It is time, no, it is long past time, to resolve the abortion debate, once and for all. Neither the pro-life nor the pro-choice position can withstand serious analysis. Both must be rejected. In favor of what? Evictionism; on this see below. First, let us heavily criticize the two major contenders in this debate.
According to the pro-life position, human life begins at the two cell fetus stage. The sperm alone with not eventuate into an adult member of our species, nor will the egg all on its own; united, together, in the right (womb) environment, the two of them, together, will. In the pro-life position, this tiny Homo-sapien has rights equal to every other member of this species. Among them is the right not to be murdered.
Now consider a twelve year old girl who is walking down the street. She is grabbed, raped, and impregnated. There is a morning after pill available to her, of course, but not in the view of the pro-lifers. For, if she takes it, she will kill, murder, the tiny human being now residing inside her.
But this is to add legal insult to the initial injury of rape; as “punishment” for being the victim of this sexual assault, she is condemned to an existence of mine months akin in some serious sense to being imprisoned. Talk about not only blaming the victim, but actually punishing her. If there is any such thing as injustice, this nine-month sentence to that pre-teen girl certainly fits the bill.
Another embarrassment for the pro-life position is the exception advocates thereof make when the mother’s life is in danger; then, all bets are off and this parent’s life is saved at the expense of her pre-born child. But if her baby has equal rights with herself, the bed rock principle of pro-lifers, why should we always give the nod to her? Maybe, instead, we should flip a coin as to who lives and who dies, since, in this is akin to a life boat situation with neither one’s rights in the ascendency. Further, if pro-lifers were serious, any woman who has an abortion should be considered a murderer and punished as such, along with the doctor who helps her commit this crime. This rarely if ever occurs. So much for the pro-life perspective.
The philosophical plight of the pro-choicers is, if anything, even more dire. In the view of this horrific perspective, the fetus is simply a bunch of human cells, similar to a cyst, or a useless appendix, or the tips of finger nails, or human hair, or a callous. To think of this blob as a rights-bearing entity is totally beyond their ken. Thus, an abortion of a fetus that is due for birth in one hour from now is entirely justified. It is just like cutting your toenails. But the difference between such a pre-born child and that same baby one hour old is, except for a change of geographical address, the same as the divergence between all of us two hours apart. Namely, there is no difference at all in either case, from an ethical point of view. Thus, the pro-choice position amounts to support for infanticide, which forever ought to ban it from serious consideration on the part of anyone with even one ethical bone in his body.
Given that both these major contenders fold like a house of cards, what is left? Evictionism. This is a principled compromise between pro-life and pro-choice, that is vulnerable to neither objection which fells the other two. In this view, the mother may evict her pre-born baby at any time she wishes, but may never kill him. I refuse to characterize this person as an “it” since as a proponent of this philosophy I agree with the pro-lifers that full rights-bearing human life starts with two-call stage of development. Under present medical technology, an evicted pre-born person will die in the first two trimesters, but will survive in the third.
But does the fetus not have the right to life? No, there are no positive rights in the libertarian philosophy, and eviction is an application of that perspective to the abortion issue. There only negative rights: the right not to be murdered, raped, enslaved, kidnapped, stolen from, threatened with physical violence, etc. In any case, the status of the fetus who results from rape, back to that 12 year old girl, is one of trespasser. Let me repeat that: this baby is occupying space owned by his mother against her will. Private property rights are an integral aspect of this philosophy, and this pre-born child, although entirely innocent (his father, not he, is the criminal rapist) is still a squatter inside of an unwilling girl’s most important piece private property, herself.
So, for the first two trimesters, the practical implications of evictionism are identical to those of the pro-choicers. This young girl may rid herself of her trespassing occupant, even though it spells the death of the latter. In the third trimester, matters are the very opposite: the mother may rid herself of the fetus, evict him, but must do so in the same manner that any other innocent trespasser must be evicted: in the gentlest manner possible, preserving his life.
Very few abortions, thankfully, involve rape. What about the more usual case in which the birth control fails, or the woman changed her mind, etc? Did she not invite the fetus onto her private property womb, for a duration of mine months? No. An invitation requires both an inviter and an invitee, and at the time of voluntary or any other type of sexual intercourse, the latter has not yet come into existence. (It usually takes something like 30-45 minutes for the sperm to reach the egg.) Thus, evictionism applies just as well to this happily more ordinary case: eviction at any time, murder, never.
Now, let us consider a critique of the aforementioned.
“The relationship between a woman and her unborn child is less like the relationship between a landlord and a tenant (or squatter) than it is like that between an airplane owner and his passenger (or stowaway). It would be a heinous act as well (not to mention a breach of contract) for a pilot to decide halfway through the journey that he’s changed his mind, that his passenger must exit the aircraft at 10,000 feet and, unless he can grow wings, plummet to his death.
“It also would be a heinous act and a disproportionate punishment for the pilot to cast an illegal stowaway out of his airplane at 10,000 feet, even though the stowaway had no right to be on his property. Nor would it be acceptable for the aviator to make the small concession of descending to 100 feet before throwing the stowaway out, leading to a fall that would risk only permanent injury or disability (as in the case of a woman inducing an early birth as soon as the child is potentially “viable” outside of the womb). Common sense tells us that that is wrong in the case of the flyer and our legal system tell he would be guilty of negligent homicide, at the very least.
“Even though it is an imposition on his “rights,” the airplane owner may not respond by taking an action that will result in the certain death or injury of another person. No, he must land the stowaway safely before turning him into the police, just as a woman with an unwanted pregnancy should be required to carry the child to term before giving it up for adoption or an orphanage, if she is so inclined, rather than murdering it because its existence in her body is inconvenient.”
As for the balloon, suppose the owner kicks out the innocent stowaway (he was drugged and the owner didn’t notice him until he was way up in the air – the airplane is a better example), and he dies. Who is the murderer? The owner of the balloon? No, he is merely defending his private property rights. The real murderer is the person who drugged the stowaway. This example is an attempt to undermine private property rights. Yet, private property rights are the be all and the end all of both libertarianism as well as conservatism. Without them, both philosophies fall apart. I thought that here was a case where the two views overlapped, although I concede to you that the mainstream conservative view is pro life, not evictionist.
Consider once again that 12 year old girl who is walking down the street. She gets grabbed, raped and impregnated. There is now a tiny human being now residing inside of her. This baby is deontologically indistinguishable from the stowaway. If this girl really owns her own body, if she has private property rights in her own person, this very young child now living inside of her is a trespasser. An innocent one, to be sure, but it cannot be denied that this is his precise status. She should not legally able to kill him. The airplane owner may not shoot his stowaway. But both, under proper law, should be able to evict their respective trespassers. If not, we might as well kiss private property rights away, and thus undermine all decent philosophies.
The pro-life position condemns this young girl to nine months of what? Of slavery? Of being compelled to tolerate a squatter living inside of her “premises?” Of being a further victim of rape? Whatever it is, it is a violation of her rights. The prochoice position is equally problematic. It allows this youngster to be murdered even one day before he is scheduled for a change in address: birth. Only evictionism passes both tests.
