Robert Herriman - Writer, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch. Robert has been covering news in the areas of health, world news and politics for a variety of online news sources. He regularly writes about infectious disease news for Examiner.com and administers the Outbreak News section of The Global Dispatch.
Dr. Block would have some footing if the critical distinction in the abortion issue were property rights. But an examination of his position in his own terms shows that this is not the case.
Under his proposed evictionism, a woman’s earliest abortion (read “eviction” in his terminology) is limited by her ability to find a doctor to pontificate on the viability of the “evictee.” Putting aside monetary consideration from the woman, this doctor’s sole standard would, in Dr. Block’s analysis, be life.
This standard puts us right back at the current state of the debate: At what point does life begin?
Interestingly, his formulation is the mirror image of the best compromise advanced so far, the suggestion of Carl Sagan (http://tinyurl.com/8hmgpr6). Sagan, as he must, focuses on the definition of life — specifically human life. He argues that human life begins with human brain activity, at about 6 weeks. But whereas Block forbids abortion prior to viability, Sagan forbids it after.
This inversion would progressively encourage abortion as it became more like a living, breathing child, a very peculiar state of affairs. The idiosyncratic use of rentier terminology fails to sanitize what could become a cruel practice indeed.
Terry,
I know his speech didn’t cover everything, but if you want to attack Block’s actual argument rather than a straw man, check this out:
http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-whitehead_abortion-2005.pdf
Dr. Block would have some footing if the critical distinction in the abortion issue were property rights. But an examination of his position in his own terms shows that this is not the case.
Under his proposed evictionism, a woman’s earliest abortion (read “eviction” in his terminology) is limited by her ability to find a doctor to pontificate on the viability of the “evictee.” Putting aside monetary consideration from the woman, this doctor’s sole standard would, in Dr. Block’s analysis, be life.
This standard puts us right back at the current state of the debate: At what point does life begin?
Interestingly, his formulation is the mirror image of the best compromise advanced so far, the suggestion of Carl Sagan (http://tinyurl.com/8hmgpr6). Sagan, as he must, focuses on the definition of life — specifically human life. He argues that human life begins with human brain activity, at about 6 weeks. But whereas Block forbids abortion prior to viability, Sagan forbids it after.
This inversion would progressively encourage abortion as it became more like a living, breathing child, a very peculiar state of affairs. The idiosyncratic use of rentier terminology fails to sanitize what could become a cruel practice indeed.