Walter Block explains ‘evictionism’, a libertarian view on abortion
Mises Institute economist, Walter Block said he was contacted by Ron Paul himself to speak on something “substantive”.
Here he lays out his libertarian philosophy on the always tough issue of abortion he calls “evictionism”.
Video/The Global Dispatch-Robert Herriman
Walter Block Photo/The Global Dispatch-Robert Herriman
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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.