Replies

As long a fetus is dependent on the mother for survival, liberty requires that the mother be free to do with it as she pleases. Forcing someone to undertake inconvenience, effort, discomfort, or expense on behalf of another is the antithesis of liberty. The theory on which the "pro-lifers" insist that women must be forced to do these things in order for the fetus to survive, is the same theory under which socialists and communists insist that the more able people in society should be forced to subsidize the less able, so that, for example, crack whores and gangbangers get the same standard of medical care as engineers and bankers, and profoundly retarded children get extravagantly expensive "special education" programs (while bright children have to make do with the standard public school assembly line). It may be a very virtuous thing for the well-off to CHOOSE to expend their surplus resources on helping others, but it is not virtuous for government to force them to do so -- in fact it is slavery.

'Is Libertarianism properly in favor or against legal abortion? [...] I contend a true libertarian must be pro-life [...]' -thoughtomator

I don't think that this issue needs to be a 'litmus test' for individuals to wear the label 'libertarian'. A 'libertarian' argument could be made from either direction ['pro-life' or 'pro-choice']. However, if I were forced to choose which argument was the strongest [and therfore more 'libertarian'] I would choose the 'pro-life' side.

The more traditional 'libertarian' agrument [in favor of 'abortion rights'] is based on the right of a woman to make her own decisions about her body without the interference of the state in a personal matter. This is a simple argument based on traditional libertarian priciples such as non-initiation of force, self ownership, and limiting the scope of the state in 'victimless' acts.

This is all well and good as long as you view only the [potential] mother as the only concerned party in the matter. However, if there is any possibility that the fetus is indeed a human life [rather than just a collection of inconvenient cells] then the matter gets rather more complex.

If we are indeed dealing with an unborn human life then the woman seeking a abortion is actually initiating force upon another individual [the unborn baby]. In this case the unborn child is also protected by the right of self ownership. This would also mean that the abortion is not a 'victimless act' since the unborn child would be protected by the same rights as the woman.

Please note that I do not pretend to know at what point in development a simple collection of cells becomes a [legally protected] human. I don't personally agree with some in the 'pro-life' camp that this [legally protected status] occurs at the moment of conception. However, I am at odds with many in the 'pro-choice' camp that do not recognize the child as having any rights until the moment of birth.

As a 'libertarian' I believe that the most important role and only legitimate use for the state is to prevent the initiation of force [or coercion, or fraud] against individuals. I think that no matter how this issue is approached that someone will complain that their rights are not being properly protected. So I would argue that the rights of the unborn child trump those of the woman seeking the abortion. If we are incorrect in this matter [using the state to prevent abortions] then we are simply preventing the woman access to a medical procedure. We should error on the 'safe' side and prevent any possibility of one individual from taking the life of another [if it can be prevented] since this is where the greater danger lies.

Point 1: There are no 'true' libertarian any more than there are 'true' conservatives. Rational people can politely disagree on some issues while remaining in agreement on others, and all the while remaining conservative or libertarian. There are as many differences between individual conservatives as there are between libertarians and conservatives as a whole. There are moderates and extremists, radicals and stuffy old traditionalists in every political party. Likewise there are always a few nuts. This seems to be one of the constants of human nature.

Correlary to point 1: Claiming that one follows the 'one and only true' way of politics is likely to give the impression that one is not a rational and polite person but of the other variety.

Point 2: To paraphrase Jefferson, governments are instituted among men to secure unalienable rights such as that of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, among others. This is the whole of good government, and when it becomes destructive to these ends it is our right to change or abolish it altogether.

Correlary to point 2: One concludes that the government must not be destructive of life, and that a government which is destructive of the life, liberty, or the happiness of its people or other rights among them should be altered or abolished.

Point 3: Children are alive before they emerge from the womb. In the strict scientific sense, haploid cells are themselves discrete living organisms, however without the union of the male with the female haploid cell neither is or ever could be a person. After such a union though, the fertilized egg will with good fortune grow into an adult with the fullness of time. But it is important to note that any fertilized egg that is not a man will never grow into a man, and a fertilized egg of a horse will never grow into anything but a horse. A human egg after fertilization can be nothing at all but the human species, it will always be a human, and as all animals die it will always die as a human animal.

Given point 2 that government should not be destuctive of life and point 3 that children in the womb are alive, one must conclude at the very least that the government should not advocate or condone abortion in any way shape or form such as our government does now. There are always those people who believe the government should do more to facilitate the practice of abortion by paying for it through taxpayer funds, by secretly allowing minor female children to have the operation without parental concent. Those sorts of things the government must equivically not do.

How far the government should go in discouraging the practice of abortion is open to some debate. Those people who do not believe that life exists in the womb cannot agree that the government should not condone the practice at all. Those people see aboriton as nothing more than a form of hysterectomy. Why some people should protest hysterectomies is beyond them. However, I do not believe that there is only a woman's reproductive organs at stake in the practice. I know very well that an individual life is at stake. Rational people can disagree to the extent to which the government should act to oppose this practice, if all agree that the practice ends a life.