Libertarians promote individual liberty and seek to minimize the role of the state. The abortion debate is mainly within propertarianism/right-libertarianism between cultural liberals and social conservatives, as left-libertarians generally see it as a settled issue regarding individual rights, as they support legal access to abortion as part of what they consider to be a woman's right to control her body and its functions. Doug Bandow, The politics of envy: statism as theology, p. 280, Transaction Publishers, 1994, . Quote: "the majority of libertarians are pro-choice"... Marc Jason Gilbert, The Vietnam War on campus: other voices, more distant drums, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 35, . Quote: "On the whole, however, centrist and conservative libertarians usually espoused expected libertarian views on such issues as abortion, where the individual's right to be free from coercion by others (either individuals or the state) too precedent over questions of morality or religion." George F. Johnston, Abortion from the religious and moral perspective: an annotated bibliography, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003 p. 160, . Quote: "Most Libertarians, on the grounds that a woman has the right to control her own body, support legalized abortion." John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, Penguin, 2004, p. 252, . Quote: "Libertarians support abortion as part of their general support for individual rights." Charles W. Dunn, J. David Woodard, American conservatism from Burke to Bush: an introduction, Madison Books, 1991, p. 41, . Quote: "...libertarians would say that the government should not regulate abortion since that is a personal matter." Mary Ruwart, Ask Dr. Ruwart column, formerly available at Advocates for Self Government website. Quote: "The predominant 'pro-choice' viewpoint, as expressed in the current version of the Libertarian Party platform, is backed by principled arguments as well. Libertarians believe that no one should be enslaved to support another, including a pregnant woman 'enslaved' to carry a fetus she does not want. A woman's body is her property, to do with as she wishes." Religious right and intellectual conservatives have attacked such libertarians for supporting abortion rights, especially after the demise of the Soviet Union led to a greater divide in the conservative movement between libertarians and social conservatives.David Boaz, The Politics of Freedom: Taking on the Left, the Right, and Threats to Our Liberties, Cato Institute, 2008, page 3 Libertarian conservatives claim libertarian principles such as the non-aggression principle (NAP) apply to human beings from conception and that the universal right to life applies to fetuses in the womb. Thus, some of those individuals express opposition to legal abortion. Also see: According to a 2013 survey, 5.7/10 of American Libertarians oppose making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion.
Support for legal abortion Russian-born American novelist and philosopher, Ayn Rand, argued that the notion of a fetus's having a right to life is "vicious nonsense" and stated: "An embryo has no rights. [...] A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born".Ayn Rand, The Voice of Reason excerpted at Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on Abortion. She also wrote: "Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered". Leonard Peikoff, a close associate of Ayn Rand and co-founder of the Ayn Rand Institute, stated that:
Anarcho-capitalist philosopher and Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard"Literature of liberty," Cato Institute, v. 4, p. 12, 1981. 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. However, explaining the right of the woman to "eject the fetus from her body", Rothbard also wrote that "every baby as soon as it is born and is therefore no longer contained within his mother's body possesses the right of self-ownership by virtue of being a separate entity and a potential adult. It must therefore be illegal and a violation of the child's rights for a parent to aggress against his person by mutilating, torturing, murdering him, etc." Rothbard also opposed all federal interference with the right of local governments to fashion their own laws, so he opposed the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. He believed that states should be able to author their own abortion policies. He also opposed taxpayer funding for abortion clinics, writing "it is peculiarly monstrous to force those who abhor abortion as murder to pay for such murders".
19th-century individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker initially concluded that no one should interfere to prevent neglect of the child, although they could still repress a positive invasion. However, Tucker, having reconsidered his opinion, resolved that parental cruelty is of non-invasive character and therefore is not to be prohibited. Tucker's opinion is grounded on the fact that he viewed the child as the property of the mother while in the womb and until the time of their emancipation (at the age of being able to contract and provide for themselves) unless the mother had disposed of the fruit of her womb by contract. In the meantime, Tucker recognized the right of the mother to dispose of her property as she sees it fit. According to Tucker's logic, "the outsider who uses force upon the child invades, not the child, but its mother, and may be rightfully punished for doing so".
In "The Right to Abortion: A Libertarian Defense", the Association of Libertarian Feminists 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".Sharon Presley and Robert Cooke, "The Right to Abortion: A Libertarian Defense , Association of Libertarian Feminists web site, 2003.
Capitalism Magazine supports the abortion-rights position, writing:
Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 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".Harry Browne, The Libertarian stand on abortion , Harry Browne personal web page, December 21, 1998.
The Libertarian Party's 2004 presidential candidate Michael Badnarik had a similar position, writing: "I oppose government control over the abortion issue. I believe that giving the government control of this issue could lead to more abortions rather than fewer, because the left-right pendulum of power swings back and forth. This shift could place the power to set policy in the hands of those who demand strict population control. The government that can ban abortion can just as easily mandate abortion, as is currently the case in China".Michael Badnarik on Abortion, OnTheIssues.org voters guide 2004. The party's 2012 presidential candidate Gary Johnson wanted to keep abortion legal.Libertarian gets on Minn. ballot for president , Associated Press, August 24, 2012.
Prior U.S. Libertarian Party national platform The 2012-May 2022 political platform of the Libertarian Party stated, "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."From the founding of the party until 2008 there were explicit pro choice planks in the platforms with the original 1972 platform only explicitly opposing restrictions on the first hundred days of pregnancy but in 1974 the words "the first hundred days" was dropped to just say "We further support the repeal of all laws restricting voluntary birth control or the right of the woman to make a personal moral choice regarding the termination of pregnancy" later platforms added more words to be clearer adding both the word abortion and explicitly opposing all laws requiring waiting periods consent of anyone else other than the woman etc. in 94 mention of RU 486 was mentioned by name as well as language including all other reproductive healthcare in 1996 language was added recognizing that legitimate pro life libertarian positions were a possibility but that government should not be a player on this question and in no way should restrict or subsidize any abortion procedure in 2000 most of the explicit anti abortion prohibition language was removed but the position of keep the government out remained it has remained similar until today National Platform of the Libertarian Party, 1.4 Abortion, adopted in Convention, May 2012.
Other organizations Other abortion rights libertarian organizations include the Association of Libertarian Feminists and Pro-Choice Libertarians.Sharon Presley and Robert Cooke, "The Right to Abortion: A Libertarian Defense" , Association of Libertarian Feminists web site, 2003 and Pro-Choice Libertarians website.List of Just Some of the Reasons Libertarians Want Government out of the Abortion Issue , at Pro-ChoiceLibertarians.net .
Opposition to legal abortion The anti-abortion libertarian group 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. Doris Gordon of the group notes that the principles of both the Libertarian Party and Objectivist ethics require some obligation to children and counter with an appeal to the non-aggression principle:
Evictionism
Walter Block, Rothbardian writer and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, provides an alternative to the standard choice between "pro-life" and "pro-choice" which 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 publicly announced her abandonment of the right to custody of a viable fetus, and it has not been claimed.* Walter Block, Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private Property Approach to Resolving the Abortion Controversy, Walter Block personal web site, originally published in Appalachian Journal of Law, Vol 4:1. Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski, "A Critique of Block on Abortion and Child Abandonment" , LibertarianPapers.org, project of Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Vol. 2, Art. No. 16 (2010)
Departurism Departurism is a theory developed by Sean Parr which, like evictionism, holds that the mother may evict but not directly kill the "trespassing" fetus, but, contrary to evictionism, neither may she kill him by eviction. The mother, if her actions are to conform to gentleness (an ex ante element of law akin to the ex post element proportionality), must allow for the continued departure of the trespasser until such time that eviction no longer entails his death. That is, it is only the fatal (or otherwise seriously injurious) eviction of a fetus during a normal pregnancy that departurism argues is discordant with gentleness and, thus, a NAP-violation.
Preargumentation-Ethics