Libertarian perspectives on abortion

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Libertarians promote individual liberty and seek to minimize the role of the state. The majority of libertarians consider a right to abortion as part of their general support for individual rights, especially in regard to what they consider to be a woman's right to control her body. Religious right and intellectual conservatives have attacked such libertarians for supporting abortion rights, especially since the demise of the Soviet Union. Other libertarians oppose abortion, and claim libertarian principles such as the non-aggression principle apply to human beings from conception.

Pro-choice positions

Objectivist Ayn Rand, whose writings helped to inspire the modern libertarian movement, called the idea that a fetus should have a right to life "vicious nonsense" and also flatly stated, "An embryo has no rights...a child cannot acquire any rights until it is born."

Influential libertarian writer Murray Rothbard wrote that "no being has a right to live, unbidden, as a parasite within or upon some person's body" and that therefore the woman is entitled to eject the fetus from her body at any time.

The U.S. Libertarian Party political platform (2010) states: "Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration." The Libertarian Party of New Jersey holds that citizens should look to the voluntary and subsidiary institutions – person, family, religion – actually competent in the matter. It notes that people are often hindered from sensible acts by government policies with effects such as encouraging abortions, making adoptions difficult, hindering contraception, or turning child support into a lucrative racket.

In "The Right to Abortion: A Libertarian Defense," the Association of Libertarian Feminists has created what they call a "systematic philosophical defense of the moral case for abortion from a libertarian perspective." It concludes: "To sacrifice existing persons for the sake of future generations, whether in slave labor camps for the utopian nightmares of Marxists or fascists, or in unwanted pregnancies, compulsory childbearing, and furtive coat hanger abortions for the edification of fetus-worshippers, is to establish hell on earth."

The Objectivist-influenced Capitalism Magazine also supports the pro-choice position, writing:

"A fetus does not have a right to be in the womb of any woman, but is there by her permission. This permission may be revoked by the woman at any time, because her womb is part of her body... There is no such thing as the right to live inside the body of another, i.e. there is no right to enslave... a woman is not a breeding pig owned by the state (or church). Even if a fetus were developed to the point of surviving as an independent being outside the pregnant woman's womb, the fetus would still not have the right to be inside the woman's womb."

The Pro-Choice Libertarians group lists the following reasons they oppose government involvement in the abortion issue: "The fetus is not a human being with rights until it is born (based on a number of rationales) and/or only the mother confers rights on the fetus; even if the fetus has rights, and abortion is murder, the rights of the mother to evict trespassers – for whatever reasons – through abortion are greater (based on a number of rationales); the government is the problem, not the solution, including in this issue; it's my body and the government should keep its laws off it; people can decide this issue in their private, contractual communities; only voluntary means of convincing a woman to have a child are libertarian; the decision on whether it is murder is based on political power and adult women have more power; it is wrong to force a deformed baby or unwanted child to come into the world."

Pro-life positions

Libertarians for Life argues that humans in the zygotic, embryonic, and fetal stages of development have the same rights as humans in the neonatal stage and beyond. The organization notes that the principles of both the U.S. Libertarian Party and Objectivist ethics require some obligation to children and counter with an appeal to the non-aggression principle:

"Non-aggression is an ongoing obligation: it is never optional for anyone, even pregnant women. If the non-aggression obligation did not apply, then earning money versus stealing it and consensual sex versus rape would be morally indifferent behaviors. The obligation not to aggress is pre-political and pre-legal. It does not arise out of contract, agreement, or the law; rather, such devices presuppose this obligation. The obligation would exist even in a state of nature. This is because the obligation comes with our human nature, and we acquire this nature at conception."

Libertarian Republican United States House of Representatives' member Ron Paul calls for overturning Roe v. Wade and letting the states decide the issue. His son, Republican Senator Rand Paul, calls himself "totally pro-life" and supports "any and all legislation that would end abortion or lead us in the direction of ending abortion." The 2008 Libertarian Party candidate for president, Bob Barr, is pro-life and opposes abortion.

Other positions

Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate for President for 1996 and 2000, rejected the terms pro-life and pro-choice and stated about abortion: "Whatever we believe abortion is, we know one thing: government doesn't work, and it is as incapable of eliminating abortions as it is of eliminating poverty or drugs."

Dr. Walter Block, professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, offers an alternative to the standard choice between "pro-life" and "pro-choice": what he terms "evictionism." According to this moral theory, the act of abortion must be conceptually separated into the acts of (a) eviction of the fetus from the womb; and (b) killing the fetus. Building on the libertarian stand against trespass and murder, Block supports a right to the first act, but, except in certain circumstances, not the second act. He believes the woman may legally abort if (a) the fetus is not viable outside the womb; or (b) the woman has announced to the world her abandonment of the right to custody of the fetus, and (c) no one else has "homesteaded" that right by offering to care for the fetus.

See also

• Abortion
• Abortion debate
• Libertarianism
• Libertarians for Life
• Pro-life
• Pro-choice

External links

• Pro-Choice Libertarians Activist network that promotes pro-choice view within libertarian movement
• Libertarians for Life Pro-life libertarian perspective
• Reproductive Rights National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2006, Portland, Oregon