The Libertarian Case Against Abortion

by Bill Barnwell
by Bill Barnwell

Is holding a pro-life position inherently inconsistent with libertarian philosophy? Many libertarians seem to think so. Abortion, according to them, is forced and legislated morality defended by big-government conservatives who want to impose their faith and morals on the rest of an unwilling society. Not only that, it is statist in that it invalidates a mother’s right to terminate a pregnancy. The State now trumps parental rights and decides for the mother against her will that she must bring a child into the world.

Is this, however, the full story? I argue that it is absolutely not. Rather than being a liberating, pro-freedom expression of personal choice against government intrusion, the "right" to abortion is itself a statist measure completely consistent with left-wing ideology of how society and government should function. It does nothing to advance the cause of freedom. It instead drastically sets the principles of freedom and personal responsibility light-years back. Therefore, the pro-life position is not only completely consistent with libertarian philosophy, but it is much more consistently libertarian than the alternative position outlined above.

Two basic pillars of libertarianism are personal freedom and an aversion to aggression. Libertarians rightly do not believe that people should be compelled to make decisions by the government. Even Christian libertarians, such as myself, who are morally opposed to activities such as smoking, drunkenness and homosexual behavior, still realize that it is not the proper role of the State to try to dictate to adults whether or not they should smoke. Nor does it make much sense for the State to patrol people’s bedrooms to make sure they aren’t engaging in sodomy. While many people view such habits as destructive, they can also look at the empirical evidence from history and realize that the State has a very bad track record trying to intervene in such matters (Prohibition, anyone?).

On aggression, libertarians have long been champions against governmental coercion and unprovoked harm. Libertarians oppose unprovoked, immoral military aggression against foreign countries that are hardly waged in the name of defense. Likewise, libertarians oppose personal aggression that threatens ones life or property. Not only that, but governmental aggression against an individual’s pursuit of economic liberty is denounced rightly as aggression. This principle of non-aggression is innately tied to the concept of personal freedom and liberty. No outside governmental force has the right to compel or coerce another person’s personal behavior through the force of the State. Also, the State is immorally engaging in aggression when it sanctions murder or other forms of personal harm against its own or even foreign inhabitants for non-defensive reasons.

The previous two paragraphs outlining the principles of personal freedom and non-aggression seem, at first, to validate and support the pro-abortion position as described in the beginning of this essay. Yet when one looks at the total picture they will see that they do not. The government sanctioning of abortion is itself an attack on personal liberty and likewise runs completely contrary to the principle of non-aggression.

Since much material has been written debating when life begins, it would be foolish to spend ample time on the subject in this space. I will only say that those who argue that the developing fetus is not in any sense human have much scientific evidence against them. It is well documented that there is a beating heart after 18 days of fertilization and that the formation of brain waves occurs after a mere month and a half (keep in mind also that most abortions occur well after these developments). A recent column in the Telegraph documents the uneasiness of many pro-abortion Britons who are aware of the personhood of unborn children:

"New ultrasound pictures of a foetus show it toddling at 12 weeks, yawning at 15 and smiling at 18. What is the public reaction? Are we awestruck at this manifestation of the quickening within the womb that every mother feels?

"Do we recognise ourselves, our children and our children's children in what is visibly a tiny human being? No, people are more likely to reflect uneasily on the fact that tens of thousands of foetuses just like this are legally aborted before they are born. After more than a generation of abortion on demand, Britain has an ageing population and a queasy conscience."

Far from being just a simple "blob of flesh" or lifeless attachment inside a mother, more and more abortion supporters are beginning to come to terms with the inherent personhood of the developing fetus. Trying to set a precise time for the beginning of life neglects much of the scientific evidence that points to all the necessary ingredients being present in the very beginning of pregnancy. The commonly accepted notion of determining the status of life, or potential of life based upon how closely a fetus resembles a fully developed human (or using the most extreme argument of abortionists, that is, that life truly begins once the baby has totally exited the mother’s body during birth) is irresponsible. Far from being just a blob of flesh, or simple life form that is analogous to bacteria or growing fruit, a more responsible philosophical and moral position is to view that which is inside the womb for what it is: a developing human being.

Considering that, State sanctioning of abortion is nothing more than a trade-off of rights. Remember, in the opening of this essay, abortion was presented as a path to liberation and personal responsibility for the mother. Neither the State, nor any other human being (especially men) has a right to tell the mother what to do with her own body. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Not quite.

Such a position conveniently ignores the fact that within the mother is an entity that is completely distinct from her (The argument that abortion is legitimate since the child is dependant upon the mother for survival need not be limited to the womb, it can easily be extended towards born infants and even the disabled and elderly). Thus, there is a tradeoff of freedoms and rights. The mother gains special privileges and rights while at the same time the child loses them. One party gains at the expense of the other. This arrangement is no different from various other left-wing and statist inventions that harm some for the benefit of others.

It does one well to wonder how exactly this arrangement is libertarian and pro-freedom. Granting the state-approved right for mothers to terminate a pregnancy also ignores the rights and interests of other parties involved in the matter. First, it regulates the man's decision in the matter next to nothing (even though admittedly many of the men who impregnate these women are nothing more than "sperm donors" if you will, but that is not always the case). Secondly, it totally invalidates the life of the growing child amongst more and more evidence that what is in the womb is indeed a life. But since Junior was conceived at a bad time, he has no rights. Not exactly a very libertarian concept.

What about personal liberty, responsibility, and freedom? Again, it has been shown that those who defend abortion on grounds of freedom and personal liberty only tell half of the story. They have no problem with denying the right to life, liberty, and freedom to the unborn child (based not on biological science, philosophy, or moral reasoning mind you, but usually political or sociological arguments).

Secondly, the abortion debate could use more common sense on the issue of responsibility. According to a 1998 study in Family Planning Perspectives, 93% of abortions are obtained not for medical reasons, but social reasons (such as not feeling ready to have a child, not having adequate finances, etc). Concerns for the mother’s health accounted for only 3% of abortions (and plenty of modern physicians say that medicine and health care is technologically advanced to the point where this really is no longer a concern). Another 3% claimed that they were concerned for the health of the child (But yes, disabled children or children found to have defects have a right to be born also). And the percentage of abortions that occur because of rape or incest (the supposed trump card in the pro-abortion debate)? Just 1%.

It’s about time that defenders of freedom and personal responsibility put more pressure on promiscuous or sexually irresponsible people to take proper measures to avoid a pregnancy. It is morally and intellectually unfair to make unwanted children bear the burden for the irresponsible actions of others. While libertarians would rightly say that the State has no business trying to correct the poor attitudes and behaviors of others, it also makes little sense for the State to sanction aggressive and anti-life laws which punish innocents for the mistakes of their parents. That is not libertarian; it is selective freedom which pushes aggression on defenseless unborn children.

This leads us to one final consideration in this essay; that abortion violates the principle of nonaggression. The mother (or parents), usually as a result of her (or their) own irresponsibility, makes a decision to end a life unilaterally. The child obviously has no say in the matter. The pro-abortion parents and the State make the decision for child, and prematurely end his or her life. Again, not a very libertarian concept.

Abortion supporters object. The government is telling a woman what to do with her body! I'm encouraged when left-leaning thinkers start talking like libertarians, but discouraged to see that it stops at giving mothers the "right of privacy" to get abortions. Back in his quasi pro-life days, Al Gore once said "abortion is arguably the taking of a human life." If those who argue that it is the taking of a human life are correct, then I think even the staunchest libertarian can agree that the state should not be in the business of sanctioning aggression and destructive anti-life policies. Unfortunately, the State seems mainly concerned with economic stagnation and the destruction of life and property through war, abortion, anti-capitalistic measures, etc. Abortion is another piece of that puzzle.

It must also be recognized that the process in which abortion became the law of the land was nothing short of statist aggression. The State, through the judicially abominable decision of Roe v. Wade, federalized the matter through convoluted constitutional reasoning. This was a pristine example of political and judicial aggression that denied the rights of individual states to decide the matter by federalizing it. All honest libertarians should see this as an assault on states’ rights regardless of their position on the moral, legal, or philosophical merits of the actual abortion itself.

Notice in this libertarian attack on abortion I have not sought to endorse all pro-life legislation that has been considered over the years. That is because some of the legislation has approached the matter in a big-government or statist approach and actually negates itself because of it. Yet all libertarians should agree that Roe v. Wade is a blow to libertarian philosophy, and the issue should be returned to the states. In the meantime, individual states, and personal consciences would do well to consider the real nature of abortion: an aggressive, irresponsible act which denies personal freedom, liberty and justice to a weaker and inconvenient class of people.

As a libertarian, I defend the pro-life cause not only on moral and spiritual grounds, but also philosophically on the nonaggression principle and upon the principles of freedom and personal liberty. As has been shown, a government that sanctions abortion sanctions aggression, and gives rights and privileges to some (mothers) while taking away rights and harming others (the unwanted children). This tradeoff of rights and State-sponsored aggression is not libertarian, as most "mainstream" libertarians would assume. It is the standard statist model of how society and government should function which is ultimately unfair, immoral and destructive.

Such a concept has much more in common with the philosophy of the Left than it does with the philosophy of freedom. And there’s nothing libertarian about that.

July 1, 2004

Bill Barnwell [send him mail] is a pastor in Swartz Creek, Michigan and a Master’s of ministry student at Bethel College.

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