Libertarian perspectives on abortion
The abortion debate is mainly within 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.
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.
[11] 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.
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".
[14] Capitalism Magazine supports the abortion-rights position, writing: A fetus does not have a right to be in the womb of any woman, but is there by her permission.
[17] 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.
[19] 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.
[3]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".
Even today, Communist governments vary their positions on abortion strictly on economic calculations of whether more or fewer slaves are needed.
[33] Amash voted "present", rather than "yes" or "no", on the 2011 Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, which provided for the cessation of federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
[34][35] In May 2012, Amash was one of seven Republicans to vote against the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act, which would have made it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion on a woman who wants to end a pregnancy based on the gender of the fetus.
He criticized the bill as ineffective and virtually impossible to enforce, and said Congress "should not criminalize thought", while maintaining that he believes "all abortion should be illegal".
[42] Columnist Nat Hentoff was strongly opposed to abortion, and believed that a consistent life ethic should be the viewpoint of a genuine civil libertarian.
