Those who favor abortion on demand use the rhetoric of libertarianism to justify their
position. Hence, there is much talk of compulsory pregnancy, forced childbirth, lack of
control over one's own body (bodily parts), absence of reproductive choice, and so on.
Faced with such language pro-lifers often retreat into a discussion of liberty vs.
license, liberty vs. order, or the primacy of the right to life over other rights.
These arguments, while not without merit, yield far too much ground to the abortion
advocates. For the simple truth is that freedom is not counterbalanced by a higher (or
even simply other) good when abortion is proscribed. Liberty, recall, is the absence of
originative coercion -- while abortion, of course, is an act of initiatory coercion.
Hence, to outlaw abortion is merely to array societal forces against private coercion, a
legitimate retaliatory use of force in the libertarian tradition. Indeed, it is rather a
contradiction in terms to speak of "the liberty to rob, rape, or murder" since
such actions are all very definitely coercive interventions in the lives of others and can
hardly be justified by a doctrine of noninterference. Writing in Power and Market,
economist-philosopher Murray Rothbard points out the sufficiency of "Every man may
act as he freely chooses" as a definition of liberty. The proviso usually added --
"provided he respects the like freedom of others" -- is rendered redundant by
the universal quantifier "every." For, as Rothbard notes, if one man's freely
chosen action is the assault or robbery of another, then the victim is deprived of living
or acting as he chooses and liberty does not obtain.1
This is just the situation with abortion: The control being sought is not over one's own
body but over another's. That is not freedom, there being no coherent notion of freedom
for all which includes the freedom to coerce.
This brings us to the question of choice. No
movement is more on the side of reproductive choice in its fullness and strict control
over one's own body than the pro-life movement. Indeed, the essence of the pro-life
position is respect for the reproductive choice made by the couple and flowing directly
from the control the woman had over her own body. The abortion advocates, in contrast, do
not respect the choice made in its fullness and seek control over the body -- indeed, the
very life -- of another.
Thus far, we have twice provocatively referred
to the unborn as "another." But the central question in the abortion debate is
whether the unborn is, indeed, "another"; human life, that is, individuated from
that of its mother. It is, of course, not independent of its mother (not even
viable outside the womb early on, yet), but then neither is a neonate and supporters of
infanticide cannot be joined in this debate anyway.
Whether the unborn is individuated human life
is a theological question and a scientific question. Life becomes individuated,
theologically, when God infuses the unborn with a soul, making it a child. Hence, when
considered as a spiritual being, the time at which human life is individuated depends on
one's religious beliefs: some say conception, others say later.2
In a secular society, however, it is not the place of the State to decide this question.
Fortunately, however, when considered as a strictly material being -- as a mass of
chemicals mediated by electrical impulses -- there can be no question, as George Will so
eloquently pointed out,3 that human life is individuated
at the moment of conception, since from that moment, "a new DNA complex ... directs
the ontogenesis of the organism."4 That is, as soon as
the zygote is formed, a new organism with its own genetic blueprint exists, and it is that
blueprint -- and not that of the mother -- that directs the growth and development of the
child.
Thus, talk of compulsory pregnancy or forced
childbirth is little more than an ideological distraction. To be sure, the pregnancy might
have been an undesired consequence of the desired sexual intimacy. But that is compulsory
or coercive only in the sense that a man who throws a baseball a great distance for the
pleasure he receives can claim that the resulting damage done to a neighbor's window was
"against his will" and that the untoward consequence was "imposed" on
him. It used to be understood that the laws of nature were not subject to legislative
repeal or voiding by the courts and that natural results flowing from voluntary actions
are in no meaningful sense "imposed."
The contrary of this simple enough proposition
undercuts all of Western moral and legal theory, one reason of many why the abortion
debate is not just another social issue. If our civilization is held together by any
single notion, it is surely that the two senses of "responsible" are
inextricably intertwined: If a man is responsible for an action in that he performed
it, he is responsible for it in that he is liable for its consequences.5
The religious belief that virtue is rewarded and sin
punished -- if not immediately, then eventually -- is so premised. Our system of free
enterprise is also rooted in this idea: Every man receives neither an equal return on his
labor, nor one based on need, nor one deemed fair by social theorists or experts in
so-called comparable worth, but rather one based on what has been done for others as they
see it. Reward flows from fruitful efforts, profits from successes, losses from failures:
How could it be otherwise? Always, in the Western tradition, it has been tacitly accepted
that responsibility in one sense flows from responsibility in the other sense. That is
what makes social cooperation possible, the single principle which makes association with
our fellow human beings other than fraught with continuous and overwhelming uncertainty,
risk, and danger.
Yet it is just this central, civilizing
principle that is under attack by those who wrongly label themselves
"pro-choice." The relation between the dual notions of responsibility leaves no
doubt as to whether a parent is responsible for the care and life of the child that he or
she is responsible for bringing into the world.
It is not choice the abortion advocates desire,
but the revocation of choice and its natural consequences. They wish to roam the world
acting as they will and be "free" from the oppressive consequences of
their own actions -- to be responsible for everything, yet responsible for nothing. This
we cannot allow. It is not liberty, not choice, but escape from both.6
Copyright, 1995, Joseph S. Fulda, reprinted
with permission. Originally published in The Lincoln Review, Vol. 11, No. 4, Summer-Fall
1995 (The Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, DC 20036; 202/223-5112).
Dr. Fulda is the author of Eight Steps towards Libertarianism (Free
Enterprise Press, 1997). He is a Contributing Editor of The Freeman, Associate Editor of
Sexuality and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Annual, and columnist for Computers and
Society. He has been frequently published in scientific journals, mathematics journals,
law reviews, philosophical journals, and journals of opinion.
Joseph S. Fulda
701 West 177th Street, #21
New York, NY 10033
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Endnotes
- See Murray Rothbard, Power
and Market, (Institute for Humane Studies, 1970), p. 179. Curiously, Rothbard himself
supports abortion rights on highly dubious grounds. See John Walker, "Children's
Rights versus Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty," Libertarians for Life.
- Orthodox Judaism maintains
that this occurs forty days following conception, for example, but still well before the
embryo becomes a fetus. However, although after this point abortion is homicide, whether
it is murder is a complicated question of Jewish canon law and, in general, it is not
capital murder.
- George F. Will, "The
Case of the Unborn Patient," Newsweek, June 22, 1981, p. 92.
- Walker Percy, M.D., quoted by
Will, ibid.
- American College
Dictionary (Random House, 1970), p. 1034, definitions 3 and 1.
- I would like to acknowledge
the perceptive, critical comments of Doris Gordon and John Walker of Libertarians for
Life.
