The fetus becomes an intruder the moment the mother decides it is, in the same way a house guest becomes an intruder the moment his host decides he's overstayed his welcome. I get the point, but I don't think term "intruder" is appropriate. The fetus never acted to get itself into the womb, so calling it an aggressor like that is character assasination.
The fetus becomes an intruder the moment the mother decides it is, in the same way a house guest becomes an intruder the moment his host decides he's overstayed his welcome.
I get the point, but I don't think term "intruder" is appropriate. The fetus never acted to get itself into the womb, so calling it an aggressor like that is character assasination.
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.
faber est suae quisque fortunae
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 fetus becomes an intruder the moment the mother decides it is, in the same way a house guest becomes an intruder the moment his host decides he's overstayed his welcome. The removal of a fetus from the mother's body for the purpose of its death is a bit different from removing someone from your house. Someone who was invited into your property is also not the same as someone who's very existence is because of your own decision to create it. I am failing to see how these analogies hold up in any sense. 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. faber est suae quisque fortunae | Post Points: 20
The removal of a fetus from the mother's body for the purpose of its death is a bit different from removing someone from your house. Someone who was invited into your property is also not the same as someone who's very existence is because of your own decision to create it. I am failing to see how these analogies hold up in any sense.
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."
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.
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. 1. 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. 2. 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.
1. 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.
2. 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."
MaikU wrote: Here comes sentience part. Fetus is not human. your friend is. Killing fetus is not immoral. Throwing your friend into the open waters if he becomes an intruder is immoral, unless he starts agressing against you and that becomes the only possible defence at that moment.
Here comes sentience part. Fetus is not human. your friend is. Killing fetus is not immoral. Throwing your friend into the open waters if he becomes an intruder is immoral, unless he starts agressing against you and that becomes the only possible defence at that moment.
What if my friend is temporarily non-sentient, just like a fetus? E.g., my friend is really drunk, in a coma (from which he will wake up in 4.5 months), sleeping, under general anesthesia, has Alzheimer's, or had brain damage as a result of the drinking last night that made him demented? What if my friend came with a newborn (or recently born) baby -- is it ok to throw it out? It seems strange to me to say that all the abovementioned examples don't have natural rights. For instance, the moment a patient becomes heavily sedated (or goes in a coma), it's ok to kill him or harvest his organs.
you do not get the "sentience" part. There is no analogy to a fetus. Fetus is simply not human.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Marko,
I'm not really modifying my stance, but rather clarifying it, and perhaps modifying the analogy. As for my dragging the drunk onto my porch in the first place, I would think that would be an act of aggession. In any event, I never claimed he did anything to me, simply that I have the right to remove him.
Say as I'm walking to my door some late summer night, say 4am, I notice an obviously drunk man litterally falling over himself while walking down the sidewalk, sometimes stumbling into the street. I live in a city, three doors from a corner bar, so this really isn't that far-fetched. As he passes by, I invite him to sit down for a while and clear his head before he hurts himself. He sits down, chats with me for less that a minute, and passes out. I think to myself, "Ahh well, no worries. He'll be on his way when he sobers up."
When I get inside, my girlfriend informs me her mother will be visting us early the next morning. I don't want her mother to see a drunk sleeping on our porch, lest she fear her baby girl is living in a dangerous neighborhood with a scoundrel who can't take care of her. I have to get him to leave to preserve any semblance of domestic harmony. When I try to wake him, though, he won't budge. He's out cold.
I maintain that I have a right to move him, as even though he was invited on to the porch, his right to stay there is dependent on my continued consent. Once I change my mind, he no longer has the right to be on my porch, and since he cannot comply with my wishes for him to leave, I have the right to physically move him. Do you agree?
As I said, this is not a change in my stance, but rather a clarification. I would say that once I change my mind, he is an intruder. You don't seem to like that word, and that's fine. Pick any word you like to describe one who has no right to be where he is.
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.
I certainly would not accuse you of gross incompetence. I would, however, point out that in Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard states that rights are acquired at birth.
First, let us begin with the prenatal child. What is the parent’s, or rather the mother’s, property right in the fetus? In the first place, we must note that the conservative Catholic position has generally been dismissed too brusquely. This position holds that the fetus is a living person, and hence that abortion is an act of murder and must therefore be outlawed as in the case of any murder. The usual reply is simply to demarcate birth as the beginning of a live human being possessing natural rights, including the right not to be murdered; before birth, the counter-argument runs, the child cannot be considered a living person. But the Catholic reply that the fetus is alive and is an imminently potential person then comes disquietingly close to the general view that a newborn baby cannot be aggressed against because it is a potential adult. 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.
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. 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".
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 don't think a fetus is capable of being evil, nor can it be accused of moral turpitude. I also don't think that either is necessary to be a coersive parasite. A tape worm is certainly a coersive parasite, and is equally incapable of moral turpitude or evil.
MaikU wrote: you do not get the "sentience" part. There is no analogy to a fetus. Fetus is simply not human.
What exactly don't I get? When an adult human being is in a coma, asleep, under general anesthesia, or has mental impairment, he is not sentient. He is less sentient than many animals. Does he stop being a human being?
Before you declare someone "simply not human", you have to justify it. The same phrase has been historically said about slaves in the US.
myhumangetsme wrote: 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.
It is anyone's right not be aggressed upon. In fact, you even have to justify calling something your "property". The justification is its scarcity and the resulting conflict between you and someone else using it. In this conflict, either of the sides will have aggression acted upon it; therefore, it makes sense to allow aggression on the side that has smaller claim.
But in the case of aggression against someone's body vs. aggression against someone's material property, the first natural right tramps the second.
So, Siamese twins are not humans? Not only can one of them kill the other, but an outsider can also kill one of them (or both), right?
What does "fully formed" mean? A human being is not fully formed until 21 years of age, when all of his brain lobes are fully myelinated. I already gave example of non-separate beings (Siamese twins). Not to mention people on respirators or dialysis machines (not fully independent) or people who were born with abnormalities (for example, without a limb or with mental retardation). Are all these non-humans?
Patent nonsense.
Run out of original comebacks?
I have the right to be free from aggression, in all times and in all places...
You don't have a right to be free from aggression when you have first initiated the aggression (read: crime) against someone else, no matter what the level of aggression is. How NAP-sters can continue to cling to such a ridiculously problematic tenet is beyond me.
A non-proprtional response to aggression is itself aggression.
Who gave you the right to a proportionate response?
It is anyone's right not be aggressed upon.
Says who? Do you think people in the Middle East are feeling just wonderful about this new found right of theirs while their homes are being blown to bits and soldiers are shooting them in their own streets?
But in the case of aggression against someone's body vs. aggression against someone's material property, the first natural right trumps the second.
If a material property owner has an explicit statement of contract on his property for how violation of their property will be dealt with, and you are aware of that contract and choose to violate his property anyway, then contract law goes out the window because it's not fair to his property as body? That's laughable.
So extremely extraordinary circumstances justifies the nullification of a completely valid definition? You're really stretching with that one.
What does "fully formed" mean?
What does "evading" mean? There are only two possible entities within a discussion of abortion, the unborn and the mother. There is no slippery slope.
You don't have a right to be free from aggression when you have first initiated the aggression (read: crime) against someone else, no matter what the level of aggression is.
As attractive as repeating the same thesis over and over is, perhaps you might include some argumentation to support it?
My argumentation is that any time one committs aggression against someone else, he is doing something bad. But, when he is doing it in self-defense, he is choosing the lesser of two evils, since if he doesn't defend himself, aggressively, he will suffer aggression against himself. (And of the two evils, choosing aggressing against someone else is the lesser one, since he initiated the aggression.)
But for this to be the case, the two evils must be proportionate. In a situation when a drunk passed out on your porch, shooting him in the head is not the lesser evil comparing to allowing him to trespass. An equivalent response would be to push him off your property (i.e., committ trespass against his body in order to stop a trespass against your porch).
If you disagree with the above, I'd be interested in hearing your arguments.
I am not sure what this was apropos of.
If a material property owner has an explicit statement of contract on his property for how violation of their property will be dealt with, and you are aware of that contract and choose to violate his property anyway, then contract law goes out the window because it's not fair to his property as body?
Don't confuse contractual rights and natural rights. That's the mistake modern Liberals make. If you made a contract that if you steal from your employer, he can cut off your hand, then perhaps you could argue that he is not violating your rights to your hand, since you contracted out your natural right. (This also depends on whether ownership of body parts is alienable. Because one can willingly give away — or sell — his kidney or liver lobe, it seems so.) But in the case of a drunk stumbling on your porch, no such contract was made.
It is not a valid definition if you can find a whole class of situations (several classes really) in which creatures defy this definition but are considered to be humans. Fine: humans are independent, sentient, and fully formed creatures, except the cases of Siamese twins, people attached to dialysis machines, people under general anesthesia, people with dementia, combinations of the above, newborn babies while they are still attached by umbilical cord, and fetuses.
There are only two possible entities within a discussion of abortion, the unborn and the mother. There is no slippery slope.
Slippery slope to what? There is certainly a slippery slope to expanding the definition of a non-human to include newly born babies in it. http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full.pdf+html
No one, but my property has as much right to be free from your interference as yours does from mine. In this case we are discussing two distinct bits of matter, your land and my body, owned by two individuals. Your claim is that your property right to your land is stronger than my propery right to my self, and that because you own the land upon which I am standing, you have the right to do as you please with my property. This is just laughable.
Say you and I are on a street, owned by neither of us, and you slap me in the face, in your words, "initiate the aggression." By your argument, I then have the right to blow up your house, burn your garden, salt your land and push your car off a cliff. Oh, and kill you.
A fetus simply is human. It also has the ability to feel sensations. I'm not getting this particular argument about how its "not" a human. I don't see any substantiation either(I'm going to go out and guess because any attempt at trying to prove that a fetus isn't human is going to fall flat).
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?
Except that its not an intruder in any sort of sense at all- The fetus is created because of the woman- her body's own decision and use of hormones to help it grow. If you don't want to call it a "crime" for a woman to kill her baby that's your call. But these arguments to justify it on a property-rights basis just don't hold because a fetus is not comparable to any of the analogies I see on this thread.