Both the anti-abortion argument and the argument for abortion rights in last week’s issue of the Maroon get something wrong — they don’t look at the property rights involved in abortion.
Although correct conclusions can sometimes be gotten from shoddy foundations, this is rare, and it’s why I believe so many people are unsure or have weak positions on abortion.
The main tenets of evictionism are two-fold. First, that life begins at conception. For a sperm alone cannot eventually develop to become a human being and an egg alone cannot develop to become a human being, while a fertilized egg might.
Secondly, the evictionist position is predicated on the self-ownership of the mother and the unborn fetus, which is hopefully self-evident
to all.
The mother of an unborn child owns her womb and has the right to evict an unwanted person from her property at any time. At any point in the pregnancy process the unborn person may be legally evicted under evictionism.
At the same time, the child owns itself, meaning that no direct harm may be done to it by outside actors. Problems arise pre-viability when the eviction of the fetus would cause its death.
However, there are no positive obligations on the part of the mother. Just as I may not be punished for not feeding or supporting starving children around the world, the mother of the fetus has no obligation to use her womb to support and shield the fetus from the outside environment.
To force the woman to keep something inside of her which she doesn’t want is to trespass against her in one of her most personal places.
At the same time, a woman has very limited rights under evictionism to partial birth abortions. One legal precedent about eviction is that it must be done in the least harmful way possible to the person being evicted, and killing an unborn child when you could remove it alive is a blatant murder.
The one exception to this would be if the only way to evict the child would also kill it; in this scenario, the death of the fetus would not be murder, so long as there are no other possible means of eviction.
Under evictionism, the mother has the right to evict the child but not to kill it, unless the only way to save the mother’s life is to kill the unborn child.
Nathan Fryzek, Economics junior, [email protected]
kevin McGuinnerss • Aug 16, 2021 at 8:47 pm
Correction to the last line of my recent post”
The best thing would be to wait til they leave in 9 months and lock the door against future squatters.
Kevin McGuinness • Aug 16, 2021 at 8:45 pm
When one engages in a reproductive act it cannot be legally assumed that the goal was to evict what was invited, ie a fetus. Further the law may not presume irresponsible actors. Therefore, a sane adult engaging in a reproductive act is inviting a resident. It is immoral to invite a resident into your home or body, make them dependent on the food you provide and then kick them out when it becomes inconvenient. The best thing would be top with til they leave in 9 months and lock the door against future squatters.
John • Mar 28, 2017 at 1:14 pm
I appreciate your factual statement that life begins at conception. This is true by definition but frequently denied. I also appreciate your insistence that the fetus owns herself, just as her mother owns her own body. This would seem to preclude any version of abortion, however, whether termed “eviction” or something else.
Abortion, by definition, is always a premature eviction. The goal is to kill a living child before she is born naturally. Her ability or inability to live outside the womb is irrelevant, as you and I are unable to live inside the womb, where she is perfectly viable. By any name, at any stage, abortion always destroys an innocent child. That’s why abortion by any name, at any stage, is always murder.
Sheryl • Mar 11, 2018 at 10:08 am
Yes, exactly. I agree. Evictionism, is just another way of attack by pro-abortionist, to kill an unborn fetus. It’s still murder.
Nathan Fryzek • May 8, 2018 at 9:45 pm
How is not feeding someone murder? How is not providing oxygen for someone murder? If we have a positive obligation to keep others alive, then we are all murderers as we could save the lives of many in Bangladesh but we choose not to.