A Libertarian case for supporting abortion rights even if you believe that "life

[Beet]

begins at conception."

I've started to see the reasoning used recently that a libertarian opposes abortion rights because they believe the fetus's "life begins at conception." This reflects a relatively new but historically quixotic shift in the abortion rights proponents' argument that at a conception or prior to first consciousness, human rights should not be accorded to the fetus-- a position I hold myself. Of course, abortion rights proponents have always implicitly held these views but until relatively recently they were a much smaller part of our case.

This position is not the conventional abortion rights argument as it stood circa 1973. The original argument was in fact more grounded on libertarianism. It took no explicit position on when "life begins".

The point is that from a libertarian standpoint, even if you accord a fetus full human rights, it does not follow that the government should force the mother to carry it in her body, feeding off of her, for 9 months. This is obviously a gross violation of personal rights, far more serious than property rights. In fact, it could be argued that it is similar to governmentally enforced rape.

This is why the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade (1973) identified viability as an important line of demarcation. The reasoning for identifying viability is that this is the point where the fetus can survive independent of physical demands on the mother. The basis for this ruling is libertarian.

It is possible of course, to be a libertarian and still be pro- life, as there are all different kinds of libertarian thinking. But it is not the case that believing that a fetus should be accorded human rights obligates the libertarian to be pro- life.

[Earth]

I don't see why it's particularly special to cover this from a libertarian standpoint. I mean, if you seriously need a libertarian justification, I'd say try harder to develop a philosophy.

I'm not accusing you personally, Beet, just thinking aloud.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

The point is that from a libertarian standpoint, even if you accord a fetus full human rights, it does not follow that the government should force the mother to carry it in her body, feeding off of her, for 9 months. This is obviously a gross violation of personal rights, far more serious than property rights. In fact, it could be argued that it is similar to governmentally enforced rape.

No it isn't. A mother has the responsibility to provide for her children, both in the womb and out.

[Beet]

The point is that from a libertarian standpoint, even if you accord a fetus full human rights, it does not follow that the government should force the mother to carry it in her body, feeding off of her, for 9 months. This is obviously a gross violation of personal rights, far more serious than property rights. In fact, it could be argued that it is similar to governmentally enforced rape.

No it isn't. A mother has the responsibility to provide for her children, both in the womb and out.

It could be argued that this amounts to human slavery.

[Brandon H]

If I did not consider the unborn child to be human, I wouldn't see much of an issue with abortion. But to acknowledge the child as human and still believe it ok to kill the child doesn't quite add up. Once you acknowledge the child as human and does not have rights and it's ok to kill him / her, what other humans are ok to kill?

If pregnancy is compared to slavery and the child is considered a trespasser, why isn't the child simply removed and placed in a respirator or some artificial means to help save their life? Instead, an abortion is a violent procedure in which the body of the fetus is ripped apart with a powerful vacuum cleaner or cut apart with scissors. How can one acknowledge the child as human and justify that procedure for killing him / her? Even in the case of executing a criminal, we look for what we believe is the least painful way of doing so (taking into consideration that lethal injection may be much more painful than initially thought). Likewise, I'm a court case for a murder with a single gunshot would viewed much different from a case where one tortures the victim before killing them. (And if an abortion procedure was used to kill a fully grown human, it would be considered torture.)

[WillK]

... they believe the fetus's "life begins at conception."  ....

By definition, what forms at conception is a zygote or embryo. 
A fetus is the form it takes after about 2 months.
It makes no sense to says that a fetus begins at conception.

[Beet]

If pregnancy is compared to slavery and the child is considered a trespasser, why isn't the child simply removed and placed in a respirator or some artificial means to help save their life?

That's exactly what you do. That's why viability is an important demarcation line.

[Torie]

Does the libertarian in this brave new world think there is a right to not feed their children, and let them starve to death?  Surely they don't think it is right to just turn the kid over to the state to pay for. I am not sure of the difference here between the kid and the fetus. It takes money to take care of a kid, and what is the difference between money and having a kid in your womb, other than perhaps a matter of degree? Both are theft on this planet it seems to me.

[Beet]

Does the libertarian in this brave new world think there is a right to not feed their children, and let them starve to death?  Surely they don't think it is right to just turn the kid over to the state to pay for. I am not sure of the difference here between the kid and the fetus. It takes money to take care of a kid, and what is the difference between money and having a kid in your womb, other than perhaps a matter of degree? Both are theft on this planet it seems to me.

Wait... when did it become illegal for parents to give their children up for adoption?

You are confusing two very, very different things. One is the the obligation of any specific individual to be burdened with child rearing.... which does not exist in our society. Hence, no one is forced to adopt orphans, nor are parents barred from giving up their children to be adopted by others.

The other is the right of children to be taken care of. But this has nothing to do with the negative liberties associated with libertarianism. Rather, it is a positive right associated with the welfare state. Which I would happily assert.

Still, even in the world where children are given the inherent right to be nurtured, this is done either by private orphanages or by the state through taxes. No one will argue that the state has the right to seize any woman that it deems to be the mother off the street and force this mother to provide for a given orphan for the next 18 years. A libertarian might even argue that if a child were to starve, it still does not justify this forcible seizure, which would be the equivalent of human slavery.

[Brandon H]

Regardless of viability, why is the child killed with a brutal procedure?

And what determines viability? A certain time from gestation? There is no way to even determine when gestation took place. You can't go by size because there have been both large and small babies born that have turned out perfectly healthy? And as technology improves, what was "viable" today wasn't "viable" 10 years ago.

Torie's post reminds me of another point: is a child whose pregnancy last 9 months viable after birth if no ones cares for that child?

[Beet]

Viability is defined as the ability of the fetus to survive outside the womb. You are right that it may vary according to circumstance.

[Torie]

I am making a point about the helpless.  Even in the real world, charities and adoption without "stolen" tax money could not take care of them all, and many would die. One might draw a distinction between the coercion of writing a check to the state, and having to carry a fetus to term, but other than that to me there is no difference. And who would want to adopt a severely handicapped kid with huge attendant expense and time, etc.?  Very few. Heck, it is hard to find homes for a lot of black kids now, or it used to be. They go to orphanages supported by the state.

We are assuming here in this hypothetical discussion that a fetus is every bit as human as an actually born kid.

[SPC]

While I personally go with the evictionism argument, I certainly wouldn't hold it against a pro-life libertarian if they thought differently. I find economics and foreign policy to be much greater threats to our liberties than either side of the abortion debate.

[k-onmmunist]

An unborn child is property. And not all libertarians are pro-life - me, Einzige and Mech for example.

[Scam of God]

Once more, with feeling: the property rights of the mother far outweigh any imagined property rights of a semi-sentient fetus.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This libertarian argument does at least provide a rationale for allowing otherwise unallowed abortions in the case of rape and incest that many favor.  A woman who has engaged in voluntary sexual activity can be said to have engaged in a contract that any resulting fetus would be carried to term.  However in the case of rape and incest, no valid contract was entered into because of the lack of consent.

It's a rather cold argument for allowing such abortions but at least it can be logically supported.

[Scam of God]

This libertarian argument does at least provide a rationale for allowing otherwise unallowed abortions in the case of rape and incest that many favor.  A woman who has engaged in voluntary sexual activity can be said to have engaged in a contract that any resulting fetus would be carried to term.  However in the case of rape and incest, no valid contract was entered into because of the lack of consent.

It's a rather cold argument for allowing such abortions but at least it can be logically supported.

That's a rather stupid argument for a pro-life position, because it adopts a variant of Rousseauianism, of all things, to defend an allegedly libertarian point-of-view. Contract law ends when there is no contract signed; to attempt to be vague on this issue is to accept the "social contract", which is anti-libertarianism incarnate.

I am extremely tired of these weasels raping language to justify unsupportable positions.

EDIT: The more I think of it, the more I dislike this line of argumentation. It's part and parcel of what I consider to be "libertarian legalism" - the notion that, to preserve your freedom, we must subordinate that freedom to the method of the law, in this case "contract law". But contract law is hardly fundamental; where it can be used in an oppressive fashion, it ought to be opposed. 

[Mechaman]

While I personally go with the evictionism argument, I certainly wouldn't hold it against a pro-life libertarian if they thought differently. I find economics and foreign policy to be much greater threats to our liberties than either side of the abortion debate.

Exactomundo.
With the crises we face with the ever exploding deficit that threatens to turn us all into slaves in the future, the abortion issue is the least of my worries.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This libertarian argument does at least provide a rationale for allowing otherwise unallowed abortions in the case of rape and incest that many favor.  A woman who has engaged in voluntary sexual activity can be said to have engaged in a contract that any resulting fetus would be carried to term.  However in the case of rape and incest, no valid contract was entered into because of the lack of consent.

It's a rather cold argument for allowing such abortions but at least it can be logically supported.

That's a rather stupid argument for a pro-life position, because it adopts a variant of Rousseauianism, of all things, to defend an allegedly libertarian point-of-view. Contract law ends when there is no contract signed; to attempt to be vague on this issue is to accept the "social contract", which is anti-libertarianism incarnate.

The argument I put forth does not rely upon Rousseau but rather Proudhon.  Nor does it address the issue of whether abortion should or should not be available, but rather the narrower issue of whether when abortion is restricted, a justification can be made for having those restrictions be lessened when rape or incest is involved.

[Scam of God]

This libertarian argument does at least provide a rationale for allowing otherwise unallowed abortions in the case of rape and incest that many favor.  A woman who has engaged in voluntary sexual activity can be said to have engaged in a contract that any resulting fetus would be carried to term.  However in the case of rape and incest, no valid contract was entered into because of the lack of consent.

It's a rather cold argument for allowing such abortions but at least it can be logically supported.

That's a rather stupid argument for a pro-life position, because it adopts a variant of Rousseauianism, of all things, to defend an allegedly libertarian point-of-view. Contract law ends when there is no contract signed; to attempt to be vague on this issue is to accept the "social contract", which is anti-libertarianism incarnate.

The argument I put forth does not rely upon Rousseau but rather Proudhon.  Nor does it address the issue of whether abortion should or should not be available, but rather the narrower issue of whether when abortion is restricted, a justification can be made for having those restrictions be lessened when rape or incest is involved.

That hardly matters, because it's still positing a contract where no such contract actually exists. Again, it's a case of libertarian legalism, admitting the utility of coercion to achieve a desired end: "we'll just say you signed a contract when you had sex because.... because!"

Unless an actual contract is signed or verbally assented to, no contract exists. It still seems to me like you're intentionally looking for a way to keep two fundamentally opposing philosophies unified.

[Torie]

Once more, with feeling: the property rights of the mother far outweigh any imagined property rights of a semi-sentient fetus.

Well once you degrade the status of the fetus, then the debate gets back into more familiar territory.

[Scam of God]

Once more, with feeling: the property rights of the mother far outweigh any imagined property rights of a semi-sentient fetus.

Well once you degrade the status of the fetus, then the debate gets back into more familiar territory.

"Degrade"? You ought instead accuse those who are pro-life of inflating the status of the fetus.

[k-onmmunist]

I'm sorry if the rights of a non-intelligent unborn non-aware being matter more to you than a real intelligent human being, Torie.

[Torie]

I'm sorry if the rights of a non-intelligent unborn non-aware being matter more to you than a real intelligent human being, Torie.

No need to be sorry, because that is not my point of view actually. In this thread the assumption was that fetuses were human. I have posted before my views regarding fetuses and the continuum of sentience.

[k-onmmunist]

I'm sorry if the rights of a non-intelligent unborn non-aware being matter more to you than a real intelligent human being, Torie.

No need to be sorry, because that is not my point of view actually. In this thread the assumption was that fetuses were human. I have posted before my views regarding fetuses and the continuum of sentience.

Ah.