Last updated on May 10, 2025
Debate on abortion is allowed in the comments on this post. It is not allowed, in general, elsewhere in this newspaper. Civility is still required.
The use of this post has moved a great deal of heated discussion to where uninterested parties do not have to read it.
@ Jim, moving my responses to you from the last round back to a single top level comment:
“With regard to your extreme snowstorm scenario, you could ask the child – or adult male, there is no reason to discriminate – to leave, and of course the person would refuse, knowing that they would die. Your next step would be to call the police and have the trespassers removed. Given the snowstorm in question, it may take some time for them to arrive.”
Please recall that in the scenario the child didn’t choose to trespass, but was brought to the property by a kidnapper. It’s true that it would take the police some time to arrive, but you have your own guns and ammo and the means to throw the criminal, the kid, both, or neither out in the snow, almost certainly to die.
The criminal, fearing an even worse death than freezing, already fled, or perhaps died – it doesn’t matter for our purpose here, since neither of us are defending the kidnapper/trespasser/rapist. But we still have the kid, who did not choose to trespass on your property, but is on your property uninvited nevertheless. The police can’t come, but you have guns and ammo and the child does not. The kid won’t discernibly reduce your own chances of surviving the winter, or that of anyone in your household, if you let her stay.
That’s the extreme case of conception by rape.
In the far more common case, you invited the kid, or at least knew his parents would bring him along, and knew the storm was coming, or at least knew there was a nontrivial chance it would come. That’s conception by a woman who’s a willing partner in the sex act leading to conception but later decides to abort.
“Failure to conform to moral obligations in society could come with their own sort of punishment. For example, upon hearing of a refusal to feed a trapped child trespasser, all other persons could refuse to engage in any transaction with the morally guilty person. ”
Rightly or wrongly, many people take their cues as to what is moral from what is legal. In a society where chattel slavery was legal, many people disagreed over whether it was immoral or not. Sometimes the laws take shape before a moral near-consensus, sometimes after, but it’s an interdependent process.
“Do you believe society will have an obligation to feed those zombies, forever?”
That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer. But I’m fairly sure that there should not exist a legal right to pull the plug merely because someone can’t feed him or herself and for no other reason. Our analogical snowstorm isn’t eternal – we can predict with high confidence that the roads will be passable in 5-10 months.
“Nature does find a balance without the need for continuous management by humans. ”
This seems to presume humans are not part of nature, a premise I reject. Animals have adapted themselves to us in various ways. We’ve adapted economically, socially, and evolutionists would say biologically to the various ways we use animals. All that being said, as I said initially – I’m more sympathetic that at least higher level evolved species should have a right to life than I do to the argument that human fetuses who don’t threaten their mother’s life should not.
“I would like to agree that it is at least necessary for an optimally advanced civilization but, I am struggling with history. I mean, if this was 1820 and the kidnapped, trespassing child in question was a free black or a native American brought to a white man’s house, would there have been any legal punishment if the white man had allowed the child to starve?”
Probably not. But as you said, we aren’t discussing what is legal now, or what was legal then (much less to what extent any such laws were enforced as a practical matter) – we’re discussing what should or should not be a right. Did that White man’s right to perfect liberty over his property rightfully trump the kidnapped , involuntarily trespassing child’s right to life? I submit it should not have, even if in fact it did. What do you think?
“Urban dwellers don’t feed off of farmers. It’s a transactional relationship.”
You are completely correct, and I apologize for the poor illustration of my point which was that we all have to feed off others, at least at times. Sometimes who we feed off can be exchanged quickly, so no one is involuntarily trapped into feeding or housing anyone else for very long and no one is starved or kicked out in the cold just because there’s no one who feels like doing it at that very exact moment.
I guess the question here is how long is too long to have such an expectation as a matter of right. I don’t necessarily have a perfect answer, either. If you think that you do, please explain what it is and how you derive it.
Icymi:
But, liberty can be restored, whereas life can’t be. I think that’s why we generally consider the death penalty to be a more severe punishment than prison – even more severe than life in prison without the possibility of parole, since even that can be overturned on appeal if new evidence comes to light. The death penalty, once carried out, can only be overturned symbolically – it’s not humanly possible to actually bring someone back from the dead.
If one is imprisoned, the time served can’t be returned either, but the remainder of the sentence can be commuted or pardoned or otherwise foregone if the prisoner is exonerated.
As far as I know that addresses all the remaining loose ends in our discussion. I apologize that it took me a few days to put my reply together, and hope you’ll find the time to reply in turn, although I won’t be either surprised or cross if you do not. Either way, it’s been interesting and educational, at least for me.
1. This isn’t the first time crominalization of abortion has been tried. Do you dispute this?
2. Involuntary funding of any action is a violation of the NAP. Do you dispute this?
3. Programs that have distributed birth control have drematically reduced the number of pregnancies. See
https://cdphe.colorado.gov/fpp/about-us/colorados-success-long-acting-reversible-contraception-larc
Which was privatly funded.
4. Are you proposing bannimg woman who are pregnant from traveling? How will you know they are pregnant? Are you going to put up blockades at every road exiting your state? Are you going to make woman leaving a state take a pregnancy test?
“This isn’t the first time crominalization of abortion has been tried. Do you dispute this?”
There are times throughout history when murdering various groups of individuals was legal or de facto legal. These have included, to take a few of many examples, ethnic, religious, cultural and other such groups; prisoners of war; slaves, serfs, servants, employees, troops under one’s command; young children; “useless” old and or sick people; accused criminals, without trial; defenseless civilians affiliated with enemy nations in times of war; those jailed for petty crimes and not actually sentenced to death; women who had been raped; widows; anyone who is accused of disloyalty to the government, accurately or not; those with “birth defects,”; etc, etc. There are places throughout the world where various such things are at the very least de facto legal right now. Do you dispute this?
I do not dispute that the legality of abortion has varied by time and place.
“Involuntary funding of any action is a violation of the NAP. Do you dispute this?”
I have no idea, and stopped trying to figure it out about 15 years ago after a considerable amount of effort.
Your third point does not have a question, so I’ll instead address a different comment you made, leaving first dibs on the original to the person whose comment you were responding to ;
“There are 250k unsolved murders each year in the the US and 600k abortions. Should already involuntary taxes be shifted from murders of after birth people to pre birth people? Why?”
Your question appears to be based on erroneous data. From a quick search:
https://www.statista.com/topics/12305/homicide-in-the-united-states/#topicOverview
“According to the FBI, there were 21,156 cases of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, defined as the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another, in 2022 – equivalent to a rate of 6.3 homicides per 100,000 of the U.S. population. While this is a slight decrease from the previous year, these figures still represent the highest recorded levels since the late 90’s.”
It’s logically impossible for more than an order of magnitude more unsolved homicides than total homicides to happen every year. According to project cold case, “Nearly 346,000 cases of homicide and non-negligent manslaughter went unsolved from 1965 to 2023,” so averaged out per year, your estimate seems to be roughly two orders of magnitude on the high side.
My working assumption is that there would be far fewer abortions if they were illegal, so it’s also not true – or, I suspect even close to true – that tax resources would be significantly strained. Given that fewer abortions would likely mean more live births, with proper incentives in other ways , after a couple of decades we would actually add to the tax base, and there are other ways to both expand the tax base and reduce other spending in the meantime that dwarf any tax money required to enforce fetal personhood rights – for instance, we can shift money away from the welfare state, so called entitlements, protecting and aiding foreign countries, etc.
“Are you proposing bannimg woman who are pregnant from traveling? How will you know they are pregnant? Are you going to put up blockades at every road exiting your state? Are you going to make woman leaving a state take a pregnancy test?”
None of this is required to criminalize fetal murder. It’s universally true that people with more means to travel have more means to commit all sorts of crimes. To take one of many examples, the fact that rich people can more easily transport children to places where the age of consent is lower or more laxly enforced than poor people can for the purpose of sexual molestation isn’t a valid argument for legalizing sexually molesting children or taking them to other jurisdictions to facilitate it. It’s also not a valid excuse to set up roadblocks at state lines or anything else suggested in your question.
If a woman consents to the act that created the fetus, then yes, the fetus has a right to the resources of the womb.
Saying that the fetus does not and should be executed in the womb is like saying that if one agrees to transport a person in an airplane or a ship in the ocean one has a right to revoke the transport agreement mid trip and throw the person being transported out 10,000 feet in the air without a parachute or in the middle of the ocean with no life boat or provisions or radio to call for help, which means it is a death sentence for the passenger.
Some people think libertarian juat means anti-government or anti-state. This is not a truly accurate way to view the philosophy. A more accurate way to view it is an adherence to property rights and the Non-Aggression Principle. So the question with abortion does it violate the Non-Aggression Principle? The answer is a pretty clear yes. A fetus has DNA seperate from the mother, so the fetus is clearly a seperate life. How does one perform an abortion without violating the Non-Aggression Principle?
Look at who pushed for abortiom? It was pushed by Marxists as part of the radical feminist agenda. The reason for radical feminism is to break up and destroy family units. Why? Because a society filled with people who lack strong family units is more likely to run to the government for help, thereby furthering the socialist agenda.
So libertarians who think that libertarianism means “freedom” for women to have the “right” to execute babies in the womb do not understand the philosophy they claim to support and are actually furthering the agenda of people who are enemies of liberty in their support of this anti-liberty agenda.
The real agenda is to reduce the birth rate and destroy family units and divide men amd women.
Abortion gives women a special “right” men don’t have which is the “right” to decide who lives and who dies.
How would you prove whether the woman consented? Simply take her word, require a rape conviction in court, something in between? Court cases can move slowly, so if you would require a rape conviction, the kid might be born or the pregnancy too far along for abortion.
Executuion.
Butchered is more accurate, at least as far as executions in developed countries in modern times go.
Pat, you’ve said yourself you’re not a libertarian/Libertarian.
No reason to debate you.
You’re biased by your religion and you’re an authoritarian forcing your religious views on others using and using more government to do so.
~65% of people in this country disagree with you.
You’re disgusting demanding a victim of rape or incest carry to term.
Makes me sick that ideology exists, tbh.
Regardless, best medical practices should be decided by private medical associations, like the AMA, not you or the government.
Take care.
I haven’t asked you to debate me, and you have no idea whatsoever as to what my religious views are. I’ve replied to every single one of those points already, yet you keep reiterating them. I could reiterate those responses for people who actually do read, but people who actually read can already read them elsewhere in this discussion. I always take great care; would that everyone else did as well.
Executuion.
smh.
Not many women commenting on this issue, but women have seldom been asked for their opinions on this issue, or many others that involve them.
Are you assuming I’m not a woman? Please don’t assume that I am or am not. I left it intentionally ambiguous. Please, no Saturday night live jokes – that came along when I was an adult. I’m definitely one or the other, I just don’t want y’all to know which one. There was also Habibi’s Mom and Caryn Ann. I’d have to check back to see whether there was anybody I forgot.
While women of course fall on both (or all) sides of this issue, all the identifiable women speaking up here are pro-life, and from what I’ve read, most surveys indicate that women are on average more pro-life than men.
I apologize to any women I forgot to mention if there are any, and for assuming that names which are usually male mean that the people posting are male.
I note that the relative lack of women commenting isn’t just on this issue. And, that this isn’t only here. My best guess as to why is that whether any of us like it or not, men and women are treated differently in online comments, particularly when it comes to contentious issues and male dominated fields like politics, which is one of the reasons I do not want to say whether I’m a man or a woman.
So, let’s scroll thru the names.
I assume Andy is a man, unless corrected. Joseph is a male name, and referred to his wife, so I’m assuming male. Michael is usually a male name, so I’m presuming you are male unless you correct me. Ditto for Steve. I see no indication of which one New Federalist is. I assume Seebeck is a man, having referred to a wife, although a lesbian marriage isn’t out of the question. Mr. Frankel appears to be a male, both from his first name and his grainy picture, if that is in fact him. I see no indication of whether Q is male or female. I assume Jim is a man unless corrected.
Andy, have you read my post (first post in the discussion, or bottom-most top level post)? If you find the time to read it, please let me know whether you think my analogy adequately addresses the question of a rape exception.
Should taxation via threat of force be used to pay for enforcing anti abortion laws? Since most abortions are done via drugs, should there be a new war on drugs? Since the only way to ensure a woman hasn’t had an abortion is to monitor their menstral cycles, should a massively large police force be created to do so?
Should taxation be used to enforce any laws? As long as the state exists and has a monopoly on law enforcement the state will uses taxation to enforce all laws.
The issue with abortion is whether or not murder laws should apply based on the age of the victim. Some here seem to think murder is OK if the victim is below a certain age while others here disagree.
No the issue is how intrusive an investigation is into a violation of a law will be. A large number of murders already go unsolved.
There are 250k unsolved murders each year in the the US and 600k abortions. Should already involuntary taxes be shifted from murders of after birth people to pre birth people? Why?
Force should not be used to collect money either to fund abortions or prosecute people for participating in them.
Steve,
By force, I presume you mean only government force? Do you believe government force should be used to protect abortionists from the billions of people who believe they are routinely committing murder of innocent human babies for a living?
Please note that this question is not regarding my own beliefs, but about those of billions of human beings – US citizens and residents aren’t the only ones who count. It’s true that using nongovernmental physical force to prevent abortion is a fringe position right now, and not one I myself support, but a lot of that for many people may have to do with the fact that doing so is illegal and actively prosecuted with severe legal penalties.
My point is: Like it or not, as long as government exists, it can’t be neutral on the issue. It must either protect babies (or fetuses, if you prefer) or it must protect abortionists.
I suppose it’s possible to imagine a government that would neither prosecute nor protect abortionists, but can you really ever imagine that ever happening in real life?
I believe that using government force to fund a program that has been tried many many times and has failed every time is not only stupid but also a violation of the NAP. Iq believe if individuals from one side justify using violence against the other side then both sides will use violence.
If all the wealth that had been spent on the abortion wars was used to provide education and contraceptives we would be much closer to my ideal of abortion being safe for the woman, legal and most of all rarely desired.
I believe that those supporting abortion criminalization have been fooled. Abortion laws only affect woman of lower economic levels who can’t afford to travel to place where it is legal. Anti abortion laws aren’t to protect fetuses. They are to control poor women!
“I believe that using government force to fund a program that has been tried many many times and has failed every time is not only stupid but also a violation of the NAP.”
I don’t know what you mean. What program has been tried many times and failed? Laws against murder at any stage of life work imperfectly, because murders still happen. But as I already said elsewhere in the discussion, there would be a lot more murders if they were legal for any other class of people (Jews, women, people under or over a given age, etc) , or for all people in general. Do you disagree?
If you’re the anarchist variety of libertarian, you could believe that funding enforcement of laws against any or all types of murder violates your nap, but if you believe only laws which work perfectly should ever be enforced – well, I guess you’d have to be an anarchist by default.
“if individuals from one side justify using violence against the other side then both sides will use violence.”
That in itself is taking a side, because it implies that one side isn’t using violence already. From the pro-life perspective, abortion is violence and using government funds to protect abortionists is still further violence. I still maintain it’s impossible for government to both exist and be neutral on the issue. It must of necessity either protect unborn children from abortionists or defend abortionists from those who would defend unborn children from them.
“If all the wealth that had been spent on the abortion wars was used to provide education and contraceptives we would be much closer to my ideal of abortion being safe for the woman, legal and most of all rarely desired.”
There are plenty of women and girls who are well educated, including on contraception as well as generally, and have lots of access to contraception, yet still have abortions. If infanticide were legal after birth, there would likewise be many more infanticides after birth, regardless of how easily available abortion (infanticide before birth) would become.
“Abortion laws only affect woman of lower economic levels who can’t afford to travel to place where it is legal.”
Travel to obtain abortion can be outlawed and the ban enforced, much like travel to commit other crimes. For example, it’s illegal to travel in order to have sex with children in places where age of consent laws are lower or not enforced. It doesn’t mean that doesn’t still happen, but it cuts down on the practice.
Given tbat the state has a monopoly on law enforcement, do you think that while the situation exists that the state should not prosecute people for murder in general?
Professor George Phillies must have been Solomon in a previous life! He is wise to keep this issue out of other posts.
Just because you “cannot fathom how someone would willingly make the choice”, doesn’t mean your opinion or position is correct or that others don’t see it differently.
Many have a differing opinion, Mike.
A fetus is not a baby.
And it’s not murder or genocide.
Those are biased terms used to bias others.
It’s not your job, or the governments job, to protect “the unborn”.
One is not a person or a baby until they are born.
A fetus doesn’t have “rights” that override the rights of the woman.
And no one “celebrates” having an abortion.
And no one is “pro abortion” either by the way.
I would never have an abortion, or more accurately, my wife, but as a libertarian, I also understand we shouldn’t be forcing our personal or religious views on others and using more government to do so!
How about you choose what is right for you and your family and let others choose for themselves and their family?
That’s Liberty and Freedom.
It doesn’t matter if you call it an embryo, blastocyst, fetus, or baby, it’s still an innocent human being.
Using those other terms to justify the homicide of an innocent human being is disingenuous barbarism.
Killing 63 million innocent human beings, or ten times the Holocaust, yeah, that’s genocide. What you call bias I call FACT: “Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people.” (Kiernan, Ben; Lower, Wendy; Naimark, Norman; Straus, Scott (2023). “Introduction to Volume III”. The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Vol. III: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–28. ISBN 978-1-108-76711-8.) The group and people targeted for destruction are innocent children in this case.
Yes, there are people out there who both celebrate abortion and are pro-abortion. You can find them all over YouTube and in the Democratic Party.
Your spin is rather pathetic and incorrect as it relies on determination of rights by a label of “person” and then makes the mistake of assuming that happens at birth, which is when THE STATE sets it, making rights into government-granted privileges.
Human rights to life are for HUMANS, regardless of gestational age or some arbitrary legal status. or label set by the state. They exist because they exist and are not dependent upon the state or another person.
Pregnancy means that the mother has a responsibility to the innocent child, and they do NOT have a right to aggressively kill them. Period.
Yes, my position is the correct one, whether you or anyone else like it or not. Hold your dead child in your arms and you’ll understand why. May you never have to do that.
The point is, all of what you state is your own opinion and others have differing opinions with legitimate arguments.
You’re attempting to force your religious beliefs onto others using the State, Mr. authoritarian.
Abortion is not genocide, or some conspiracy to commit genocide, and honestly, anyone suggesting that is not a serious person.
If you believe abortion is murder or homicide, which it’s not, or genocide, which is insane to suggest, then don’t get an abortion.
See how that works.
But mind your own business as to what others decide to do.
I can’t believe I have to state this on this forum of all places.
What’s next? Libertarians against the legalization of drugs, pornography sex work?
That is like saying, “If you think slavery is bad then don’t own any slaves.”
No it’s not.
It’s not analogous at all.
There is a near consensus chattel slavery is bad.
And murder.
Not everyone sees it the same on abortion.
Including the majority of the medical community.
It’s not a baby.
It’s not murder, execution or genocide.
The majority of people in this country are pro choice.
63% in 2024 according to Pew.
Forcing a woman to give birth who was impregnated by incest or forcible rape is disgustingly cruel.
Anyone who supports banning that is a……
I digress.
You people need to get your religion out of my politics.
As I said earlier, it’s like saying if cannibalism, genocide, infanticide, or just regular old murder aren’t your thing, don’t do those thing. I keep seeing Joseph refer to religious opinions of multiple people who never said anything about religion, myself included.
There was a time when there was no consensus whether chattel slavery was bad, and a time before that when there was near universal consent that it was good, or at least tolerable. My opinions aren’t based on opinion polls, and opinion polls on the issue vary a great deal depending on how the questions are asked and other factors.
For those of us who believe abortion is infanticide – even by Joseph’s admission, tens perhaps a hundred million US residents and billions of people all over the world – forcing a woman who was raped or willingly engaged in incest to give birth is no different than forcing her not to kill the child after he or she is born if she didn’t do so earlier.
There was a time in this country’s history when most people thought chattel slavery was OK. This is like the people today who think abortion is OK.
Pro-abortion people want state santioned abortion just like chattel slavery supporters wanted state to sanction sanctioned chattel slavery.
Why I’m against prenatal homicide, aka abortion:
It’s both personal and rational.
My first son, William Charles Seebeck, died in utero at 36 weeks.
He was loved and wanted, by both Lidia and I, just like his brother.
He was never a “clump of cells,” a “parasite,” or any other derogatory and incorrect term.
He was and is my son. He would have been 25 this June.
After he died, we had to induce labor to deliver him, a week later, at the doctor’s convenience, to hell with us.
After he was delivered, I held him for the only time while Lidia was attended to.
He had everything a baby is supposed to have physically, except life. Autopsy was inconclusive.
We didn’t have a choice in his life ending, it just happened, and we went through a personal Hell that nobody should go through and nobody truly understands unless they’ve been through it themselves, and that’s no way to understand it.
I cannot fathom how someone would willingly make the choice to kill their innocent offspring when they do have a say. I just can’t.
That’s especially the case when the choice is made for convenience. Pure laziness and avoiding the responsibility of the life they created.
I get it that there are times when the child isn’t viable. Gods knows I get that. We lived it.
I get that there are times when the mother has a life or health risk. That’s arguably self-defense even as the threat of harm is not intentional or deliberate.
But those cases are rare, and getting rarer.
Nor should the innocent child be killed for the crimes of the father, such as rape or incest. Civilized society doesn’t do that, nor treat human life like disposable waste.
Holding my dead son and unashamedly bawling my eyes out over him in utter grief is not something I will ever apologize for. I had eight months of mourning. A lot of marriages don’t survive a prenatal death because blame gets assigned. We didn’t do that.
My full catharsis came when his brother was born. That was almost 3 years later. He’s now a senior in college, making his parents proud and looking to become a meteorologist.
There is no right to aggressively kill an innocent human being. It doesn’t matter what gestational age they are.
I was born nine days after Roe v. Wade was decided.
My entire lifespan has been with abortion. It’s been a genocide unlike any other in human history.
And if we are to evolve as a species, it needs to end, and respect for the sanctity of human life must be restored–for ALL ages. That includes abortion, murder, execution, and war.
That isn’t a religious argument. It’s a moral argument.
Each of us wasn’t killed by our parents.
Why should we then kill our children?
It’s not “her body, her choice” when another life, and a symbiotic one at that, is at stake.
We had a loved and wanted son taken from us for no known reason. We had no choice in his death; it just happened.
Why in the world would anyone willingly make that choice? And why in the world would anyone celebrate killing an innocent human being?
==More recently, the libertarians eliminated their platform abortion plank, and in another comment here I saw that there was some consideration of merging the libertarians and constitution party .==
No, the discussion was that some member of the Constitution Party made a poorly made video inviting paleolibertarians into the Constitution Party.
That’s not what I was referring to there. Sorry for not including the quote – my initial comment here was long enough as it was.
It was this comment by Jose C:
“…I was a member of an unofficial Yahoo Constitution Party group back in the day in 2004. During 2004 when Michael Peroutka was the presidential candidate of the Constitution Party discussion was held about merging the Libertarian and Constitution parties. The consensus was a merger would not work. There were three reasons given (the disagreement between the members of the parties as it related to the views on abortion and immigration were two reasons given). It was felt the divide on these two issues were too great. I believed the issue as it relates to abortion could have been overcome (The Libertarian Party has had disagreements on abortion since the founding of the party in 1972 and has somewhat survived.) but I agreed the divide as it related to immigration (immigration in violation of the laws) was to great.”
I was specifically expressing disagreement with the idea that “the issue as it relates to abortion could have been overcome.” I have neither seen the video you are referring to, nor plan to – my audiovisuals always have more pressing concurrent uses than watching political videos, so if whoever made it wants me to consider their arguments they shall have to put them in a text format. Of course, I’m not their target audience, so I would not bother if I was them.
Oh okay, didn’t see that one. They are far too religiously and socially conservative based for their to be a merger. Thanks for clarifying. And please, it is Caryn Ann, not Mrs. Harlos.
I posted the video from the Constitution Party guy in a Mises Caucus group just to see how people there responded to the invite to join the Constitution Party. Nobody who responded saw any benefit in joining the Constitution Party, but they did say they would invite small “l” libertarians in the Constitution Party to join the Libertarian Party.
The Constitution Party is a religious or Biblical centered political party that wants to restore this country to its “Biblical foundations”.
They call for the government to regulate 1st Amendment free speech by creating laws against obscenity, but of course, they don’t define obscenity.
That in itself should be enough for any liberty minded person to run in the opposite direction.
The CP supports the criminalization of drug use, pornography, gambling, sex work, gay marriage, LGBT rights, etc.
The very opposite of freedom.
I have interacted with a bunch of Constitution Party people over the years. A lot of them are small “l” libertarians.
When I met then Constitution Party vice presidential candidate, Darrell Cadtle, back in 2008, he said that he considers himself to be a libertarian and the main reason he was in the Constitution Party and not the Libertarian Party was because the Constitution Party took a hard stance against abortion and the Libertarian Party did not.
As I said earlier,
“Suppose Nazi Germany was public about the holocaust and allowed open multiparty elections. How would you feel about a party that took no position on genocide? Or, suppose the “personal choice” of “abortion healthcare” was legalized into the fourth, fifth and sixth trimesters, i.e. babies after birth. Would you be comfortable if your party took no position on it? I would not, to say the least.”
Andy, and any other pro-life libertarians, how do you feel about your party taking no position, and not too long ago maintaining that infanticide before birth was a “choice”? Will you remain in the libertarian party if they return to their previous anti life plank?
What if they overcompensate and say infanticide should be allowed for a few months after birth as well, or have a “we take no position on that” plank, will you leave your party then? Before you say that would never happen: I’ve read that there were prominent libertarians in the 1970s and perhaps early 1980s who took that position. But even if none do anymore, I think it’s still a valid question to help establish how seriously you take fetal personhood if your answer regarding your party hypothetically taking a “pro choice” or neutral stance on after birth infanticide will be different than it is regarding its stance on pre birth infanticide.
Wait a second here…
I just read your 22 April 25 editorial and you explicitly stated, “I don’t currently consider myself a libertarian of any sort”.
So why are you commenting or interjecting on the LP platform regarding abortion?
Your stance on abortion matches the Republican Party platform, which I surmise you are.
Republicans and libertarians are two different animals.
Abortion is not murder.
A fetus is not a baby.
And you should mind your own business.
You do you, let others decide for themselves.
The only libertarian position on abortion is that this is a personal decision between the doctors and the patient and the government shouldn’t be involved or interfering.
The Paleolibertarians were successful in removing the abortion plank, but hopefully, the libertarians will restore it at next convention.
As they should.
“Your stance on abortion matches the Republican Party platform, which I surmise you are.”
You surmise incorrectly. I do not belong to any party. I have supported minor parties many times over the years. There have been 16 presidential elections since I was old enough to have a preference in them. Of those, I’ve found the Republican candidate to be the least terrible choice on balance 6 times, leaving 10 times when I found a minor party or Independent candidate to be the least bad overall. Of those, two times (1988 and 2008) it was the libertarians, and once (2012) constitution party.
Even when I voted Republican at the top of the ticket I have often voted minor party or Independent for certain races down the ballot, and even when I didn’t vote for any minor party candidate I’ve frequently supported them in other ways, such as by donating to them. I’ve supported minor parties from as long ago as 1967-8, when I helped George Wallace get on the ballot in several states even though I couldn’t vote yet (you had to be 21 back then), to as recently as last year, when I donated to Randall Terry’s campaign even though I didn’t vote for him.
I owe no party any loyalty. I support individual candidates now, regardless of party.
“why are you commenting or interjecting on the LP platform regarding abortion?”
To express my opinion that getting rid of the abortion plank was not sufficient to reconcile with them (see my response to Mrs. Harlos). Aside from that, my comment was not about the libertarians at all. The portion addressing evictionism was aimed at an argument I’ve only ever seen libertarians make, but not all of those were big L libertarians. The balance has nothing to do with libertarians or their platform.
“Republicans and libertarians are two different animals.”
To my knowledge, they are all in the homo sapiens species of human, just like unborn human babies. I’ve seen members of other species adorned with the paraphernalia of political parties, but no evidence that they did so because they actually supported them.
“Abortion is not murder.
A fetus is not a baby.”
I’ve already explained why I disagree.
“And you should mind your own business.”
I consider other people murdering babies to be my business. And I already explained why abortion is in fact murdering babies.
“The only libertarian position on abortion…”
Some people who call themselves libertarian agree with you. Others don’t. I stopped caring which of you if any are the “real libertarians” some time ago; maybe 15 years ago, give or take.
May the fourth be with you. The fifth is with me, sandwiched here between April and June (loliwish), but not for long. My sixth sense tells me I should plead the fifth befour… Anyway.
If I may be allowed to inject just a bit of levity into the gravity of your grave discussion which will undoubtedly once and for all settle the abortion controversy —
“To my knowledge, they are all in the homo sapiens species of human, just like unborn human babies. I’ve seen members of other species adorned with the paraphernalia of political parties, but no evidence that they did so because they actually supported them.”
I done finded a whole big ole pile of evidence!
https://youtu.be/H3VLqLLWxbQ
I know return you to your regularly scheduled…whatever… Holler y’all lol , 205 534 1622 text whenever, no calls … Freaking forget about it. Email was most recently checked in January 2025, f***book in 2020.
(I no longer have any interest in discussing politics seriously. Satire from any and all sides – shoot your shot)
Good to see you are still alive and kicking, Paulie! Please feel free to bring satire to this site. It helps relieve the tension when discussions get too intense.
If I may be allowed to inject just a bit of levity into the gravity of your grave discussion which will undoubtedly once and for all settle the abortion controversy —
I wasn’t. It was gone by the time I reloaded immediately after posting. Text me if you’re curious what it was. Or if you just want to catch up for those of you who know me.
205 534 1622 text whenever, no calls … Email was most recently checked in January 2025, f***book in 2020.
I no longer have any interest in discussing politics seriously. Satire from any and all sides – shoot your shot. Hopefully Phillies will at least allow this much to be posted.
Ugh. Last try. I tried to post satire about a side matter brought up in the above comment (not about abortion).
205-534-1622 text whenever, no calls … Email was most recently checked in January 2025, f***book in 2020.
I no longer have any interest in discussing politics seriously. Satire from any and all alleged political sides – yes . Please trade. Obviously not welcome here, or maybe it’s just me. Or if any of you who know me want to catch up about non political stuff.
Abortion? I’m sure you all will resolve the controversy here once and for all times. Sorry for the interruption. It’s not a laughing matter, I know.
Good bye and good luck. If I try to post anything on this site again it won’t be any time soon. Sorry I bothered you.
Hey Pat, why don’t you keep your religious and personal opinions out of other people’s lives and stop trying to force your views onto others by advocating for more government regulations.
Libertarianism 101.
By definition, a fetus is not a baby.
93% of all abortions occur in the 1st trimester or under 13 weeks.
And 79% occur before 9 weeks.
Abortions occurring past fetal viability are rare, illegal in most states and only occur when the mother’s health is in danger.
I.e. a healthcare decision.
The bottom line, Pat, is everyone doesn’t see it your way.
You’re attempting to force your views onto others and using more government laws and regulations to do so.
Antithetical to libertarianism.
Prohibition doesn’t work and never has. People will always be able to get an abortion no matter how many laws you pass.
You don’t want to get an abortion, then don’t get one.
But stop telling others what they can and cannot do based on your own personal or religious beliefs.
Libertarianism 101.
Hi Joseph, thanks again for your valuable feedback. I’m not sure if you actually read the comment you responded to, but I said not one single word about my faith. Every argument I made can be rebutted logically, without ever discussing what faith if any either of us or anyone else reading holds.
I believe government does have a role to play, albeit much more limited than at present. I’ve already explained why I do in fact believe it should have much more of a role specifically when it comes to abortion. That’s not to say you would have it play no role – if you’re not an anarchist, you’d have government protect abortuaries from those of us who would attack them in an anarchist world. If you are an anarchist, we’d be at war and on opposite sides. That’s one of the reasons why I am not an anarchist. So, perhaps your belief isn’t for less government intervention than mine after all.
I also already explained why I do in fact believe that an unborn baby is in fact a baby. If you are using some definition that says otherwise, it’s a demonstrable fact that many people disagree with your personal opinion. Unlike me, you have not even attempted to logically justify your opinion.
A unanimity requirement for any government action is tantamount to anarchy. Killing innocent babies on purpose is wrong, and must be strenuously opposed regardless of how many people disagree. I won’t say by any means necessary, mainly because some means will do more harm than good towards that end goal, at least in my opinion.
I don’t care what is or isn’t libertarianism 101 or antithetical to libertarianism. Discuss among yourselves.
100% of the things I mentioned occur before viability, and well before the end of the first trimester. I won’t bother to list them again; refer back to the comment you are responding to if you want to know what they are. Therefore, it’s still not healthcare or a personal decision, and still is murder of innocent babies. I’ve engaged your arguments; you have not bothered to engage mine, and judging by your response, probably did not read them or at best skimmed them before reiterating the exact points I was responding to.
Prohibition of murder generally works reasonably well. There would likely be a lot more murders if it was legal to murder people, or to murder a certain class of people. The fact that some abortions would occur even if they’re illegal is therefore not an argument for making it legal. This is just as true of unborn babies as it is of Jews, women, or any other group of human beings.
I think I covered every argument you articulated, even though I doubt it will help advance any discussion with you, unless you’re willing to slow down, read and consider my arguments before replying again. Hopefully, someone else will read and actually consider my arguments even if you can’t or would rather not.
“Every argument I made can be rebutted logically,..”
* rebutted and or defended logically, if I was unclear on that point. I’m purposely doing my level best to avoid arguments based on unfalsifiable factors of faith and emotions.
I request that anyone who wishes to engage those arguments further make that same attempt. I’m not perfect at it, and don’t expect you to be either, but please at least try.
The question of abortion doesn’t hang on when life begins in libertarian theory. The question of abortion is about when people gain and lose rights.
Does a fetus have rights? Where do rights come from? Most libertarians lean on self-ownership or natural law.
Self-ownership relies on homesteading – a being owns itself because it had first use of its body and homesteaded it, creating property of its body. That being the case, a cow has self-ownership. Why does a fetus have a right to life while a cow does not? The additional problem when it comes to abortion – one person cannot homestead another person’s body, which is already owned. And self-ownership does not automatically grant a right to life, as exampled by the case of an attempted murderer.
Natural rights theory says that humans have rights just because we are human. Why humans and no other species? Just because. Or, sometimes natural rights theory leans on mysticism – an immortal sky wizard gave them to us. Or sometimes it says that humans have rights because only humans can reason, which is certainly not true.
My position is that humans have a right to life, liberty, and property because a sufficient proportion of our species understands the concept of those things and respects them in other humans that humans, as a species are presumed to have rights by default. While humans are the only presently known species that has rights by default, the list could someday include aliens, artificial intelligence, the evolution of another species, or Neanderthals, if science allows them to be resuscitated.
Individual members of other species might also gain rights by demonstrating that they understand them and respect them. So, perhaps a single gorilla could gain rights but, a mosquito never will.
Individual members of species which have rights by default – humans – can forfeit their rights, at an individual level, by demonstrating that they do not understand and respect the rights of others by violating the rights of others. A thief loses some proportional level of his right to property, a rapist loses his right to liberty, and an attempted murderer loses his right to life.
This theory of rights, I think uniquely, accounts for Aliens, Babies, Criminals, Dogs, Fetuses, Fungus, Gorillas, Human adults – both conscious and in a coma, and Insects.
A fetus violates a woman’s person by feeding off of her, causing all sorts of physical reactions in her body some of which are permanent, and can cause severe pain during childbirth. The fetus does not have a right to do those things to another person. That is a violation a woman can choose to tolerate. Or, she can choose to stop tolerating it at any time by separating herself from the fetus. Arguably, given that the fetus is not threatening her life, the fetus must be separated while causing as little harm to it as possible. Its viability after removal is irrelevant. Assuming the woman did remove the fetus, and it survived, she would lose all parental association.
It does not matter that the woman consented to host the fetus any more than it matters that a pig farmer consented to feed his pigs prior to slaughtering them. It does not matter if the fetus was “coerced” into existence against its will as separating it from the woman will rectify the situation by returning it to its previous state of non-existence. Abortion isn’t comparable to the airplane stowaway example, not only because even in the case of abortion, arguably minimal force should be used – land the plane, first, and also because violations of life and liberty are prime while violations of property are secondary. The situation also is not comparable to inviting a man onto your property and then killing him, as an adult who already has rights can be first asked to leave and it is only upon a refusal to leave that sufficient force is used. Fetuses tend not to listen to requests to leave on their own and proportionality is intrinsically part of the non-aggression principle, so no force greater than is necessary should be used. Those are just a couple of objections I have heard.
“Why does a fetus have a right to life while a cow does not? ”
For the same reason that any other human has a right to life – without resorting to unfalsifiable faith based arguments, 1) human species 2) alive using the general demarcations on when an individual ceases to be alive 3) an individual – see demarcation factors listed in my original comment, 4) not forfeited right to life, as explained in the same original comment.
“The additional problem when it comes to abortion – one person cannot homestead another person’s body, which is already owned.”
That’s the evictionism argument I addressed in my first comment. It occurs to me that you are not responding to me at all, and never said you were, so I should have no expectations that you read it or plan to. I shall therefore skip anything else you said which I already addressed previously.
“does not matter that the woman consented to host the fetus any more than it matters that a pig farmer consented to feed his pigs prior to slaughtering them. ”
That’s the same argument as we just discussed regarding cows, plus the evictionism argument I addressed elsewhere.
“does not matter if the fetus was “coerced” into existence against its will as separating it from the woman will rectify the situation by returning it to its previous state of non-existence. ”
I disagree. A painful, almost certain death and horrible pain and damage in the unlikely event of survival is a long ways from merely being returned to a state of non existence. The rest of that is that same evictionism argument again.
“Abortion isn’t comparable to the airplane stowaway example, not only because even in the case of abortion, arguably minimal force should be used – land the plane, first,”
Abortion isn’t normally performed with any regard at all for minimal force against the child. Even if it was, the rest of that is covered on my original comment.
“violations of life and liberty are prime while violations of property are secondary”
That’s an argument against abortion “rights,” not for them, especially if taken in the context that’s missing here. That context is in the first top level response in this discussion – I have no other way to refer to it since I don’t see a way to e.g. refer by comment number, direct link or time stamp.
I think that’s it. If and when you read that comment, please let me know which of your arguments I’ve failed to address in your opinion, if any.
***”For the same reason that any other human has a right to life – without resorting to unfalsifiable faith based arguments, 1) human species 2) alive using the general demarcations on when an individual ceases to be alive 3) an individual – see demarcation factors listed in my original comment, 4) not forfeited right to life, as explained in the same original comment.”
Granted a fetus is human, is alive, is distinct, and has not forfeited a right to life. None of that gives it a right to feed off of someone else. It can continue to live, if it is able, just not by the unwanted violation of someone else’ person.
You started by saying “for the same reason that any other human has a right to life”… Why just humans?
***”That’s the evictionism argument I addressed in my first comment. It occurs to me that you are not responding to me at all, and never said you were, so I should have no expectations that you read it or plan to. I shall therefore skip anything else you said which I already addressed previously.”
I was not directly responding to your comment. I was just pointing out a flaw in the homesteading theory of rights from the pro-life side.
***”That’s the same argument as we just discussed regarding cows, plus the evictionism argument I addressed elsewhere.”
You didn’t actually address why cows did not have rights, other than by pointing out that they aren’t human. So what? Humans are just another evolved species. I assume you meant that you addressed the evictionism argument in your comment about the child smuggled unknowingly onto your property during a months long snow storm? All you said was that “a duty exists as …The child didn’t choose to trespass on your property.” You didn’t actually say why you think any such duty exists, you just asserted that it did.
***”A painful, almost certain death and horrible pain and damage in the unlikely event of survival is a long ways from merely being returned to a state of non existence.”
So, require the use of a numbing agent.
***”Abortion isn’t normally performed with any regard at all for minimal force against the child.”
This is a conversation about what ought to be, not what is.
***”“[violations of life and liberty are prime while violations of property are secondary] That’s an argument against abortion “rights,” not for them, especially if taken in the context that’s missing here.”
The right in question is to the liberty of the woman to control her own body. I do not find “being a biologically distinct human” to be sufficient to violate the woman’s right over her own body, nor would I grant a full set of human rights to a being which cannot exist without feeding off of a host.
“Granted a fetus is human, is alive, is distinct*, and has not forfeited a right to life. None of that gives it a right to feed off of someone else. It can continue to live, if it is able, just not by the unwanted violation of someone else’ person.”
* by distinct, I take it you mean distinct (human) individual (who is alive and has done nothing to forfeit a right to life). Did I get any of that wrong? If so, which part?
If I got it right, that seems to me to contradict your statement that a fetus has done nothing to forfeit a right to life. Being put in a position to have to feed off someone else through no fault of your own is, apparently by your logic, in essence forfeiting a right to life.
So, once that kid is born, he or she will need help to feed him or herself for quite a while. You can say that the parents can give up the kid to adoption, foster care, an orphanage, relatives, etc. But what if those options don’t exist, like in that snowstorm?
Let’s change the analogy and say your wife or girlfriend or you if you were a woman (or are a woman who just happens to go by the name Jim, etc) gave birth during the start of that storm. Enough food to feed everyone in the house is not an issue; you just don’t want to feed the kid. “It” is annoying. “It” cries and craps and burps and pukes and gets sick, and of course eats. You could be having more fun and banking more money if you just kick the kid out in the snow and ice. Would that be ok? Up to what age, or after what age, would you consider that a morally defensible decision that ought to be legal in your opinion?
Suppose “it” is in fact not your own child but a guest in a snowstorm,the child that came with your invited guest (you didn’t say don’t bring kids, or maybe even said go ahead and bring them), or a child that came with a trespassing kidnapper. A society that would permit that is something you’d consider healthy, morally just, viable and sustainable?
“It can continue to live, if it is able…”
Of course, we already know “it” can’t, so that’s disingenuous. See above examples. Expecting a small child to survive on his or her own outside while those who are fortunate enough to be indoors are snowed in for the next 6-9 months isn’t remotely reasonable.
I’ll continue in a separate comment or it will kick it to a separate top level comment and make the discussion disjointed.
Obviously, in a normal setting and with a fetus that was past the point of viability, people such as yourself would adopt and care for the child. And since science is always advancing and the point of viability is becoming earlier and earlier, soon every fertilized egg will be viable and you and all of your friends will each have a hundred or a thousand little mouths to feed.
With regard to your extreme snowstorm scenario, you could ask the child – or adult male, there is no reason to discriminate – to leave, and of course the person would refuse, knowing that they would die. Your next step would be to call the police and have the trespassers removed. Given the snowstorm in question, it may take some time for them to arrive.
Legal obligations should not be conflated with moral obligations. There would be no legal obligation to feed a trespasser until the police arrive, even if there is a moral one. Failure to conform to moral obligations in society could come with their own sort of punishment. For example, upon hearing of a refusal to feed a trapped child trespasser, all other persons could refuse to engage in any transaction with the morally guilty person. In other words, they could refuse to sell that person food, electricity, clothing, and everything else, and refuse to allow him onto their property. That would, in effect and over time, become a death sentence in a prison the size of the person’s property.
Extreme hypotheticals can be returned to you. For example, modern medicine can keep people alive, as vegetables, for a very, very long time. The cells of one person who died in 1951 are still being used for scientific research. And science is only going in one direction, assuming Trump doesn’t establish himself and his heirs as king in perpetuity. There will come a day, not too far in the future, when, short of a sudden catastrophic incident, medicine will allow nearly all people to be kept alive until the plug is deliberately pulled.
Now, those vegetables presumably will have done nothing wrong to cause the plug to be pulled. Do you believe society will have an obligation to feed those zombies, forever? At some point the ought-to-be-dead will outnumber the living and the economy of the entire planet will work toward nothing except feeding blameless zombie vegetables.
Continuing;
“You started by saying “for the same reason that any other human has a right to life”… Why just humans?”
That’s a good question. Despite, or rather perhaps because, I’ve farmed animals, hunted, fished, eaten meat and worn leather etc all my life, and have killed many animals myself, I’m more sympathetic to the argument that other species should perhaps have a right to life than to the argument that human babies in the womb should not. As you yourself point out elsewhere, we all kill billions of bacteria, and most of us kill many insects, rodents, etc as a matter of course.
If we give cows and pigs a right to life, most of them would starve to death. I feed my cows and pigs so that I can eventually slaughter them, sell the meat, feed my family and make a profit. Without those incentives, I have no reason to feed them or otherwise care for them, and would starve myself along with my family before too long if I continued to feed them as their populations would grow unchecked. If I set them loose , the vast majority would die of starvation, disease, exposure, being run into by cars, etc. My farm animals aren’t raised or equipped to compete for food with wild animals, and even the wild animals I hunt and catch need to have their populations culled to avoid similar fates.
As a practical matter, I do not see how we can give other species a right to life in the foreseeable future, and even if we could, where would we draw the line? Giving bacteria a right to life is hard to imagine; giving rodents, scavenger animals, insects and the like a right to life is something I don’t find appealing when I try to imagine it, but I apologize – I see myself veering off into emotional arguments, and I’m trying not to do that.
Continuing further in a separate comment.
Nature does find a balance without the need for continuous management by humans. And you could, if you wanted, become a vegetarian and just grow plants.
I did suggest a way to draw the line – understanding of rights and demonstrating a respect for them in others. Bacteria don’t qualify. I’ve never personally met a cow who did, either.
Continuing further:
“You didn’t actually say why you think any such duty exists, you just asserted that it did.”
Thank you for pointing that out. I’ll try now to summon a logical argument for compassion towards children for believers in evolution: it’s biologically necessary for species survival and socially necessary for an enduring society. If it was considered ok to kick your kids, guests, guest kids, or children who end up on your property through no fault of their own out into the snow to die, who would ever want to take a chance on visiting folks, among many other things? This notion people have that such things are not ok and should not be legal must have evolved in human society, or even before human evolution, for biologically and socially necessary reasons.
Do you disagree?
I can use other arguments for those who believe in God(s) and creation, or “have a heart,” but I’m trying to avoid that here.
I would like to agree that it is at least necessary for an optimally advanced civilization but, I am struggling with history. I mean, if this was 1820 and the kidnapped, trespassing child in question was a free black or a native American brought to a white man’s house, would there have been any legal punishment if the white man had allowed the child to starve? My impression is there would not have been. Nor would there have been any social punishment because the southern US at the time was morally bankrupt. That did not prevent civilization from existing, though. And I have a memory of reading about some aboriginal tribe, maybe in the Amazon, where up to 40% of children were killed, basically just for being a nuisance. They do have some identifiable social structure, but whether you want to call them civilized is up for debate, I suppose.
Continuing
“So, require the use of a numbing agent.”
We generally consider death to be a severe punishment in itself, even if it can be made painless. So severe that many countries and states outlaw it even for the most vile and horrendous criminals and even after exhausting decades of appeals on technicalities and unanimous verdicts based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, etc. The status quo ante of a child in the womb isn’t nonexistence, it’s that of a developing human being with thoughts and feelings – it’s next earlier stage is an earlier stage of that development process. Going all the way to nothing is not mere restoration.
“The right in question is to the liberty of the woman to control her own body”
Elsewhere, you said right to life and liberty are more important than right to property. Here, you seem to be saying that right to liberty and property are more important than right to life. We all have to give up some liberty to exist in society for human society to function. “Give me liberty or give me death” is a choice i’m comfortable with making for myself, not for others. “Give her liberty over her property by giving her kids death?” Are you comfortable with that?
“I do not find “being a biologically distinct human” to be sufficient to violate the woman’s right over her own body, nor would I grant a full set of human rights to a being which cannot exist without feeding off of a host.”
Biologically distinct individual innocent human child. A woman’s body is not necessarily her only property. Her house , car etc are as well. The logical extension of your argument is that no child has a right to be on his or her parents property at any age. They can be thrown out or told to get out of a vehicle by the side of the road or in a parking lot, or kicked out in the snow. They can be told to go away and not come back at any age regardless of weather or other conditions outside. Would there even be a parental obligation to feed, house and care for the child long enough for another willing host to pick him or her up? Any parental obligations toward children in conditions where it’s impossible to make that transfer, say for a few months?
We all find ourselves in conditions where we have to feed off hosts sometimes. Like, when we’re guests in someone’s home and the weather turns bad. Or throughout childhood, when we generally presume kids can’t fully feed themselves, especially during the early stages. In a sense, city folks have to feed off us too, since they can’t produce enough food for their own needs without help.
Sorry for the length of the aggregate response – you raise a lot of good questions and I hope the management approves the responses and does not kick them out for “hogging the mike.”
You are not going to change the laws on abortion by writing in this group. Write to you newspaper, write to the legislature of you state. Stand on a street corner with a sign. Many of the women who seek abortions are low income people. But really, if you want to do something, change the laws that push people into poverty and are barriers to prosperity. Those numbers can be reduced by opening the markets and will go along way to reducing abortions. Have fun.
Mr. Wilson, thanks for your helpful advice. Please rest assured that I’m not under any delusions that I can single handedly change abortion laws, much less by writing comments here. That’s already going pretty well from my perspective, both in Georgia and my secondary and tertiary home states of Florida and Alabama, and on the federal level, although much remains to be done on the federal level especially.
Please also rest assured that commenting here is far from the only thing I do to help play what little part I can to help get fetal personhood legally recognized, as well as that it’s far from the only issue I care about and do that for. I’ve been politically active on many issues in many ways since the 1960s, when I could not yet vote – I could say the 1950s, but I’d have to be honest and say that as a small child I was tagging along with my parents or being a prop then rather than a genuine political activist in my own right.
( As mentioned in comments elsewhere on this site, Governor Maddox – who was later a minor party presidential candidate himself – was a family friend and my political mentor when I was a child and young adult, I travelled to several states to help get Governor Wallace on the ballot as a minor party and independent candidate for President before I could actually vote, I’ve been active in the John Birch Society since my teenage years in the mid 1960s, and my father joined the JBS shortly after it was formed – I believe 1959 – among many other forms of political activities throughout his life. I hope this aside doesn’t make this comment outside the rules here; please edit it out rather than not approve the entire comment if it does).
The reason I asked for this discussion and started commenting on it was originally because the issue came up in asides on another discussion, I wasn’t allowed to do so there, and I had responses about it to three comments that were posted in that discussion. As the discussion has evolved, I made it an exercise to see how well I can make an argument on the issue without resorting to arguments based on unfalsifiable faith or emotionally based arguments and how well I can engage the arguments of evictonists – I’ve never seen anyone except libertarians make those particular arguments, as I mentioned.
So far, the exchange with Jim has been by far the most interesting from my perspective, although I’m a bit afraid I may have already thrown too much in his direction all at once to keep it going in a productive fashion.
Thanks again for your input. It tells me that I’m coming off as too preachy, despite making an active effort to avoid faith based arguments. Therefore, please let me close this round by clarifying that I’m trying to learn too, not just teach or preach, and that I’m just as open to the possibility that someone might change my mind as that I might change someone else’s, although I don’t think either one is very likely – we might still learn something from each other through the exchange. I’m sorry if it isn’t fun for you. It’s fun for me, because learning is fun-damental.
Cows have thoughts and feelings, also. But, that must be overlooked because it is impractical.
I think I may have unnecessarily injected some confusion about self-ownership/homesteading/body-as-property rights. I do not subscribe to that.
Life and liberty take precedence over property. I don’t consider an unwanted pregnancy a property rights violation. It is a violation of liberty. A fetus, although having done nothing to forfeit a right to life, still does not have a right to an ongoing violation of someone else’ liberty. So, it can be separated and someone else can sustain it, if they wish. If it cannot survive outside of a womb, even with someone else voluntarily feeding it and keeping it in an incubator (or whatever they use for early humans), that’s just the way it is.
Setting aside modern laws, parents and children have a sort of agreement, where the parent agrees to care for the child and the child agrees to obey. That agreement can be ended by either party at any time. In the modern US that is traditionally done in a transition sometime after turning 18 and graduating high school, but other societies in other times have done it differently. In a moral society, there would be social penalties under certain circumstances, as described in an earlier comment.
Urban dwellers don’t feed off of farmers. It’s a transactional relationship.
A fetus violates a woman’s person by feeding off of her, causing all sorts of physical reactions in her body some of which are permanent, and can cause severe pain during childbirth.
Wrong. It has been well-documented for at least a decade that the physiological relationship between mother and in utero child is not parasitic but is in fact symbiotic.
See also https://mcgrath.nd.edu/assets/393701/expert_guide_on_maternal_child_bond.pdf and https://acpeds.org/position-statements/the-infant-mother-connection-and-implications-for-their-future-health-part-1-of-3
Ever taken an antibiotic, used mouthwash, or washed your hands with soap? You’ve killed billions of bacteria which had a symbiotic relationship with you even while feeding off of you or consuming the food you intended for yourself. Have a symbiotic relationship with the host it is feeding off of does not mean that the bacteria has any right to continue feeding off of the host against the host’s will.
Jim, upon rereading and further consideration of your argument here:
“A thief loses some proportional level of his right to property, a rapist loses his right to liberty, and an attempted murderer loses his right to life.”
A fetus is not an attempted murderer. So, at most the “thief” and “rapist” who didn’t actually choose to violate anyone’s liberty or property might lose some proportional right to liberty and property.
That actually sounds reasonable: children don’t, and I don’t think should, have the same level of right to liberty and property as adults, as they of necessity must to some extent curtail the liberty and property of their parents or guardians.
But, they do have a right to life, as they have done nothing to forfeit it (unless and until they do). So, I think a form of evictionism which actually preserves proportionality would be that as soon as science develops the technology for a woman to evict an unwanted baby without killing that baby she ought to be allowed to do so and by that act lose parental association. Not the rather disproportionate eviction theory that places astronomical odds against an innocent human individual to survive once evicted.
That would also in better keeping with the hierarchy you earlier proposed that life and liberty are more important rights than property, I think. What do you think?
This would also leave room for the fetus to lose the right to life in those rare circumstances when he or she does in fact reasonably threaten to become an attempted womanslaughterer (manslaughter is unintentional but has the same result as murder) – the life of the mother exception.
I had that position until maybe around 10 years ago. It isn’t a terrible compromise. I just have moved away from it as I further developed my thoughts on rights.
That’s fair. I’m considering how to best respond to the rest of your most recent round of replies. At the moment I’m leaning to consolidating it back to a single comment, which would have to be top level from length alone if nothing else.
For now, would you please clarify whether you believe the right to life is more important than the right to liberty if the two come into conflict? You did say earlier that both trump the right to property, and I’ll assume that you have not changed your mind about that unless and until you correct me on that point.
Well, I just deleted my first reply. I’m going to try an argument I haven’t made before and see how it goes.
The right to life and the right to liberty are the same thing. Liberty obviously does not exist without life. It doesn’t make sense to say that an inanimate object, like a rock, has liberty, even if no person or thing is in any way restraining the rock. The rock lacks the ability to move or in any way control its own destiny. I will suggest that the reverse is also true, in a sense. If some mad scientist straps a slave down and begins conducting torturous medical experiments on him, the slave might technically be living, but functionally, being unable to move and unable to control any part of his own destiny, the slave is in the same position as the rock. The slave might someday secure liberty but before that happens, being technically alive in the total absence of liberty seems as meaningless as being completely free without being alive. They are two sides of the same coin.
Property is a derivative of life and liberty more or less as Locke laid out. Time of someone’s life and a person’s liberty to act (or labor) is mixed with unowned resources, which creates property out of those resources. It is that person’s property because it is infused with their life and liberty. Theft of that property is literally the theft of that portion of someone’s life and liberty which went into creating the property. But, it’s only partial and it is historical, rather than present or future. Robbing someone of property which took an hour of someone’s already invested life and liberty to create is significantly less serious than robbing them of their entire future life through murder or slavery. And property stolen or vandalized might someday be compensated by the thief or vandal while future life, once gone, can never be restored.
But, liberty can be restored, whereas life can’t be. I think that’s why we generally consider the death penalty to be a more severe punishment than prison – even more severe than life in prison without the possibility of parole, since even that can be overturned on appeal if new evidence comes to light. The death penalty, once carried out, can only be overturned symbolically – it’s not humanly possible to actually bring someone back from the dead.
If one is imprisoned, the time served can’t be returned either, but the remainder of the sentence can be commuted or pardoned or otherwise foregone if the prisoner is exonerated.
Posted on a recent discussion here: “However, its vital we get back to the understanding that all healthcare decisions should be between the patient/parents and doctors, not the government.
Abortion, […] , etc.”
Abortion is not a “healthcare decision.” It’s a cold blooded conspiracy between a woman and a hired killer grotesquely masquerading as a “doctor” to murder her child or in some cases children. While I would eliminate the vast majority of government if it were up to me,that’s something which should absolutely be the function of government to prosecute, punish, and where possible prevent.
A fetus is a baby, pure and simple. He or she is clearly alive – past a very early development stage, breathing, heartbeat, brainwaves, etc. He or she is a separate individual with unique DNA and, past very early development, his or her own organs and limbs – not, e.g., a tumor, diseased body part, excess fat to be liposuctioned, hair or nails to be cut, etc. He or she is clearly human, not some other species – human pattern DNA is unique. Of course, a fetus depends on his mother to survive; so does a newborn.
Abortion is not killing in self defense or punishment for crime. Even when the child’s father is a rapist, that’s not the child’s fault. In most cases, however, the mother helped conceive the child willingly or negligently. If you invite guests knowing a snowstorm that will block all roads out for the next six or nine months is coming or plausible, you have a duty not to throw them out in the snow to die. Even if a kidnapper smuggles a child onto your property ahead of such a storm without your knowledge or permission, at the very least such a duty exists as to the innocent child, even if not to the criminal. The child didn’t choose to trespass on your property.
The only time it’s even a question is when there are insufficient provisions for you and the child to both survive, and in the case where it’s your own child, we generally don’t think well of mothers who save themselves at the expense of their children. Most mothers would sacrifice their lives for their children as a matter of course.
“If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have an abortion”
If you don’t want genocide, don’t commit genocide. If you don’t want ritual child sacrifice, don’t commit ritual child sacrifice. If you don’t want cannibalism, don’t eat people. Sorry, that’s not acceptable, as I hope my examples illustrate.
Abortion is not a personal choice. It’s a holocaust of baby murdering and corpse defilement. When confronted with graphic evidence of what abortion actually looks like, most people rightly recoil in horror, including those who consider themselves “pro choice” on abortion. That’s why Randall Terry runs for President, and why I donate to him, as I have to operation rescue for decades – it forces television stations to show these image’s, which they otherwise refuse.
More recently, the libertarians eliminated their platform abortion plank, and in another comment here I saw that there was some consideration of merging the libertarians and constitution party .
I’m sorry, but it’s an irreconcilable difference.
Suppose Nazi Germany was public about the holocaust and allowed open multiparty elections. How would you feel about a party that took no position on genocide? Or, suppose the “personal choice” of “abortion healthcare” was legalized into the fourth, fifth and sixth trimesters, i.e. babies after birth. Would you be comfortable if your party took no position on it? I would not, to say the least.
Abortion is an irreconcilable difference, and there can be no ignoring it or sweeping it under the rug. Any party, candidate, or non single issue political group that does not support fetal personhood doesn’t deserve support.
I agree with everything you said about abortion. I disagree with “…. I would eliminate the vast majority of government if it were up to me,” although that isn’t the topic of this particular discussion. From my vantage point, your country’s government is already far too laissez faire across the board on domestic issues (albeit far too involved in international affairs, including those far from its own borders).
I would especially like to second your point, that parents who are fit to be such would give up their lives without a moment’s hesitation to save the lives of their children.
Why was abortion made illegal in the first place? What is the history, if I may ask?
Per Wikipedia:
Physicians, who were the leading advocates of abortion criminalization laws, appear to have been motivated at least in part by advances in medical knowledge. Science had discovered that fertilization inaugurated a more or less continuous process of development, which produced a new human being. Quickening was found to be not more or less crucial in the process of gestation than any other step. Many physicians concluded that if society considered it unjustifiable to terminate pregnancy after the fetus had quickened, and if quickening was a relatively unimportant step in the gestation process, then it was just as wrong to terminate a pregnancy before quickening as after quickening.[58]
58 points to Mohr, James C. (1978). Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy. Oxford University Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0195026160.