If you don’t have the right to bodily autonomy then you cannot be said to really be free. – Kelly Wright
Crypto-puritans in the libertarian tent have definitely become more numerous. A few weeks ago at Freedom Fest, I attended a panel on the dangerous liberty-violating laws that may result now that Roe has been overturned. Despite the fact that there was even a “pro-life” person on the panel who eloquently explained why she was just as concerned as the others, stupid mumbling and a few loud belches of “dead babies!” and the like warned me of what was to come during the time reserved for questions: a long line of propagandists at the mike who didn’t have questions, but instead wanted to appoint themselves as members of the panel without invitation of permission. So I was forced to appoint myself as bailiff and shout “THIS IS NOT A QUESTION!” when it became clear that was the case, except for the idiot who made an “argument” involving Marxism equivalent to, “this plastic bottle is actually a plant because both are green”; for that guy, I shouted “This is pure bullshit!” Then there was the guy who promised his question wasn’t belligerent, then proceeded to make a statement just as propagandistic as the half-dozen before him. We were only saved by the organizers ejecting us for the next presentation. It felt like an Evangelical convention had invaded a Libertarian one. By the by, most of the panelists thanked me for my anger later; I could do from the floor what they really couldn’t from the stage: confront rude, disrespectful twatwaffles with a taste of their own medicine.
It’s certainly possible for a libertarian to be against abortion for themselves and/or in principle, but the second the state becomes involved, using violence to abrogate women’s bodily autonomy, there is no honest way to describe support for such a regime as “libertarian”. This recent article by Kelly Wright explains it perfectly; it’s rare that I agree with every point made in a persuasive essay, but this is one of those times. The article is well worth reading in its entirety and I strongly urge you to do so, but here’s the core of the argument:
Are the lives of hypothetical future babies (blastocysts, zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are not babies) worth more than the lives of actual living breathing pregnant individuals? Are people with the capacity for pregnancy nothing more than walking, potential incubators? Even if we concede the argument that a fetus is a person with individual rights, libertarians should still oppose abortion restrictions. If someone is invading your home, you have a right to repel them, especially if your life is at risk. It follows that if someone is invading your uterus then you also have the right to repel them as well. Fetuses hijack blood supplies and even begin to leach the calcium out of the bones of the person whose body they have commandeered. This may seem like a peculiar projection of agency onto fetuses, but it’s no more peculiar than the rights, interests, and souls projected onto fetuses by advocates of fetal personhood and forced pregnancy. No one has a right to your circulatory system, and if someone has affixed themselves to your circulatory system against your will, you have the right to use force to stop them from doing so. One rights-bearing individual does not have the right to the calcium in the bones and teeth of another rights-bearing individual…
There’s an incidental point the author makes that you might not have noticed, so I’ll elaborate. I’ve never made a big deal about people incorrectly calling anything in a pregnant woman’s uterus a “fetus”, because up to now it wasn’t that important. However, it certainly has become so. A developing organism of less than 11 weeks gestational age (which is actually 9 weeks after fertilization due to the practice of counting from the last menstrual period) is not, repeat not, a fetus; it is an embryo. This is important because there is as real and distinct a difference between the two as there is between a fetus and a baby. Alas, this won’t make any difference at all to prohibitionist politicians, who think the state has the right to classify a bee as a fish, define pi as “3” or declare that the laws of the State supersede the laws of science in any other way. But using the word “fetus” in a discussion of, say, ectopic pregnancies (when the developing organism rarely makes it to the fetal stage) helps to extend and worsen the scientific ignorance and confusion that prohibitionism relies upon to thrive. Using the correct terminology won’t sway religious anti-abortion people in the least, because their position is based in belief, not facts. But it may help the great majority who can be swayed by argument to understand the absurdity and evil of “from point of conception” abortion bans.
Well the essay you quoted was most informative. And well worded for sure. Heck I didn’t know that calcium was leeched from a woman’s bones from the process. I being a man and truly ignorant of the simple dynamics always believed that because of the early stages the embreyo that the calcium was taken from the calcium ingested via the bloodstream directly in it. Well I learned something new today thanks Maggie.
The old ladies used to say a woman lost one tooth per child. And while that’s no longer a good rule of thumb in the modern world due to modern dentistry and prenatal supplements, it’s still basically true in the developing world.
I gave up on “libertarian “, when I saw many trumpanzees run in that direction. They didn’t want to be identified as Rs, but philosophically, they were equivalent.
Crypto-puritans infiltrate all political parties. They are just more obvious when they call themselves libertarian.
They are remarkably similar to the Taliban. They claim to be “saving women” from the sin of abortion. In fact they deny womens’ agency and rights to control their own bodies.
They are simply religious fanatics, even those who characterize themselves as “atheist”.
Decades ago, when Roe v. Wade was federal law, I walked through gaggles of them near Planned Parenthood facilities. They believed themselves justified in assaulting and battering even random strangers who had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood. There were a couple cases where they unsuccessfully made motions to invoke the defense of necessity when they were charged with crimes. They characterized themselves as committing a minor crime to prevent the major crime of murder.
They will get worse. Expect plenty of them to emerge in the states that still permit abortion.
Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) described such fanatics very well in his 1951 book The True Believer.
How long it will take before their “movement” implodes and they become pariahs remains to be seen.
That is superbly said.