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.
We'd be better off advancing our commonalities than arguing our differences in cases of this sort.
But it's a matter of the essential thing being the same only as far back as it really is the same. Sperms and eggs are not separate creatures; the newly concieved baby is. It's from conception forward that there's aren't essential biological differences. The genes are the same, ect, from then on. Not the case before conception, since combining and juggling genes is the whole point of sexual reproduction.
Once you allow the sequence to be aborted at any point -- you have the same ultimate consequences -- the lost to the world forever of a unique human potential. The only recourse is to force women to have babies as fast as they can for as long as they can. An absurd result.
Let's continue the reductio ad absurdum. This sequence you described continues after birth; it goes on to the person in question having children of his own and eventually dying of old age or some disease. So if "allow[ing] the sequence to be aborted at any point" is all the same, regardless whether you do it with a condom or by killing the "product of conception" in question, logically you must either permit murder, or require women to have as many babies as possible. QED?
Obviously, for instance, they couldn't confine a pregnant woman to prevent her going to another state, or country, for an abortion.
Bump from a Goldwater libertarian.
L
Sure, pilgrim. No problem. Btw, here's the link, to the Republican Party Platform. It's called Renewing Family and Community.
"We oppose abortion....."
"The Supreme Court’s recent decision, prohibiting states from banning partial-birth abortions — a procedure denounced by a committee of the American Medical Association and rightly branded as four-fifths infanticide —shocks the conscience of the nation. As a country, we must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions. We oppose using public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life."
Well... at least this puts the Libertarians miles to the right of the Democrats.
But on an issue that strikes so close to the heart of the principles of the party, don't you find such a split troubling, regardless of your own conclusion on the matter? As far as I can tell, only a relatavist could find disagreement on such a fundamental matter comforting.
I see what you're saying. You just mean that a state can regulate abortion within the limits set by Roe. For some reason, I thought that you were suggesting that there might be some way for a state to avoid compliance with Roe.
I've met a great many republicans who aren't Republicans. Anyone who supports filling offices by election rather than heredity is a republican. Except for a few of the more radical Kennedy supporters, that covers the whole Democratic Party.
You're a conservative, aren't you? Does that make you a member of the Conservative Party? There is such an entity, you know. Do you pay taxes? You must also be a member of the Taxpayer's Party. (I think they changed their name, but at least you were a member.)
The difference between the Republican platform and the Libertarian platform is like the difference between light and darkness.
Words is hard.
For all practical purposes, Roe, in combination with Doe v. Bolton, found an unfettered right to abortion throughout pregnancy. You seem to be trying to make the case that states lack the political will to challenge the decision, but the right to unrestricted abortion has been challenged by several states numerous times with little success, precisely because the court has so broadly defined the "right" to abortion.
I'd rephrase this slightly differently.
Sperm and egg are separate. They have their own independent lifecycle. Left unkilled, they will die a natural death a few hours or days later, still as sperm or egg.
After conception, a fertilized egg (or embryo, or fetus, or baby) will also have an independent lifecycle. Left unkilled, it will also die a natural death many years later - as a man, or woman.
There will be unlimited points in this new lifecycle when this life may die without interference, or when an outside person may choose to end this new life. These points will not end after birth (as illness, accident, and murder cases demonstrate). But they certainly begin at the point of conception, when this new life takes shape.
Okay, work with me here. When a bullet hits someone in the head, that's attempted murder (or murder if it kills him.) Is it still attempted murder BEFORE the bullet reaches the head? Surely there is a difference between a bullet in flight and a bullet expending its kinetic energy inside soneone's noggin. Or further back still, when the weapon is aimed and the trigger pulled. Or further back yet, when the person's impulse is to kill. Well, there we have lost the trail -- we can't see into his mind -- but some people know their own minds -- "oh I would have killed him if ..."
Yeah, a unjoined sperm and egg are different than a joined egg and sperm -- but a launched sperm will potentially make it to the egg unless prohibited by, say, a condum. And a fertilzed egg will make it to a newborn baby unless prohibited, say, by RU486.
This is the problem with "potential" and "sequence interruption." Any waypoints are arbitrary.
This sequence you described continues after birth ... logically you must either permit murder
Quite so. In fact you have to forget sequence and potential, it is unenlightening.
Instead, the uniqueness of the human, that which makes a human a human, is not his genetic potential, not his gene code, it is his mind. And the mind doesn't develope right away. I can't tell you when the mind reaches the stage of a human, but it isn't when it is a small clump of cells right after conception.
Not to be argumentative, but there is no real, "Conservative Party" in America. The home of the conservative movement in America, is the Republican Party. If, one day, there was a true grassroots movement to create a viable "Conservative Party", I would consider joining it. Until and unless, that happens, I will remain in the Republican Party.
And as long as they can count on you to stick around, they'll continue to play you for a sucker.
Football teams exist to win football games, political parties exist to win elections. They'll say what it takes, do what it takes, to win elections. That's the long and short of it.
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