{"id":35633,"date":"2013-05-28T12:53:33","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T16:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=35633"},"modified":"2013-05-28T16:17:33","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T20:17:33","slug":"libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Libertarianism is still incoherent on abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

\"reason_tv\"<\/a>Personally, I find libertarianism paradoxical. It styles itself as sort of a purer, more philosophically focused version of conservatism\u2019s individual-liberty, limited-government ethos, but when it comes to some of the biggest areas where the two movements differ, rigorous application of objective principles seems to go out the window. Last January, we discussed<\/a> an overview of libertarian perspectives on abortion put together by Reason<\/em> magazine, in which the authors failed to reach a consensus on whether there was a single libertarian answer to the issue and suggested that just under a third of libertarians are solidly pro-life.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Reason<\/em> released the video<\/a> of a follow-up, a panel discussion between pro-life Mollie Hemmingway of Ricochet<\/em> and pro-choice Katherine Mangu-Ward and Ronald Bailey of Reason<\/em>, moderated by Reason\u2019s<\/em> Nick Gillespie. Daniel Klaaren has a summary<\/a> of the event at America\u2019s Future Foundation. It\u2019s an interesting listen, and Gillespie does a good job of ensuring that a diverse range of questions and subjects are explored, but none of the participants\u2019 pronouncements were dug into long enough to truly test their logic.<\/p>\n

Bailey agreed that of course every human life once started as a fertilized egg, but took issue with defining the moment of conception as the start of human rights, saying that \u201cat least 80 percent of fertilized eggs never implant, they never create a pregnancy, they never become people; and therefore I find it odd to give rights to things that don\u2019t become people, typically.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBecome people\u201d is problematic enough, but more on that later. I find it odd that survival rates would determine the rights of any group. Also, a self-professed libertarian should know better than to speak of rights as something \u201cgiven\u201d to people by other people, rather than intrinsic qualities we already possess. Then again, in order to maintain a pro-choice position, divorcing \u201cunalienable\u201d from \u201crights\u201d is almost a prerequisite.<\/p>\n

Bailey went on to explain that the concept of acquiring rights as we develop is already well accepted in society.\u00a0\u201cWe also have a sliding scale of rights,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cPeople get more rights as they become older over time. We don\u2019t allow children to do certain kinds of things and so I think that that is part of that continuum.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Y\u2019know what can\u2019t be found anywhere among those things \u201cwe don\u2019t allow children to do\u201d? Living. While we obviously restrict minors\u2019 freedoms in a wide variety of areas, Bailey completely ignored the fact that that\u2019s entirely for their own long-term welfare. We vest parents or legal guardians with such decision-making power with the understanding that they\u2019ll act in their children\u2019s best interests, not their own interests at the expense of the kids\u2019 well-being, with penalties including revocation of custody if they fail to do so. Bailey\u2019s \u201csliding scale of rights\u201d couldn\u2019t possibly be less applicable to abortion.<\/p>\n

Bailey articulated a couple different standards to determine the start of human rights.\u00a0 \u201cAt some stage,\u201d Bailey explained, \u201cit would have to be with significant enough brain development to be able to have some sense of self-awareness\u2026the other problem with that is I\u2019m much more comfortable with viability as the standard, because that is the point where someone else can decide to start taking care of the entity\u2026instead of imposing the burden on the woman who\u2019s carrying the fetus to maintain [the pregnancy].\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Throughout the panel, Bailey repeatedly pointed to this premise of human non-persons as justification for his views, but he wasn\u2019t directly challenged to explain why self-awareness was the authoritative quality, or what made viability morally significant. Gillespie did get him to acknowledge that viability is somewhat arbitrary in the sense that improving technology will make a baby \u201cviable\u201d at earlier stages, but Gillespie didn\u2019t press him on the implications of that – how it could possibly be that the treatment we owe someone could possibly depend on external factors utterly unrelated to what he or she is.<\/p>\n

Finally, Gillespie posed the same questions about the beginning of life and the beginning of rights to Mangu-Ward.\u00a0Mangu-Ward defended her pro-choice position in more familiar libertarian terms.\u00a0\u201cLots of really smart people disagree on the answers. This suggests to me that we should devolve decisions on this to the lowest possible level because it is wildly unlikely that the state will arrive at the right answers and institute those in law.\u201d\u00a0Mangu-Ward echoed this argument later in the debate, likening the state\u2019s efforts to regulate abortion to its efforts at regulating the economy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mangu-Ward prefaced it by declaring that she didn\u2019t know \u201cany of the answers probably to any of the questions that you\u2019re going to ask.\u201d That should have prompted a follow-up of \u201cthen why are you on a panel about it?,\u201d but her point was essentially that government should stay mostly out of it because the answers are effectively unknowable, which is easily the most preposterous argument made all hour.<\/p>\n

First, its premise is wrong – the unborn baby\u2019s biological status is very knowable, and American law is based on a natural-rights framework through which clear answers about the right to life can be reached. Sure, we can\u2019t empirically know the precise nature of the soul, but we can consult reason, philosophy, and theology to assess its likelihood. Notably, Mangu-Ward says placing the cutoff point at birth doesn\u2019t necessarily have great moral weight but does have \u201cvery strong customary weight.\u201d Well, if \u201ccustomary weight\u201d is a valid criterion, then that would certainly seem to open the door to voters\u2019 sensibilities about life\u2019s divine value. Second, \u201cwe don\u2019t know if it\u2019s murder, therefore let\u2019s proceed as if it isn\u2019t\u201d is the exact opposite of how responsible ethics works. If we don\u2019t know for sure whether abortion is murder, and there are serious-but-not-definitive reasons why it may be, then decency dictates we err on the side of caution and avoid abortion\u2019s potential harm.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot more in those fifty minutes we could dig into; I\u2019d strongly encourage our readers to listen to the whole thing when they have the time. For a philosophy of such uncompromising certainty as to where everything from drug laws and wiretaps to public schools and welfare programs falls on the individual liberty scale, there\u2019s really no excuse for such muddy thinking about the ultimate assault on liberty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Muddy thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":35634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nLibertarianism is still incoherent on abortion - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Libertarianism is still incoherent on abortion - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Muddy thinking.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-28T16:53:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-28T20:17:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/reason_tv.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Calvin Freiburger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/6eb2bf94c8064b71953ba137bf413c4d\"},\"headline\":\"Libertarianism is still incoherent on abortion\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-28T16:53:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-28T20:17:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/\"},\"wordCount\":1084,\"commentCount\":24,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/libertarianism-is-still-incoherent-on-abortion\/\",\"name\":\"Libertarianism is still incoherent on abortion - 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Calvin is an editor and administrator for TheFederalistPapers.org, and his work has appeared on NewsRealBlog.com, PatriotUpdate.com, LifeNews.com, LifeSiteNews.com, RightWisconsin.com, AmericanThinker.com, Stream.org, AmericanClarion.org, and more. Please check out his official website, ConservativeStandards.com. 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