Against Evictionism

Walter Block argues that the correct libertarian approach to abortion is evictionism. In his view, it follows from the fact that a woman has the right to self-ownership that she has the right to evict an unwanted child from the domain of her body. But according to libertarian theory, one can acquire a positive duty if, among other things, one's actions endanger another person. Therefore, it can be argued that the woman does not have the right to evict the foetus because by conceiving the child she has endangered it and therefore has a positive duty to carry the pregnancy to term (until the child is able to survive outside the womb). Łukasz Dominiak has presented a critique of this argument, pointing out that conceiving a child cannot generate positive obligations on the part of the parents because it is not a trespass and because one cannot endanger someone who does not exist. In this paper I argue that his criticism is unconvincing: to generate a positive duty, an act does not have to be a trespass. Nor is it true that one cannot endanger someone who does not exist. Consequently, if we accept Block's assumption that the child is a human being with a right to self-ownership from the moment of conception, then, according to libertarian ethics, eviction should be prohibited and the mother should carry the pregnancy to term.