Libertarianism and Abortion
by
Laurence
M. Vance
Recently
by Laurence M. Vance: Should
We Ask God To Bless the Troops?
My recent article
“Should
Libertarians Be Conservatives” elicited a huge response
– most of it positive. Some libertarians, however, were quite annoyed
because I expressed my opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
I promised
my critics that I responded to (I didn’t respond to profanity-laden
missives or to statements like: “A libertarian is really a
fascist SOB if he is pro-life.”) that I would write about these
two subjects individually, and sooner rather than later. I addressed
the subject of same-sex marriage in an article
published on June 8. There I argued that there is no libertarian
position on same-sex marriage. I address here the subject of libertarianism
and abortion.
Other than
brief mentions in my article “Should Libertarians Be Conservatives”
and in a couple of articles about Ron Paul’s views on the matter,
I have only written at length about abortion in the article “Is
Ron Paul Wrong on Abortion?” I have actually written more
that was critical of the pro-life movement than I have about abortion:
I defended Ron Paul against the attacks
of pro-lifers and took them to task for their hypocrisy
and warmongering.
What I recently
said about abortion in my article “Should Libertarians Be Conservatives”
that ruffled the feathers of some libertarians was this:
I have argued
that because the non-aggression axiom is central to libertarianism,
and because force is justified only in self-defense, and because
it is wrong to threaten or initiate violence against a person
or his property, and because killing is the ultimate form of aggression
that, to be consistent, libertarians should be opposed to abortion.
The link I
gave was to my article “Is Ron Paul Wrong on Abortion?”
in which I said these things:
Why should
it be considered libertarian to kill a baby in the womb or unlibertarian
to oppose such killing? And even worse, why would a libertarian
say that it was unlibertarian to advocate killing foreigners in
an aggressive war but not non-libertarian to kill a baby in the
womb?Killing someone
is the ultimate form of aggression. Especially a helpless, defenseless
fetus that is only guilty of suddenly waking up in a womb. The
fetus certainly had no control over being a parasite, aggressing
against a woman, invading a woman’s body, or adding unwanted pounds
to his host – but its mother certainly did. If an unborn child
is not entitled to protection of life, then to be consistent,
libertarians should have no problem with the abortion of a fetus
from one month old to nine months old. The nine-month old fetus
is no more viable than the one-month old one. In fact, a one-month
old baby has the same degree of viability. I hate to be so crude,
but leave all three of them unattended on a table in a hospital
and see what happens.Why should
it be considered libertarian to kill a baby in the womb or unlibertarian
to oppose such killing? This has nothing to do with giving the
government greater control over a woman’s body; it has everything
to do with preventing aggression and protecting innocent life.If Roe
v. Wade were overturned and abortion laws were once again
made the provision of the states, there would be nothing unlibertarian
about supporting state laws making abortion a crime just as laws
against murder, manslaughter, and wrongful death are considered
legitimate actions of the states.
I’m not sure
who bothered to click the link and read what I had previously written
about abortion, but doing so would have answered some of the questions
that I was asked.
I base my statements
about abortion on the libertarian non-aggression principle, which
I believe is also a biblical
principle, or else I wouldn’t hold to it.
According to
the late Murray Rothbard here
and here:
The fundamental
axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit
violence (“aggress”) against another man’s person or
property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits
such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive
violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against
a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be
deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.Libertarianism
holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend
person and property against violence, that any use of violence
that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust,
and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states
that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free
to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another.
And according
to Rothbard’s disciple Walter Block here
and here:
Libertarianism
is a political philosophy. It [is] concerned solely with
the proper use of force. Its core premise is that it should be
illegal to threaten or initiate violence against a person or his
property without his permission; force is justified only in defense
or retaliation.The libertarian
position on anything is based on the question of, Does it violate
the non aggression principle (NAP) about initiating or threatening
physical violence. If so, the libertarian position is that it
should be illegal, and punished by the full force of the law.
If not, the libertarian position is that it should be legal, and
it would be unjustified to use physical violence against the person
who engages in that act.
Because a child
in the womb is helpless, not initiating violence, not committing
aggression, and not there of its own accord, I believe that, to
be consistent, libertarians should not only be opposed to abortion,
but in favor of making it a criminal act just like murder, rape,
kidnapping, theft, assault, and robbery would be in any libertarian
society based on the non-aggression principle.
Now, what sort
of penalty should be imposed, how criminality would be determined,
how to divide culpability between the woman and her doctor, how
to handle situations where pregnancy is the result of rape or incest,
how to handle situations where parents force their pregnant teenage
daughter to get an abortion, how far along the pregnancy has to
be, etc., etc., etc. are things that would have to be determined
that I don’t profess to have precise answers to. But, aside from
premeditated, witnessed, proven-beyond-a-doubt first degree murder,
neither do I have precise answers as to what the penalty should
be for manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, theft, assault, or robbery.
I reproduce
below relevant portions of interaction regarding the subject of
abortion that I had with five “pro-choice” libertarians.
I only gave them brief responses because I knew from their comments
and questions that it would be much better for all interested parties
if I took the time to write something much more in depth than an
e-mail. I appreciate them taking the time to write and hope they
are reading. Judging from the whole of what they wrote to me, I
don’t expect to change their minds. Nevertheless, in addition to
what I have said above regarding libertarianism and abortion, I
offer my comments below.
Try as I
might, I can’t reconcile a position favoring small, non-intrusive
government, with support for the criminalization of abortion,
which necessarily involves the government sticking its nose into
doctors’ examining rooms, and one could say, into the orifices
of any woman being examined there.
It cannot
be denied that pregnancy is inherently dangerous, therefore any
abortion can always be justified as defensive, not initiated force.
It is an unpleasant fact that we all start our lives as parasites,
and a potential mother has no more obligation to support such
a parasite in her body than the body politic has to support “welfare
parasites.”I would kindly
ask that you either: 1) Don’t tell people that you’re a libertarian
if you’re going to defend a “pro-life” position, or
2) Don’t tell people you’re pro-life if you’re going to defend
a libertarian position.People like
you are “spoiling the brand name,” and if folks hear
you advocate both libertarianism and anti-abortionism, it may
reinforce their false belief that we are far-right wingers.It occurs
to me that I don’t remember you saying in your article or your
reply that you favor making abortion illegal. If what you mean
when you call yourself a pro-life libertarian is that you would
use peaceful persuasion to convince women not to get abortions,
then any disagreement I may have thought we had was all in my
head. If, however, my original assumption was correct, then I
should point out that the right to life does not include the right
to live at the expense of another. If it does, then government
wealth redistribution is OK, right? Making abortion illegal again
would turn the gift of life into just another entitlement coerced
by government force.Also, I am
given to understand that quite often a fertilized egg fails to
implant in the lining of the uterus and is expelled during menstruation,
making God, if you will, perhaps the biggest performer of abortions.
I would like
to someday hear from the “Pro-lifers” how we would deal
with a pregnant woman that does not want to carry her unborn fetus
to the full term and give birth to a child. What does a “libertarian”
society do with her? What does a “libertarian” society
do with her…legally?Tell us how
to be libertarians and advocate criminal activity to abortion.
Tell us what we SHOULD DO legally when a woman chooses to abort.
Is it OK to put her in a straitjacket in a padded cell and force
feed her to keep her and her fetus healthy?How should
the law deal with an unwanted pregnancy. And by the way to your
question “Should abortion be legal at anytime before the
child is born?” My answer is yes. You and I may not like
the choice someone makes but as long as we have the “right
to life” I can’t see any other meaning to that than the right
to our own life. The woman makes the choice and will have to live
with it her entire life.
The bureaucratic
apparatus that would be required to actually prevent and or punish
even a fraction of abortions would be overarching, imposing, and
by necessity invade the privacy of all women.It would
be a TSA of the vagina. Not a pleasant thought, at least not to
me.Or, less
poetically, it would be but another tentacle of the already metastasized
and gut-wrenchingly corrupt “justice” system that has
– with little effect on crime – built a gulag system filled with
more hopeless convicts than any other time in history or place
in the world. And you’d like to add to this? Really? Should we
not be focused on limiting, or better yet removing, state power?Such an apparatus
would necessarily impose force and coercion, and as such be the
antithesis of “libertarian” (as you define it by NAP.)
Frankly, I think this is why so many “conservative”
politicians slobber over the issue, it would allow them more justification
to spend more money on prisons and police while engendering a
tumescent response from their latent sadism.It really
doesn’t matter if abortion itself is “libertarian” or
not, any attempt to stop it would require un-libertarian means.
Just as there can never really be a libertarian war, since all
war harms the innocent.
I personally
take the Rothbardian position that while regrettable that the
fetus cannot live outside the mother’s womb, it is slavery to
force a woman to carry an unwanted child to term.A woman’s
right to have an abortion has nothing to do with a woman’s “right
to privacy” and everything to do with her right of self ownership.
You wouldn’t allow anyone to forcibly insert any object into your
body without your consent. By the same token, it would be well
within your rights to remove an object consensually inserted into
your body at any time. This is the most basic application of your
inalienable right of self ownership.
I see perhaps
nine things that I need to address.
First, opposition
to abortion is not an exclusively far-right wing or conservative
position. This was the whole point of my original article, “Should
Libertarians Be Conservatives?” Libertarians who advocate “anti-abortionism”
shouldn’t abandon their position so they won’t be mistaken for conservatives
anymore than they should abandon their advocacy of lower taxes,
the free market, and other things that liberals associate with the
right wing. And if a libertarians advocate “pro-abortionism,”
won’t it reinforce the false belief that libertarians are far left-wingers?
Second, although
it is true that “often a fertilized egg fails to implant in
the lining of the uterus and is expelled during menstruation,”
this doesn’t necessarily make God the “biggest performer of
abortions.” Just because God allows something to happen doesn’t
mean he’s the cause of it. Otherwise he would be responsible for
all abortions. God “giveth to all life, and breath, and all
things” (Acts 17:25) and “in him we live, and move, and
have our being” (Acts 17:28). As the author of life, God can
take life anytime he chooses in any manner he chooses.
Third, if an
act violates the non-aggression principle, as I believe abortion
does, then I think it inherently means that it should be punished
in some way. Thus, to be consistent, pro-life libertarians should
also support the criminalization of abortion just like they support
the criminalization of other acts of aggression like murder and
robbery. The fact that there may be no living victim to seek restitution
and that all those who had knowledge of the victim (woman, boyfriend,
doctor, nurse) preferred him dead is irrelevant just like it is
in the case of the murder of someone who is already out of the womb.
Fourth, that
the U.S. has a corrupt criminal justice system and a gulag filled
with hopeless convicts there is no doubt. But abortion is not a
victimless crime like drug use that should just be ignored. And
just because the system is bad doesn’t mean that genuine acts of
aggression should go unpunished. I am in favor of adding
to prison anyone guilty of real crimes (assuming that prison should
be the punishment) and removing from prison anyone not guilty
of real crimes. And I should also add that abortion should not be
a federal crime anymore than murder, rape, or robbery should be
federal crimes. Most federal crimes (the ones that are really crimes,
not the ones like taking unlicensed dentures across state lines)
should not be federal crimes at all.
Fifth, criminalizing
abortion would not lead to a greater police state that increases
the bureaucratic apparatus and violates privacy. The fact is, we
already have a police state, and it’s not because murder, robbery,
and other real crimes are prosecuted. If abortion were illegal,
it would no more entail the government sticking its nose in doctors’
offices and women’s wombs than murder being illegal means that the
government stations agents in every home, bar, and alley waiting
for a murder to take place.
Sixth, no pro-life
libertarian believes in aggression to prevent possible or potential
aggression. It would therefore not be okay to enslave a pregnant
woman by forcing her “to carry an unwanted child to term”
or put her “in a straitjacket in a padded cell and force feed
her to keep her and her fetus healthy.” It would not be permissible
to use “un-libertarian means” to stop abortion. It’s not
the job of the government – whatever form it appears in – to prevent
crime. A criminal act is not a criminal act until it is committed.
Preventing abortion would be no different than preventing other
crimes. The way to stop abortion is by persuading pregnant women
to not undergo abortions or educating them sufficiently in the pro-life
position before they get pregnant so they won’t consider abortion
an option should they get pregnant. People so inclined to kill,
rape, or rob should be persuaded not to kill, rape, or rob or educated
to the extent that they would never be so inclined.
Seventh, although
a fetus is a parasite in the sense that it lives inside, is dependent
upon, and obtains nutriments from a host, I hasten to point out
that a newborn baby is totally dependent upon someone to feed and
take care of it as well. Even a six-month-old baby left to itself
will soon die. Is it okay to just throw parasitical children in
the trash with aborted babies? A child in the womb a week before
birth is just as much a parasite as a child in the womb six months
before birth. Are libertarians who advocate abortion on demand ready
to allow the procedure at any time before birth in the name of consistency?
And what about the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion?
Eighth, certainly
it is equally true that no object should be forcibly inserted into
one’s body and that one would be well within his rights to remove,
not only an object inserted without consent, but any object consensually
inserted. But we are talking about a child here, not a choice. When
a woman engages in an activity the natural consequence of which
is pregnancy, she is obligating herself to bring to term a completely
separate individual with uniquely different DNA that didn’t choose
to “invade” her body or “aggress” against her.
To be consistent, pro-choice libertarians should limit their argument
here to pregnancy in the case of rape, a very rare occurrence. But
even in the case of pregnancy via rape, it is the result of the
aggression of someone else that the woman is pregnant, not the child
which has, through no fault of its own, been inserted into the woman’s
body. If someone owned a ship and discovered a child on board that
someone had stowed away, would he be well within his rights to throw
the child overboard for being a trespasser? Should he not rather
give the child up safely at the end of his voyage?
And finally,
based on everything I have said thus far, it should be obvious that
if a pregnant woman doesn’t want to keep her baby – for whatever
reason – then I see no other alternative for her than to have her
baby and then give it up for adoption. If money is an issue, there
are pro-life organizations that will care for women during their
pregnancy. But I think pro-lifers have dropped the ball here. If
pro-lifers would pay women with unwanted pregnancies to not abort
their child, carry it to term, and give it up for adoption, they
would do more to prevent abortions than they are doing now. But
would not some women get pregnant just for the cash? Certainly,
but there have always been and always will be women that will do
unusual things for money. Even now some women have more children
just to get increased welfare benefits. But even if a small percentage
of women became baby factories because they got paid to carry babies
to term, it would still be better than having a million abortions
every year like occurs now in the United States. And since I mentioned
adoption, let me also say that the state should get completely out
of the adoption business and leave it entirely up to the free market.
I have not
undertaken here a systematic defense of the libertarian pro-life
position. I have merely addressed the concerns of those who wrote
me.
One of the
people who wrote me said that libertarians are pro-choice on everything.
I see nothing libertarian about a woman choosing to kill her unborn
child for getting in the way of her lifestyle.
July
17, 2012
Laurence
M. Vance [send him mail]
writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity
and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, The
Revolution that Wasn’t, and Rethinking
the Good War. His latest book is The
Quatercentenary of the King James Bible. Visit his
website.
Copyright
© 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.