[GovernmentShrinker]

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.

[thoughtomator]

Your arguments are very similar to those of Prof. Peter Singer, who argues that parents should have the right to kill dependent children, because of that same dependence, that the child cannot survive independently.

Contrary to your assertion, it is not antithetical to liberty to 'force' a mother not to kill her child. A mother has chosen by her own free will to undertake the acts of which pregnancy is a result - there is no compulsion to get pregnant. Once she is pregnant, however, there are now two lives to be considered, not just one, both are human, and both in a free society must have their inalienable rights protected.

[MHGinTN]

You spittled out, "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." Of course in your haste to pontificate, you succeeded beyond your wildest dreams in proving a vacuous perspective ... crib-bound infants and toddlers are just as dependent, you've just advocated wholesale murder if the woman feels inconvenienced! But knowing you'll parse it to mean dependent like a parasite, here's a hint: think in terms of self defense as a rationale for terminating a pregnancy, but don't automatically attach a 'right to a dead child' to it. Except for rape, pregnancy is optional. Get it?]

[Eagle Eye]

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.

And this is compatable with 'not initiating force' in what way?

Bottom line for this libertarian is that ultimately the woman has to answer for her choices to God and Jesus Christ. Abortion is the only routine medical proceure I know of where success is defined as half of the participants being killed.

[sheltonmac]

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.

If you found someone unconscious, helpless and bleeding lying in your front yard, would you be within your rights to shoot that person for trespassing? Abortion is very much analogous.

What abortion boils down to for the libertarian is a conflict of rights: property vs. life. When that occurs, how do you decide which set of rights prevails?

[agrandis]

"As long [as an INFANT] is dependent on the mother for survival, liberty requires that the mother be free to do with it as she pleases."

POPPYCOCK!