Joe Hockey has made the statement that,

"We need to look at ways to restructure the taxation system or restructure so that people if they choose to have another child, or maybe if they don’t, we can give them an incentive."

Seeing it’s the ‘taxation system’ Joe wants to restructure, I’m assuming it involves more dollars not more daycare places.

Perhaps Joe is applying the principle of libertarianism to the abortion debate?

The following was found here written by Russ Nelson.

"A standard principle of libertarianism is that the best solutions are discovered when people have the most control over their own lives. Given private property and free markets, people will negotiate and trade to improve their circumstances. A difficulty with applying this principle to abortion is that neither a zygote, a fetus, nor a baby are particularly at will to enter into these negotiations. There are enough people who have an interest in protecting a baby’s rights that they can act as a reasonable proxy for the baby’s interests.

The libertarian problem here is that the baby has, without any intention on its own part, found itself at risk of loss of life without cooperation from the owner of the womb it needs for its nurture. What is clear is that the mother does not wish to cooperate, and history has proven that cooperation cannot be easily coerced.

Pregnancy is similar to other legal quandaries. Let’s say that a person needs to use the resources of another to save their life, and cannot negotiate the use of those resources. A reasonable law will let them use those resources, as long as they "make the owner whole". That is, they must restore the owner’s property to its original condition, and compensate them for the use of their property.

I think, then, that a libertarian solution to abortion is to allow a mother to rent her uterus to the baby. On a practical basis, that is what many parents do. Parents expect that their children will take care of them in their old age, just as they took care of the children when they were helpless and feeble. The trouble comes when a mother doesn’t want the baby. Of course, there are these days any number of parents who are unable to have their own child and are willing to expend resources to adopt a baby.

So, you have a willing buyer, and a willing seller. Why not sell babies? Or, rather than buy and sell babies, perhaps anti-abortion groups could act as baby brokers. They could take a payment from someone who wanted a baby, be responsible for the actions of that person, and use the payment to compensate someone who didn’t want their baby and wanted to give it up.

This would work just fine if there were no unwilling sellers. That is, if every woman had a price for which she would allow her womb to be used, then it just becomes a matter of finding enough money to clear the market. Doubtless, some women would be unwilling to allow their womb to be used for someone else’s nurturing. In this case, the whole problem comes down to eminent domain. Would it be possible to "take" a woman’s womb for use by a baby (that is, for public purposes). Clearly, if there were enough willing sellers of "womb services", it would be possible to establish a fair market value, and compensate women for the use of their womb.

Basically, then, the failure of current and past abortion laws to make enough people happy comes down to the confiscation of private property for public purposes without due compensation."

Please Joe, consider the usual and known implications of coercing women to give birth to unwanted, purchased babies.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Pro-choice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Click to leave a comment.