{"id":164103,"date":"2017-03-23T18:35:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T22:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=164103"},"modified":"2017-03-23T15:58:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T19:58:00","slug":"libertarian-defense-of-tomi-lahren-abortion-stance-doesnt-measure-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarian-defense-of-tomi-lahren-abortion-stance-doesnt-measure-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Libertarian defense of Tomi Lahren’s abortion stance doesn’t measure up"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By now you may have heard about self-described moderate\/conservative\/libertarian<\/a> Blaze TV pundit Tomi Lahren disappointing many of her fans by going on The View<\/em> to spout nonsensical rhetoric about how \u201clov[ing] the Constitution\u201d requires her to support legal abortion: \u201cI’m for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Live Action\u2019s Cassy Fiano explained<\/a> the ignorance and inconsistency of Lahren\u2019s stance over the weekend, but now Elizabeth Nolan Brown at the libertarian publication Reason<\/em> has chimed in<\/a> to claim that Lahren\u2019s is a \u201cperfectly coherent position,\u201d and \u201cperfectly respectable\u201d too.<\/p>\n

How did she do? About as well<\/a> as libertarians often fare<\/a> when trying to square the circle<\/a> of denying rights to preborn individuals while claiming their philosophy is all about individual rights:<\/p>\n

There’s only tension between believing abortion should be legal\u2014which is all being “pro-choice” means\u2014and the Constitution’s prescription of “life, liberty, and property” protection for all if you believe that personhood begins at conception. But one needn’t believe this, nor even be a Christian at all, in order to champion conservative political philosophy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wrong. First, there\u2019s an objective standard for what qualifies as conservative: conserving the principles upon which America was founded as her Founders understood them. Of course, not every political question is necessarily traceable to something the Founders said or dealt with, but one as big as the right to life definitely is\u2014so much so that upholding it is the very first purpose of government listed in the Declaration of Independence<\/a>. And not just born life\u2014the Founders\u2019 leading legal influences taught them<\/a> that the law\u2019s protection applied at the earliest point in pregnancy where the medical knowledge of their time told them a living child was present.<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s dubious enough<\/a> to posit a difference between humanity and personhood in a philosophical discussion, but it\u2019s completely out of place in a discussion about constitutional rights. Originalism\u2014which libertarianism supposedly values as much as conservatism does\u2014dictates that constitutional terms carry the meaning their authors intended. In this case, that means \u201cperson\u201d as used in the Fourteenth Amendment means \u201cany human being<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are plenty of pro-life Americans who believe a blanket ban on abortion is not the best way to end the practice, given how black markets work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And they would be wrong<\/a>. Regardless, it\u2019s beside the point, because it\u2019s not the argument made by the person Brown is defending.<\/p>\n

Again, this might seem horrific to people who believe that aborting an eight-week old fetus is the exact same as murdering a 2- or 20- or 80-year-old, but that’s a matter of moral or religious perspective.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No more so than any moral claim about violence against anybody else<\/a>, so what\u2019s your point? Also, while the pro-life and conservative movements can and should welcome good people of a variety of religious perspectives, ultimately the premise that the right to life was endowed on us by a Creator<\/a> is one of the foundational prerequisites we discussed earlier.<\/p>\n

[I]t’s\u00a0erroneous and unfair to brush aside [Lahren’s]\u00a0beliefs as simple stupidity, hypocrisy, opportunism, or cowardice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is it? Let\u2019s see:<\/p>\n