анонимный вопрос
The topic of abortion is the subject of heated debates that flare up from time to time within the libertarian community, and I get the feeling that the cause is not the acuity of the problem, but rather that it is a convenient scholastic exercise allowing one to examine the phenomenon from various positions while continuing to be considered a libertarian.
Arguments for abortion
- According to the principle of self-ownership, a woman has property rights over her own body, including the embryo that appeared there, regardless of whether this happened by her will or against it. The embryo is thus viewed as a part of the woman’s body, possessing no legal personality. At the same time, however, the interests of the father or other parties may be taken into account: if they provided the woman with resources from the moment of conception under the promise to carry the child to term, and she has an abortion, they are then entitled to require her to pay the agreed-upon liquidated damages.
- Even if the embryo is considered a person and its legal personality is recognized, its presence inside the womb is lawful only with the mother’s permission; otherwise, it must leave the organism upon first request, or else the woman has the right to remove it from the organism by force. As is easy to see, the discussion here is raised to a more abstract level, where the relationship between the woman and the fetus in her womb is interpreted as a relationship between two independent subjects, which may be considered a certain kind of casuistry.
Arguments against abortion
- If abortion is prohibited in a community with a free exit, the rules of which the woman accepts by virtue of her presence in it at the moment of conception, then the act of abortion will be a breach of contract on her part, and therefore the agreed-upon sanctions should be applied to her. The legal personality of the embryo is entirely irrelevant in this case. This position, however, is vulnerable to the woman’s claim of her right to freely leave the community and only then have an abortion, and therefore it is mentioned infrequently in disputes.
- By the fact of conception, parents commit violence against the child, because, firstly, they change its state from non-existence to existence without its consent, and secondly, they forcibly cast it into a state of helplessness. This entails an obligation for them to compensate the child for the harm caused, that is, to ensure an unobstructed birth, and then to provide resources until the child acquires the ability to exist independently. This position is vulnerable to the thesis that if changing the state from non-existence to existence is violence, then the reverse change of state back to non-existence would be quite adequate compensation; also, if conception is violence, then it is the duty of every responsible citizen to prevent such violence, meaning the very fact of unprotected sex should already be considered an attempt at conception and punished with the full severity of the law for violators of the non-aggression principle. It is not hard to guess that a community consistently practicing this approach would survive for exactly one generation.
An attempt to reconcile the parties
If you consider abortions to be aggressive violence against prenatal children, then you presumably would want children not just to be born, but also to grow up in love and affection. But it is easy to guess that if a woman wanted to have an abortion, and she was stopped only by the fear of your harsh sanctions, it is not a given that she will feel warm emotions toward the child, not to mention the temptation to use various ways to starve the fetus or kill the infant in such a way that the causes of death seem natural. Therefore, it would be very ethical on your part to offer a desperate woman, ready to get rid of an unborn child, financial assistance and your guarantee to take the child into guardianship immediately after birth in exchange for a firm promise to carry the child to term and give birth to it. In this way, you will not only prevent what you consider a crime, but also ensure the child a truly loving and responsible family.
If, however, you prefer to remain in the position that your business is to demand punishment for crimes rather than prevent them, then be prepared for the fact that quite a few will consider this bad faith behavior; for if you know that a helpless prenatal child died, although a shred of your effort could have saved it, then according to the principle of estoppel, you cannot demand punishment for another person who also allowed this death, although a shred of their effort could have saved the child.
