The fifteen messages (before this one) I’ve contributed to this page aimed at rebutting objections to Wiśniewski’s paper, objections inspired by opposition to the conclusion he arrived at. I’m not playing a game of “Gotcha!”: I never declared “victory,” nor do I intend to, so your assessment of my evidence is inadequate. More on that presently.

A related purpose has been to question the presupposition, widespread in libertarian circles, that abortion is a morally licit option for an adherent to the non-aggression principle. I’ve pursued that goal by offering insights from a philosophical tradition that readers familiar with the writings of Murray Rothbard will recognize as kindred to his. Rothbard was a genius, so when I say he handled that tradition eclectically, as I did on September 8 and 10, I’m not implicitly claiming intellectual superiority. I claim that his marriage of traditional substance theory (Aristotle and Thomas) and modern substance theory (Locke) was fundamentally unstable, and therefore that we have to examine this legacy critically, make our own judgments, and offer them for the consideration of others.

One such insight–which I do not smugly hand down as a putative drop-dead refutation, followed by a declaration of “victory”—is that a person is an entity, a trans-temporal unity-identity-whole, that has a determinate starting point, namely, conception. Conception inaugurates the career of a unified organism with a unique DNA. The genetic material of the fertilized egg contains all the information it needs to mature to the point where it can exercise all the capacities characteristic of a member of its species.

A person is not a quality or modification of the unified organism, but is identical with it. When the organism acts, the person acts and vice versa. By all means, “question” this “assertion,” but please do not write as though I have not been referring to a recognizable philosophical context for it. The responses I’ve seen on this page show little cognizance of that context. They repeat the same strategies whose weaknesses that context lays bare. When I set my criticism in that context, they merely rinse, lather, and repeat.

For example: “She has been a person since she came to be” is from my August 17 to another critic, the “she” of this snippet. I had argued that she did not _acquire_ personhood, as you seem to think, because a person is what she substantially _is_. (I then recommended to her, as I also do to you, the book by Lee and George.)

In an earlier post (August 5), I had posed an exhaustive alternative: “Either (a) persons come to be and cease to be when their bodies come to be (unified organisms) and cease to be (unified organisms); or (b) persons come to be some time _after_ their bodies come to be and cease to be sometime _before_ their bodies cease to be.” One rational consideration for deciding for (a) and against (b) is that (b) presupposes that persons are accidents that happen to substances. When I reflect on personhood, my own, for example, I do not recognize it to be something that “happens” to what I am. I cannot “acquire” what I am. That leaves the reflectively sound and more economical alternative (a).

Now, do I think _that_ is the “last word”? Of course not, and it would be disingenuous to impute that attitude to me. There are no “last words” in philosophical controversy. (Some reader, thinking that sounded like a last word, may confirm my point by disputing it.) Despite appearances to the contrary, I am not going to write the equivalent of a book on a comments page. I have already suggested a book to interested readers. What I’ve done, and continue to do, is to outline an argumentative strategy that complements Wiśniewski’s effort in his paper. I have submitted arguments for propositions, but of course, the premises of those arguments are also subject to scrutiny. But perhaps this is not the best forum for that.

Rinse, lather, repeat: “It is true that each fetus is potentially a person.” That’s your position, not mine. The actual fetus is not a “future being,” but an immature actual being in the present. Each fetus is an actual substance with capacities not all of which it can immediately exercise, such as consciousness and self-consciousness, linguistic competency, etc. What we can come to do, if allowed to mature by our natural protectors (I suppose that is another controversial idea), is exercise capacities that we already possess _ab initio_. After becoming able to exercise them at will, we may lose that ability, but we do not consequently become another substance, another entity. The disabled are not transubstantiated.

You suggest that it is not “better to have that particular future being walking around than it is to respect a here-and-now woman’s autonomy.” This is an example of the “rinse, lather, and repeat” gambit aggravated by flabby sentence construction (Feb. 24). The pregnant woman and the being that will “walk around” in the future (if she doesn’t have it killed) are equally complete human beings, _actually_, not “potentially,” persons. Here and now.

There are some adults, in and out of government, who think their autonomy is crimped by the “walking around” of certain other adults, so the former kill the latter or cause them to be killed. The first step is to rationalize the depersonalization of their victims. Those rationalizing killers are murderers.

The “auto” in “autonomy” means “self.” According to my libertarian philosophy, one’s autonomy — the range of one’s moral exercise of choice — ends where another’s begins (unless the other freely permits otherwise). Personal autonomy is a barrier, not a license, to murder.

If persons are unified organisms, then organisms are non-arbitrary, mutually recognizable moral boundary lines for guiding interpersonal action. The zygote-embryo-fetus-neonate qualifies as a unified organism.

Unfortunately, some libertarians, even those who align themselves with the natural law tradition, have succumbed to the lure of the _Zeitgeist_, who whispers in their mind’s ear that the zygote-embryo-fetus is but a “product of conception,” and therefore either the most cherished thing in the world to its mother, or so much inconvenient garbage to be punctured, scraped out, and disposed of. It’s all up to her supreme will. After all, she’s autonomous. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Those thinkers cannot integrally evade the reality that, in the nature of things, persons come to be inside other persons who are then their natural protectors. But evade they must when they undertake the attempt to justify the unjustifiable.

Let’s go back to this quote:
“She has been a person since she came to be, which is when her body came to be, i.e., at conception.” To say the least, this is a highly questionable assertion.” I was challenging your concept of “person.”
A fetus has only a rudimentary awareness of its environment – and lacks self consciousness entirely.
It is true that each fetus is potentially a person. But this is an argument against abortion only if it is better to have that particular future being walking around than it is to respect a here-and-now woman’s autonomy.
“From the moment of conception the zygote-embryo-fetus-infant has a DNA different from that of either its biological mother or its biological father.” True. But this potential being (which lacks self consciousness entirely), is not a person. Yes, your claim of DNA difference is not nearly enough “evidence” to enable you to declare “victory” in this discussion. Thanks for listening.

I will address your paragraphs serially.

1. You had written (November 28): “Libertarians who argue against abortion rights are in actuality arguing for a kind of totalitarian system to replace our existing statist totalitarian system,” but now you prefer to say only that “an argument (such as the one you are attempting to make), when taken to its logical conclusion, can lead to totalitarian methods of fulfilling it.”

First, in this long thread I’ve made many arguments, but you did not specify the one that, you claim, “can lead” to a certain “method of fulfilling it.”

Second, an argument leads neither to (nor away from) a method of “fulfilling” it, for the simple reason that arguments are not “fulfillable” things. It’s ironic how a statement about taking something to “its logical conclusion” can be so bereft of logic.

Third, an inference from “S believes p” to “S is inclined toward act in a certain way,” if the one inferring knows nothing else about S, would be fallacious. I cannot say you have made that inference, however, because you have not written precisely enough to decide the question.

Fourth, even if it was not your intention, your words tend to create the impression (uncharitably in a libertarian forum) that a libertarian cannot be trusted to be faithful to the non-aggression principle if he believes personhood begins at conception. Such an atmosphere of suspicion serves only a rhetorical purpose. If you believe that such a libertarian is significantly more likely to use non-libertarian means to achieve his ends than is a libertarian with other thick commitments, then say so and give your reasons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, however, a libertarian should charitably assume consistency on the part of his libertarian interlocutor and keep his suspicions to himself unless he is prepared to spell them out and defend them.

2. As for my certitude, I am rather sure that your generalization about the experience of “millions and millions” of women commits _ignoratio elenchi_, for the topic is ontological and your remark is gynecological/psychological.

You had asserted that a “fetus is a biological aspect of the woman who is pregnant,” and I countered with “that would mean that when she is not pregnant, she is missing a ‘biological aspect’ of herself, that she is incomplete.” Now, “biological aspect” is _your_ undefined term. That is, you didn’t specify whether by “aspect” you meant “physical part,” “mental state” or something else.

If you meant “physical part,” then if a woman is missing one of her physical parts, then she is physically incomplete. But no woman is missing a part just because she is not pregnant. She is complete regardless of her obstetric history (i.e., her gravida/para/abortus status).

If, however, you meant “mental state” as the effect of a fetus’ _non_-existence on a woman who is _not_ pregnant, then you have banished from our forum the very entity we were discussing, namely, the “fetus [that allegedly] is a biological aspect of the woman who _is_ pregnant” (and its possible status as a rights-bearer). To suggest, as your words seem to, that a never-conceived zygote-embryo-fetus is analogous to a “phantom limb” that is felt but _no longer_ there is suggest gynecological nonsense.

3. You wrote: “Nevertheless, the being inside her is still undeniably dependent (completely) on her. The mentioned DNA difference does nothing to strengthen your argument. Thus, the potential human being has no rights until it is born.”

This is (a) _ignoratio elenchi_, (b) _petitio principii_, and (c) _non sequitur_ all rolled into one.

(a) What follows your “nevertheless” reasserts complete dependency without showing how that undeniable fact undermines entitative discontinuity between the zygote and its parental egg and sperm. As I said in my previous post, while you may pull a mereological rabbit out of the hat of biological dependency _rhetorically_, you caannot _logically_. Or, in other words, “A depends on B” does _not_ imply “A is part of B.”

(b) Rather than “doing nothing to strengthen my argument,” the zygote’s distinctive DNA is _prima facie_ non-arbitrary evidence for numerical demarcation from the mother, no less than from the father. Unless you overcome the force of that _prima facie_ evidence, it stands. Your denial merely implicitly reasserts the very proposition you are failing both to articulate and defend.

(c) “_Thus_”? Wherefrom? Out of the blue come the word “born” and all sorts of unargued-for presuppositions between location and moral status, that is, between exiting the womb and acquiring rights. A gratuitous assertion, which I gratuitously deny.

“Some women would be surprised to learn that the “fetus is a biological aspect of the woman who is pregnant,” for that would mean that when she is not pregnant, she is missing a “biological aspect” of herself, that she is incomplete. ” Really?  Are you sure about that?  Millions upon millions of women experience the pain and discomfort – approximately every 30 days – as a result of not being pregnant. 

“The zygote-embryo-fetus-infant has a DNA different from that of either its biological mother or its biological father. ” True.  Nevertheless,  the being inside her is still undeniably dependent (completely) on her. The mentioned DNA difference does nothing to strengthen your argument. Thus, the potential human being has no rights until it is born.

Peace

Let’s go a little further and bring God into the equation, and please note, at this point I’m not arguing for government involvement.

When we say we own ourselves, I take that to be in regard to other people, in that they do not own us and we have the right of conscience to determine for ourselves how to conduct our lives. We also have the right to own property and work that property without any obligation to give of our property or the results of our working that property.

This begs the question though, for it assumes that we really do own ourselves and the land we work, rather than it being lent and our being accountable to God for what we have done with our loan. Frankly libertarianism deals only with earthly governments and other people, but refuses to address whether or not there is a God, and include that factor into libertarian thought.

Again I am not attempting to address the role of earthly governments in what are spiritual matters, such as sexual immorality, using drugs or what not, for these are not actions depriving others of the exercise of their rights, and indeed the scriptures tell Christians such matters are none of their concern. BUT!, but until libertarianism can address spiritual matters it will be rejected, and be left only as an intellectual hobby.

Rather than engage my many previous comments (which address your points), you insinuate that I am a closet totalitarian who will rely on coercion rather than on the force of argument. You then try to excuse your insult by declaring it a “side note.”

Unlike some others on this page (e.g., Mr. Shah), you need counseling in the ethics of charitably construing your opponent’s position. I wonder (but not too much) whether you know that. That was not a side note.

Some women would be surprised to learn that the “fetus is a biological aspect of the woman who is pregnant,” for that would mean that when she is not pregnant, she is missing a “biological aspect” of herself, that she is incomplete. Those words are about as illuminating as “a thing in and of itself.”

They also express embryological nonsense. You may wish to pull the rabbit of a mereological relationship out of the hat of biological dependency, but wishing does not make it so. From the moment of conception the zygote-embryo-fetus-infant has a DNA different from that of either its biological mother or its biological father. Is that _prima facie_ basis insufficient for a claim of individuality? If so, why?

To belabor the obvious (perhaps in vain):

* A person does not have to be able to claim rights to have them.

* The being that will, if all goes well, no longer be physically dependent upon it mother is physically individuated well before that point. The only non-arbitrary point is conception.

When I used wrote “interactive with the world,” I rendered Mr. Shah’s “world-interactive.” He had written that “clearly the world-interactive powers of the foetus have been nullified” by an abortion. Since that term, or the phrase it summarized, possibly equivocates on the word “action” (the root of “interaction”) there is a need for clarification.

We may use “action” as shorthand for “human action,” but in the case of human ontogenesis, we should, I think, view the latter (“human action”) as a species of the former genus (“action”). (Molecules don’t conceive of alternative ends, choose one of them, and employ resources to attain it, but there is such a thing as chemical action.)

An abortion brings to an abrupt end several vital processes (digestion, respiration, circulation, excretion, etc.) that constitute a human fetus’ gestational interaction with its maternal environment; _a fortiori_ an abortion also interrupts the fetus maturation to the point where it can act in a specifically human (rather than generally mammalian) way. The fetus does not differ from its mother with respect to those vital processes. That is, it is no more biologically interactive than its mother.

That is _not_, however, why its mother is no more of a self-owner than it is, and if in patterning my sentence after Mr. Shah’s I created that impression, I apologize. She is no more of a self-owner than it is because she does not, as a human substance, have anything that it also does not have. It doesn’t need to acquire anything to be complete as a human being. It is immature, but complete. It differs from its mother by not being able to exercise immediately its distinctively human potential. That is, it lacks a certain _immediately exercisable capacity_ (IEC). That lack, however, describes many human beings from whom we would not withhold the status of person or self-owner. They remain self-owners even though they lack that IEC. That a certain IEC is a necessary condition of self-ownership or personhood is a proposition in need of an argument.

When I later wrote that “I cannot see how one can sensibly regard that substance [i.e., the fetus] as a violator of property rights” because it does not “(yet) hav[e] the IEC to act (to choose an end and devise a means thereto),” I meant that that IEC is a precondition of violating rights and therefore of trespassing. In short, a fetus’ mother can violate its rights, but it cannot violate hers.

It may not convince, but I hope it clarifies.

The prerequisite for considering something to be a person is that it be a thing in and of itself. Until the point of birth, however, the fetus is not a separate entity; The fetus is a biological aspect of the woman who is pregnant. Only at birth is the fetus biologically separate as an actual self-owner who has individual rights.

As long as the fetus is in the woman’s body (sustained by the food she consumes and the air she breathes- while absoultely in a state of dependence with respect to the mother’s respiratory system) it cannot claim individual rights (because it is not a individual). It is a part of the woman’s body and subject to her discretion.

Side note: Libertarians who argue against abortion rights are in actuality arguing for a kind of totalitarian system to replace our existing statist totalitarian system; and this is all in order to “defend” the rights of entities that are non-persons. (potential persons – but nevertheless not persons).

You said on September 8th that “the mother, whose self-ownership is appealed to, is no more of a person, no more of a self-owner, no more “interactive with the world”—the mother’s body being the immediate sphere of the fetus’s world—than is the fetus.”

Subsequently you said that you “cannot see how one can sensibly regard that substance (a foetus) as a violator of property rights.” since it “cannot (yet) perform a human action”.

In that case you have determined that an entity capable of acting (the mother) is no more “interactive” than an entity which is not capable of acting (the foetus). I find this claim questionable at best, and without it your case fails.

But I must comment on this no-trespass argument because it has much further reaching implications. An individual has the right to change his/her mind every minute of the day until the point of no return. And a guest in your home is a guest only by your conditional consent.

“You can not punch an “intruder” in the face if he was your house guest just seconds before he looked your wife in the “wrong way”; eventhough you COULD punch him if he was never invited. You can’t throw a baby out of a womb claiming trespass if you were at least responsible (maybe didnt want him) for it to be there.”

The difference between a house guest and an intruder could be a wrong look, a wrong word or anything that changes the homeowners attitude toward the guest. You don’t owe the guest anything but a “Leave my property!” warning that his status has changed.

The worst atrocity in U.S. history was perpetrated under this fiction that people cannot change their mind or withdraw consent.

I wouldn’t try to prop up this analogy.