Posted on 05/20/2002 2:51:41 PM PDT by dubyajames
Abortion and Libertarianism: A Conclusion
by W. James Antle III
The abortion debate needn't be an endless rehashing of political minutiae when it can serve as an occasion for reexamining libertarian first principles. It touches on humanity as the basis for individual rights and the prohibition against initiatory violence.
Libertarians reject aggression against other human beings, including lethal violence against the innocent. But some defend the killing of fetuses on the grounds that the fetus is a potential rather than actual human being, a human going to be rather than a human being as William Westmiller would say.
Those making this argument fail to show the biological, genetic or ontological difference between what kind of being the fetus is and what kind of being a newborn is. Certainly birth is a monumental event. But the being that was born is the same being that was in the womb just moments before -- what miraculous change in its fundamental nature takes place simply due to the trip down the birth canal? If the development of the fetus is uninterrupted, it is an essential part of its nature to make this journey. Developmentally, it seems more accurate to say that the fetus is a potential infant in the same sense that an infant is a potential toddler or adolescent. A new being is not formed, but one organism reaches a new stage of development.
Skin cells contain human life. So do gametes. But neither have the potential to become a complete human being on their own. At conception or the simulation thereof that is cloning, a self-contained, distinct physical organism comes into existence that, unless interrupted, will actively develop into the various more mature stages of the life of a member of the human species. Sperm, eggs and somatic cells will not.
One can say that they have fertilized eggs but only became a father upon their children's birth. But the act of fertilizing the eggs was a necessary prerequisite of that person's fatherhood and if any of those specific fertilized eggs had not been allowed to continue developing, the specific children that this father has would not be here today. That clearly shows an individuated being. We were all once fetuses and if we had been killed as fetuses, we would no more be in existence as the individuals we are today than if we had died as infants or teen- agers.
Sapience may be one of the characteristics that makes the human species unique, but it does not define an individual's membership in that species. Humans have the capacity to reason, but even after birth this capacity is not always actualized (infants, the severely disabled, the comatose). Some mock the claim that a fetus has any rights by pointing to the absurd spectacle of fetuses exercising their rights to bear firearms, own businesses or come up with innovative ideas. But it would be equally absurd to imagine an infant doing any of those things, yet few (Peter Singer comes to mind as an exception) would endorse killing infants. Why? Because we know infants are humans and as they continue to develop cognitively, humans have the capacity for all of these things. Humans have inherent worth on the basis of their humanity, which in turn is the basis of all rights -- the intrinsic value that necessitates individual autonomy.
Reason makes human beings different from other animal-organisms, but this does not imply some sort of soul-body duality. We are essentially animal-organisms, we don't inhabit organisms, and we thus come to be when the organism that we are comes to be.
Mr. Westmiller chides abortion opponents for divorcing the birth of new people from the "disgustingly pleasurable sexual act" that creates them. Yet it is his position that actually does that. This sexual act is in fact what produces the being that leaves the womb at birth -- there could be no birth if the being was not already in the womb. It is this sexual act that creates the parental responsibility. The stork does not bring new babies; the sexual choices of free men and women do. We recognize that because of this act parents have an obligation to provide support for their children and not evict them from the crib and let them die. Logically, it is untenable to suggest that no responsibility exists until the being they have brought into existence leaves the birth canal. Nor will it do to suggest this somehow implies that people have no recourse against sexual mistakes. It is simply the case that such recourses must stop short of intentionally causing the death of another human being that came about not by its own will, but by the voluntary actions of its parents.
What about rape? Many pro-choicers hold the confused view that if fetuses are to have any rights, then they must have more rights than other human beings. They can be forgiven for this because many pro- lifers seem to share this illogical notion. If human beings can legitimately be killed in self-defense, fetuses are no different. This case can be made in instances of rape, when the mother did not consent to the act that imposes parental obligations, and it is unassailable in instances when the mother's life is endangered. Where it is not legitimate is in the estimated 98 percent of the more than 1 million abortions that take place annually in the United States which are purely elective.
This misconception also explains the fear of "fetus cops." Simply because a few deranged child-welfare bureaucrats believe that preventing every possible parental activity that may place a child at even the most miniscule risk warrants unprecedented state intervention in every home does not mean the proper libertarian response is to proclaim a parental right to beat, torture and kill children. Similarly, just because regulation of every act by a pregnant woman that might conceivably put some fetus at risk would be undesirable does not mean that there is a right to destroy that fetus for any reason or no reason whatsoever. Reasonable distinctions can also be made between serving as governor of Massachusetts and delivering a crack baby.
A pro-life libertarianism respects the individual from the moment that the specific organism that each of us are comes into existence. Such libertarianism isn't contradictory, for it recognizes the rights of every human being, foremost the right to life. Government cannot "solve" the abortion issue. But libertarians must ask if an abortion right gives license to initiatory violence. If so, libertarians must not abort the basis of their own movement.
W. James Antle III is a freelance writer and former researcher for a political consulting firm. He is a senior writer for Enter Stage Right and staff columnist for several other webzines.
I'm not saying RR was a libertarian. All I am saying is that RR at least understood the principles of libertarianism, and didn't spend his days railing AGAINST libertarianism. RR was against Commies, Reagan Man. Not libertarians.
And he didn't go around purposely distorting and misrepresenting libertarian views.
- 11 posted by zoyd
- In a way, I'm sorry I was the first to ever post on FR, excerpts from that 1975 Reason Magzaine interview - 16 - regan man
What a bizarre, egotistic claim. - When you joined in Nov '99, FR had been running for two years, with literaly hundreds of threads devoted to libertarian/conservative debate having been posted. I had seen the Reagan quote above posted at FR by, at the latest, March of '98.
Your silly boast is just another proof of Zoyd's last comment above. - Misrepresenting libertarian views is a sick obsession with you. Get another life.
The "no restrictions on free choice" is in a previous paragraph of the Libertarian Party Platform plank titled "Women's Rights and Abortion":
We hold that individual rights should not be denied or abridged on the basis of sex. We call for repeal of all laws discriminating against women, such as protective labor laws and marriage or divorce laws which deny the full rights of men and women. We oppose all laws likely to impose restrictions on free choice and private property or to widen tyranny through reverse discrimination.
I think it's pretty obvious that the "free choice" in this particular paragraph refers to laws which discriminate against women, and does not refer to a "pro-choice" abortion position. Now if you want to conclude that the subsequent paragraph, which opposes all government involvement in the abortion issue, is tantamount to a pro-choice position because it does not advocate a government ban on abortion, that's a legitimate argument. But a fair reading of the plank makes clear that there are substantial differences (in fact a range of differences) among Libertarians on the abortion issue.
And if that doesn't fit neatly into your preconceived Libertarian stereotype, too bad.
Not can be should be. Liberty without life is not possible.
Why is it OK to abort babies who are conceived by rape? I understand that this is a most difficult situation to face personally. But the question is really a simple one, do you think that the sins of the father should always be visited on the son?
In a society based on constitutional law, that difficult line was drawn, by the USSC, at the end of the first trimester.
-- You disagree? Get a prosecutor, an indictment, and a jury to agree, and take your 'murder' case back before the USSC.
In the meantime, your bluff on 'saving the child' is about to be called by medical advances. Soon, an unwanted, first trimester fetus could be transfered to an artifical womb and raised to term, at enormous expense.
- No doubt, at this point, all you bleeding heart liberal/'pro-lifers' will sign up for this expense, plus the 18 year parenting commitment. -- Yea, sure. - In a pigs eye.
-- You disagree?
He should because you are wrong.
I've never met a republican, who wasn't a member of the Republican Party, or a democrat, who wasn't a member of the Democratic Party. Why should libertarians be any different?
In that case, if an indivdual leaves a political party, because of basic disagreements with that party's political platform, if it was me, I'd call myself an independent. Makes a lot more sense to me and keeps everyone from guessing what political party a certain person may, or may not associate with and allows that person to have a multitude of different beliefs and values.
Does that make any sense to you?
It makes total, rational and logical sense to me.
Doe v Bolton found a right to abortion right up until the little ones feet are dangling in air which is the current state of life and liberty in America for those little ones.
Case made?
Every convention, though, it is challenged by the anti-abortion wing of the Libertarian Party. They just haven't had sufficient votes to carry the day. It is unlikely they will, but they keep trying.
We in the LP would like that definition :-) but libertarians not in the LP don't like the idea at all. So take it up with them. :-)
We of the Libertarian Party are still assembling our famed "Shun List" which you can carry around with you always once it gets published. Keep an eye out at our website: www.lp.org/shunlist.html.
Why they don't is beyond me. -- Federal money?
First, I am pro-choice so you know my bias. But this question bugs me too. It sounds like special pleading. I mean either it is a human life or it isn't. If a woman has the right to throw it out of her body, she has the same right with ANY fetus. The argument that she "agreed" to one and not the other is the stuff of contract disputes and not life and death decisions for innocent third parties.
Not bad... (Of course you'll soon be able to access it over the Web on your wireless PDA.)
Now now, CJ, you know one of the Ten Commandments specifically prohibits bearing false witness -- or do you have a divine exemption?
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