“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The standard for personhood being birth, and citizen person as born in the U.S.A. or naturalized. All Federal legislative attempts to expand the definition of person to cover fetuses at the moment of conception, that are not themselves Constitutional Amendments that transparently and directly alter the 14th Amendment’s text should be viewed as Unconstitutional.

To those who loudly prcclaim that all willful termination of pregnancies is murder; please resolve the following dilemmas:

1) Ectopic Pregnancy – when a fertilised egg implants itself elsewhere than the womb now estimated to occur in almost 2% of all pregnancies. the fetus has a statistical nil probability of surviving gestation, and if left untreated to run its own course without termination of pregnancy, complications could easily lead to the mother own future infertility, and even death. Untreated Ectopic Pregnancy is one of the most frequent cause of materity deaths in the 1st trimester.

2) Conception through forcible rape – it is extremely odious to force a woman to bear a fetus conceived in this fashion. Let’s get even more diabolic in example: forcible rape of your 12 daughter by your dom-witted brother-in-law.

3) Anacephalic fetus – birth defect in which the fetus has no cranial vault, and either lacking or very small cerebral hemispheres. Arguably, thiese fetuses are not even human without any substantial cerebral hemispheres, Why should a woman be forced against her will to carry it to term?

At issue here is if in any of these or other possible circumstances, an abortion is justified, then clearly, a fetus is NOT a “Person” at the moment of conception, yet in the 1st case, defining a fetus as a person at conception is also signing a death warrant for some pregnant women in the future in defense of a fetus that will not mature anyway.

Additionally, consideration need be made regarding the massive expansion of the Federal Government the moment that legislation defining a fetus as a person at conception has force of law. At that time all subsequent miscarriages would require a coroner’s investigation into possible externalities which were a contributory factor, as these acts would also be criminal chargeable under homicide or manslaughter statutes. The Judicial Process would be sailing into dark uncharted waters as juries were forced to make decisions of fact regarding these actions. Manslaughter does not require an element of intent for a finding of guilt. A female athlete, who did not even know she was pregnant could find herself charged. so could a pregnant woman who went on an elective trip in which an accident, in no way her fault, caused a miscarriage. She chose to expose her fetus to the extra risks involved. Any individual state which did not aggressively investigate all miscarriages would see the Federal Government riding into the state forcibly under the 14th amendment’s privileges or immunities; deprivation of life, liberty and property,; due process and equal protection clauses as predicates. Enforcing this legislation would require a massive build-up of the government in the bureaucracies of law-enforcement, prosecutorial, judiciary and penal.

Yes, Brian Miller is wrong. It was Hayek who wrote WHY I’M NOT A CONSERVATIVE. Rothbard never needed to write such a thing because he was never considered to be one.

Murray Rothbard wrote “Why I Am Not A Conservative”

Actually, Friedrich Hayek wrote that, as a chapter (or appendix) in The Constitution of Liberty.

Rothbard may have written something very similar, but I don’t believe he titled anything as “Why I Am Not A Conservative”.

With all due respect, an observation or two:

What I’ve set out above is hardly a restatement of the question in terms of “existentialist philosophy” unless one is to understand aspects of the moderate realism of St. Thomas Aquinas as existential. Aquinas, of course, quite specifically laid out the distinction between the idea of the “person” from that of the “soul”, identifying the former as the act by which the mutually informing spiritual and biological elements of the human reality possessed being. “Person”, therefore, has always been understood as ontologically prior to the soul/body construct and absolutely necessary to it. To abstract human essence from human existence or to cast the question of “rights” as pertaining only to some solely material element is to risk lapsing into the most questionable dualism. There can be no legitimate discussion of “rights” without there first being a discussion of who it is that these rights are to be ascribed. And, most importantly, it is precisely because of this “personal” aspect that the problem of rights is resolved. Either your “rights” are presupposed, personal and natural, they derive from some trivialized or bastardized version thereof, or they exist soley as abstractions. I’d hasten to add that Aquinas’ insights have been considerably deepened over the centuries, in recent times by Hans Urs von Balthasar and his American interpreter, David Schindler, the North American editor of Communio, International Catholic Review.

As has been impressed upon my by many people much smarter than I, libertarianism is a political philosophy, whereas conservatism is more of an attitude about what society’s norms, institutions and traditions have been, and should continue to be.

Restating the conflict in light of existentialist philosophy does not resolve the conflict.

You write:

“Until we define when life begins, we cannot arbitrarily call this ‘murder’ or a ‘woman’s right.’ Since we don’t know (yet) and maybe can’t ever know when this ‘life’ begins, we should err on the side of personal freedom.”

Actually, we know precisely when life begins—at the moment of conception. As any embryology text will attest, that’s when a unique, specific iteration of species homo sapiens sapiens, i.e. a “human being,” comes into existence.

The divisive question is not when life begins, although some on both sides do try to falsely frame the issue that way. Rather it’s whether a human being has rights from the instant it comes into existence (and what rights those might be), or whether some or all rights come later with a philosophical construct called “personhood.”

As far as erring on the side of personal freedom is concerned, the answer to the aforementioned question is key. Which personal freedom are we talking about? The freedom of a younger human being not to be killed, or the freedom of an older human being not to be required to support that younger human being?

“States rights” is not just a good principle of decentralism—when it comes to abortion THERE IS NO AUTHORITY for the federal government to be involved. Phillies is a Hamiltonian centralist, NOT a libertarian. He wants to grant the federal government more power than it is authorized. How is that even remotely libertarian?

“Libertarian and socialist philosophy are direct opposites and irreconcilable”

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century, and then only in America, that the term “libertarian” began to be construed as referring not only to the issue of freedom versus coercion, but to the issue of individualism versus collectivism.

Prior to that, the word “libertarian” referred (and to this day in Europe refers) almost exclusively to socialist or communist anarchists (once it became political at all—until the late 18th century, it referred to the religious argument for free will versus that of predestination). Late 19th century American libertarians like Benjamin Tucker not only worked with, but professed a good deal of ideological affinity with, their socialist counterparts.

It’s entirely possible for libertarians to be individualists and anti-socialists (and, indeed, in the American libertarian movement and specifically in the Libertarian Party most of us probably are). That doesn’t mean that libertarianism per se and socialism per se are “direct opposites” and “mutually exclusive.” Historically they’ve been neither.