Libertarian perspectives on abortion
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Abortion is a uniquely controversial issue. Among libertarians, this debate consists of multiple questions, including:
- whether abortion should be illegal
- if so, at what level of government this should be enforced
- whether or not the government should fund abortions
The vast majority of libertarians are agreed on the latter question, believing that government should not fund personal activity, especially activity of such a controversial nature. However, as to whether abortion should be legal, they are split as equally as the mainstream.[1][unreliable source?] Many libertarians believe that a woman's ownership of her own body, and therefore her right to control it, includes her right to terminate her pregnancy without any interference. Others believe the fetus has a human right to life, and that an abortion is the initiation of fatal force against a helpless victim.[citation needed]
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[edit] Pro-choice positions
Though not accepted by all libertarians, Objectivist philosophy has had considerable influence on libertarian thought.[citation needed] One website run by the Objectivist-influenced Capitalism Magazine is an example of the pro-choice position:
- A fetus does not have a right to be in the womb of any woman, but is there by her permission. This permission may be revoked by the woman at any time, because her womb is part of her body... There is no such thing as the right to live inside the body of another, i.e. there is no right to enslave... a woman is not a breeding pig owned by the state (or church). Even if a fetus were developed to the point of surviving as an independent being outside the pregnant woman's womb, the fetus would still not have the right to be inside the woman's womb.[2]
The Pro-Choice Libertarians group lists the following reasons they oppose government involvement in the abortion issue: "The fetus is not a human being with rights until it is born (based on a number of rationales) and/or only the mother confers rights on the fetus; even if the fetus has rights, and abortion is murder, the rights of the mother to evict trespassers -- for whatever reasons -- through abortion are greater (based on a number of rationales); the government is the problem, not the solution, including in this issue; it's my body and the government should keep its laws off it; people can decide this issue in their private, contractual communities; only voluntary means of convincing a woman to have a child are libertarian; the decision on whether it is murder is based on political power and adult women have more power; it is wrong to force a deformed baby or unwanted child to come into the world."[3]
[edit] Pro-life positions
Libertarians For Life notes that the principles of both the United States Libertarian Party and Objectivist ethics require some obligation to children and counter with an appeal to the non-aggression principle:
- Non-aggression is an ongoing obligation: it is never optional for anyone, even pregnant women. If the non-aggression obligation did not apply, then earning money versus stealing it and consensual sex versus rape would be morally indifferent behaviors. The obligation not to aggress is pre-political and pre-legal. It does not arise out of contract, agreement, or the law; rather, such devices presuppose this obligation. The obligation would exist even in a state of nature. This is because the obligation comes with our human nature, and we acquire this nature at conception.[4]
Libertarians For Life believe human offspring are human beings, persons from fertilization. They believe abortion is homicide, the killing of one person by another and that there is never a right to kill an innocent person. They also believe a prenatal child has the right to be in the mother's body and that parents have no right to evict their children from the crib or from the womb and let them die. Instead both parents, the father as well as the mother, owe them support and protection from harm. They argue that no government, nor any individual, has a just power to legally depersonify any one of us, born or preborn, and that the proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them. They say none of their arguments are based upon religious belief, and are intended to appeal equally to atheists and theists. This is a point of pride for their group, claiming to rely on science and reason while both anti-abortion allies and pro-abortion opponents use what they view as non-scientific or unreasoned arguments.[citation needed]
[edit] U.S. Libertarian Party position
The U.S. Libertarian Party political platform (2008) [5] states: that "Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.".
Rather than pre-judging the solution in specific cases as abortion law does, groups like the Libertarian Party of New Jersey hold the real solution is for citizens to look to the voluntary and subsidiary institutions – person, family, religion – actually competent in the matter.[6] It notes that people are often hindered from sensible acts by government policies with effects such as encouraging abortions, making adoptions difficult, hindering contraception, or turning child support into a lucrative racket.
Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate for President for 1996 and 2000, stated his opposition to Roe v. Wade and believed that abortion is wrong, but that there is no federal authority to deal with it.[citation needed]
[edit] Other views
A number of libertarians split from conventional positions. For example, some do not doubt the authority or morality of government passing laws against abortion, but claim that such laws would be futile in stopping abortion, as drug laws are allegedly futile in stopping drug use. Others fear that an abortion ban would start a "War on Abortion," parallel to the "War on Drugs" and "War on Terror," which many libertarians view as major threats to individual liberty.[citation needed]
Some 'individualist feminists' are concerned that by focusing narrowly on state subsidisation of abortion access, libertarian men are neglecting statist anti-abortion measures such as prohibiting young women's access to abortion without parental consent, onerous statist regulation of private abortion clinics, limitations on D&X abortions, prohibition of medical abortion and other incremental anti-abortion policies. They view any attempt to prohibit abortion, whether prohibitionist or incrementalist, as statist.[citation needed]
Dr. Walter Block, economist at Loyola University, offers an alternative to the standard choice between "pro-life" and "pro-choice": what he terms "evictionism." According to this moral theory, the act of abortion must be conceptually separated into the acts of (a) eviction of the fetus from the womb; and (b) killing the fetus. Building on the libertarian stand against trespass and murder, Block maintains the legitimacy of the first act, but, in certain circumstances, not of the second act. When the following conditions are met, the woman may legally abort: (a) the fetus is not viable outside the womb; or (b) the woman has announced to the world her abandonment of the right to custody of the fetus; and (c) no one else has "homesteaded" that right by offering to care for the fetus.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Libertarian Party News, Libertarian Party News, July 1998.
- ^ Abortion is Pro Life
- ^ List of Just Some of the Reasons Libertarians Want Government out of the Abortion Issue, at Pro-ChoiceLibertarians.net.
- ^ Abortion and Rights: Applying Libertarian Principles Correctly
- ^ National Platform of the Libertarian Party, section "Abortion"
- ^ Platform of the New Jersey Libertarian Party, section "Family Life
- ^ Walter Block, Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private Property Approach to Resolving the Abortion Controversy, Walter Block personal web site.
5. Platform of the New Jersey Libertarian Party, section on "Family Life" http://njlp.org/content/view/13/32/#FreedomandResponsibility
[edit] External links
- Pro-Choice Libertarians Activist network that promotes pro-choice view within libertarian movement
- Libertarians for Life Pro-life libertarian perspective
- Reproductive Rights National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2006, Portland, Oregon
- Are There 'Pro-Life' Libertarians?, a question answered by Dr. Mary Ruwart
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