What if fetuses have self-ownership rights?
Not everyone involved in the debate agrees that abortion violates private property rights, even if a fetus is deemed a self-owning person. Loyola University Economics Professor Walter Block and University of Central Arkansas Business Law Professor Roy Whitehead write that “Abortion is not, in and of itself, an act invasive of other people or their property rights, even when fetuses are considered persons.” They go on to say, “[The pregnant woman] owns her own body, and the unwanted fetus growing within it is in effect a trespasser or parasite. This may sound harsh, but when the property rights in question are thoroughly analyzed, it is the only possible conclusion that may be reached.” Block and Whitehead reach the same conclusion that former MIT Philosophy Professor Judith Jarvis Thomson did when she argued that the fetus’s status as a person with rights should not preclude a woman’s right to an abortion. Like Block and Whitehead, Thomson defends abortions that do not directly kill th
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