  I certainly didn't invite him.  My engagement in an activity (leaving the door open) that increases the risk of having in intruder in no way constitutes an invitation to that intruder.
 
But even granting your invitation argument, are you claiming that if I invite you to my house, I cannot then ask you to leave at any time for any reason?


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aderwent replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 1:04 PM

hashem, if a 5 year old tells you 2+2=4, it's just as valid as if carl gauss told you 2+2=4. why the need for some superiority complex? debate the ideas.

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aderwent replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 1:14 PM

jack cuyler, your analogy fails. just because a woman walks around in promiscuous clothes doesn't leave her open to being raped. consensual sex necessarily involves both parties inviting that consequence, whether intended or not. if you excuse this "accident", what other accidents do you excuse?

you obviously didn't read my original post. abortion isn't just kicking the baby out of the womb. it's doing so violently. fatally. and when the baby is doing no harm to the mother.

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hashem replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 1:52 PM

Aderwent, that's a very important question. I ask for only objections which cite sources and quotes because the vast majority of "libertarians" who argue about abortion have no clue about their own theory of rights.

So I ask you to provide a source and a quote, because you can't. Nobody can, which is why nobody did when my previous thread was open, or the other 2 abortion threads open at that time. Anyone who sets about to cite a source on property rights and the role of ethics will necessarily debunk anti-abortion gibberish.

EDIT:

http://mises.org/daily/3660 Stephen Kinsella, What Libertarianism Is

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JackCuyler:
My engagement in an activity (leaving the door open) that increases the risk of having in intruder in no way constitutes an invitation to that intruder.

But even granting your invitation argument, are you claiming that if I invite you to my house, I cannot then ask you to leave at any time for any reason?
Correct.  There are limitations to how you may honorably eject me from your house. 
For instance: 
GOOD WAY:  "Please pick up you stuff and leave in the next 15 minutes.  Otherwise, I will remove you myself.
BAD WAY:  "If you are not out in 3 seconds, I am going to kill you!" and then after 3 seconds pass, you raise your shot-gun and shoot me in the back. 
 
Abortion is the act of a pregnant woman exercising her property rights in a BAD way. 
Before calling yourself a libertarian or an anarchist, read this.  
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aderwent:
consensual sex necessarily involves both parties inviting that consequence, whether intended or not. if you excuse this "accident", what other accidents do you excuse?
 
An invitation is a conscious act, and it necessarily requires the desire of the inviter.  If the consequence is not desired, it cannot, by definition, be an invited consequence.  Leaving a door open is risky, but not an invitation to homeless people to come over.  Sex carries a risk of unwanted pregnancy, but it not an invitation.    
 
you obviously didn't read my original post. abortion isn't just kicking the baby out of the womb. it's doing so violently. fatally. and when the baby is doing no harm to the mother.
 
Such violence is not necessary for abortions qua abortions.  A woman has the right to remove the "guest" from her body in the gentlest manner possible.  You will never see me praising the barbaric practice normally used today.


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hashem:
In my thread on abortion, I've challenged anyone to attack a few points, citing sources and using quotes. To this day, nobody has. I feel convinced my position is the only unique and consistent libertarian position.
 
Would you like responses in that thread, or is this one ok?


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Groucho replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 6:43 PM

aderwent:
the mother INVITED the baby into her property.

Where was the baby at the time this invitation was extended?

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup. -H.L. Mencken
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MaikU replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 6:43 PM

Charles Anthony:

JackCuyler:
My engagement in an activity (leaving the door open) that increases the risk of having in intruder in no way constitutes an invitation to that intruder.

But even granting your invitation argument, are you claiming that if I invite you to my house, I cannot then ask you to leave at any time for any reason?
Correct.  There are limitations to how you may honorably eject me from your house. 
For instance: 
GOOD WAY:  "Please pick up you stuff and leave in the next 15 minutes.  Otherwise, I will remove you myself.
BAD WAY:  "If you are not out in 3 seconds, I am going to kill you!" and then after 3 seconds pass, you raise your shot-gun and shoot me in the back. 
 
Abortion is the act of a pregnant woman exercising her property rights in a BAD way. 
 

oh, if a pregnant woman tells to a fetus "if you don't leave my womb in 15 minutes I'm gonna remove you myself" is a good way. What must have been proved. Also you admited, that a fetus is an intruder.

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MaikU replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 6:45 PM

JackCuyler:

 

aderwent:
consensual sex necessarily involves both parties inviting that consequence, whether intended or not. if you excuse this "accident", what other accidents do you excuse?
 
An invitation is a conscious act, and it necessarily requires the desire of the inviter.  If the consequence is not desired, it cannot, by definition, be an invited consequence.  Leaving a door open is risky, but not an invitation to homeless people to come over.  Sex carries a risk of unwanted pregnancy, but it not an invitation.    
 

this whole notion of "invitation" kinda reminds me "social contract" theory that some people believe in.

"Dude... Roderick Long is the most anarchisty anarchist that has ever anarchisted!" - Evilsceptic

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MaikU replied on Sat, Jan 28 2012 6:47 PM

Josh:

aderwent:
the mother INVITED the baby into her property.

Where was the baby at the time this invitation was extended?

 

even if we assume, that woman can "invite the fetus", she still has all the rights to remove it from her womb. Funny.

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Charles Anthony:
There are limitations to how you may honorably eject me from your house. 
For instance: 
GOOD WAY:  "Please pick up you stuff and leave in the next 15 minutes.  Otherwise, I will remove you myself." 
BAD WAY:  "If you are not out in 3 seconds, I am going to kill you!" and then after 3 seconds pass, you raise your shot-gun and shoot me in the back.
 
 
Your "BAD WAY" example is a violation of the guest's rights.  Too often it is forgotten that one never has the right to initiate agression, even in one's house.  The guest is a self-owner, and any agression against him would certainly be a violation of his property.
 
That being said, I'm glad we agree that a woman has the right to ask the fetus to leave, and if it does not, the right to remove it herself.  It would then follow that she has the right to cotract someone to remove it for her.  The only thing left, it seems, is to determine the method of removal which is not a "bad way".  Personally, I've always advocated for the gentlest method possible.


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JackCuyler:
That being said, I'm glad we agree that a woman has the right to ask the fetus to leave, and if it does not, the right to remove it herself.  It would then follow that she has the right to cotract someone to remove it for her.  The only thing left, it seems, is to determine the method of removal which is not a "bad way".  Personally, I've always advocated for the gentlest method possible.
Same here.  I advocate the gentlest method possible too:  full-term natural birth. 

 

 

MaikU:
oh, if a pregnant woman tells to a fetus "if you don't leave my womb in 15 minutes I'm gonna remove you myself" is a good way. What must have been proved.
What has been demonstrated is that the timing ( 15 minutes or 15 hours or 15 days or 15 weeks or 9 months etc. ) is purely arbitrary.  The implication is the there is nothing libertarianism by itself can say is the one and only pro-life versus pro-abortion stance. 

 

 

The market will demonstrate what abortion laws are right or wrong. 

Before calling yourself a libertarian or an anarchist, read this.  
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MaikU replied on Sun, Jan 29 2012 10:20 AM

Partly agree, but still, under my principals, forcing a woman to have a baby (for example caging her in a hospital) is violent and unlibertarian, however, not performing an abortion for her is not.

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Malachi replied on Sun, Jan 29 2012 10:48 AM
I have often wondered why a woman would choose to pay hundreds of dollars to a physician in order to undergo a procedure that has a very real chance of damaging her reproductive organs or taking her life, when she could use herbs to induce miscarriage in the privacy of her own home with minimal risk, at a fraction of the cost. Is it because the abortion industry is publicly funded?
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hashem replied on Sun, Jan 29 2012 10:53 AM

You guys are muddying the issue when you keep accidentally calling the fetus a baby. Anti-abortionists always do this, they are scared to death of anyone considering the fetus as a fetus and not a baby. The baby is the born, non-fetus, ex-fetus. Usually at this point the umbilical cord is cut and the baby becomes an individual.

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Malachi replied on Sun, Jan 29 2012 10:56 AM
You are muddying the issue when you create arbitrary categories for human beings. He or she is not a baby until the parents buy a "baby on board" sign for their car, until then s/he is an infant.
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JackCuyler replied on Sun, Jan 29 2012 11:18 AM

 

Charles Anthony:
JackCuyler:
Personally, I've always advocated for the gentlest method possible.
 
Same here.  I advocate the gentlest method possible too:  full-term natural birth. 
 
A Caesarean section is certainly gentler on the offspring, as it removes the need to go through the Play-Doh Fun Factory of Life, including all of the painful re-arranging of bones in the head.  If abortions were performed in the same manner, I can't see how anyone could claim aggression on the part of the doctor or would-be mother.  It would simply be removing the unwanted guest from the woman's property.


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MaikU replied on Sun, Jan 29 2012 2:16 PM

the most objective (in my opinion) way determining human and a fetus is the time when the fetus is born and becomes independent individual, not a "parasite of a host". But keep on, try to prove that fetus is a human, then by such reasoning we can conclude that sperm is also a possible human so masturbating should be prohibited.

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Natural rights people seem to believe that rights are physical possessions of individuals. You either have them or you don’t, and it does not have anything to do with what other people believe.

This is not completely bad as a frame of reverence in certain instances.

But it is necessary to understand that a right is a perception upon what is righteous in the context of an action. It is an abstraction, a rule. It manifests in the interpretations of intents and effects of a given situation.

So your right to property is only the understanding by other people that they should not seek to seize whatever you have, that action being considered wrong.

Your right to property depends upon such common understanding. Without it, it doesn’t even exist. You cannot say that a mob has violated your natural right to property if you’re the only person on the planet that thinks you own something.

You can argue that a society where people understand private property is more likely to achieve higher levels of affluence and an overall greater use of information and resources.

That doesn’t change the fact that rights rest upon the adherence and understanding of abstract rules that govern action, and are not physical things being carried around by “rights bearing entities”.

If you doubt it you can just do the empircal verification of moving to some place in Africa or Asia (or even in America) where they don’t like white people very much and where law enforcement is precarious and use your alleged natural right to free speech in an offensive way.

Rights derive from perceptions and understanding of those who are supposed to put those rights into use as a means of judging actions.

So it is inconsequential to try to define a right bearing entity.
What is relevant is to discuss what actions are understood as righteous, so them to judge the consequential actors by such.

We can spend the whole day discussing the metaphysical situation of a 16-month toddler, who can’t say “no” or “me” yet. Is she self-conscious, is she not? Is she a moral being?

But if we are to judge whether a pedophile who molested her should go to jail, such arguments are completely irrelevant.

We understand that the pedophile has violated standards of what is to be considered righteous action and we see him as liable to punishment for that.

The actual perception from the point of view of the toddler is something that will always remain subject to speculation, but in the end of the day it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that we live in a civilization that has agreed upon certain standards for righteous action, and that pedophilia is a violation of those.

Clearly a toddler of 16-month “has” not yet any “right” to decide things for herself, but that does not make us see her as some piece of meat that can be subjected to any sort of desecration.

We sanctify her human life, whether she does understand it already or not. We do that even though we se her as a growing individual which is not yet entitled to take many important decisions by herself. We understand that until she reaches that point, it is the duty of those who brought her to life by their own volition to take good care of her. And if they don’t, we shall make them pay for their inequities.

We also do not know how a fetus perceive the world or her own situation. Maybe it is really nothing, or almost nothing, at least until she forms the brain structures that we assume do the job as to perform such processes.

But then again it doesn’t matter what she perceives. What we are discussing is whether the decision of destroying her can be justified by her mother desires or not.

Our individual perception of such issue will them orient the formation of a justice principle that will be used to guide normative decisions regarding this category of problem.

If we are to be consistent in our moral feelings, and sactify human life that grows, whether or not it has reached any arbitrary decision taking threshold, we are to agree that such destruction is a violation and we should be against it. That negligence by her parents is an unjust and wicked behavior that we should not tolerate as part of civilized society.
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