Evictionism and Duties of the Fetus: Seeking Common Ground with Walter Block on Abortion

Abstract

In the present article we argue that Walter E. Block’s (2025) recent rejoinder to our critique (DW 2023a) of evictionism—Block’s well-known libertarian solution to the abortion dilemma—does not succeed. However, instead of limiting ourselves merely to addressing Block’s latest objections, we seek to identify possible common ground between evictionism and our charge that it entails an untenable position according to which the fetus is a duty-bearer. We do so by pinpointing the theses that a friend of evictionism would have to modify in order to defend this doctrine against our criticism and by trying to gauge the cost of doing so. The argument we put forth suggests that possible common ground could be found in relaxing the evictionist thesis that the unwanted fetus forfeits its rights and instead accepting the view that the woman’s right to her body vests her with a particularly strong prerogative to defend it against the unwanted fetus—a prerogative that justifies infringing upon the fetus’s unforfeited rights.