A debate has broken out over the continuing viability of the “fusion” of libertarians and conservatives.  If the latter are represented by President George W. Bush and the 109th Congress, the alliance seems dead.  Concocting a coalition of libertarians and liberals isn’t going to be any easier, however.  Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute has attempted to do so in the New Republic, with only modest success—as indicated by some of the sharp leftist responses to his proposal.  One of his most disturbing arguments, however, was in an area of agreement with liberals.  Lindsey characterized “the legalization of abortion” as one “of the great libertarian breakthroughs of the era.”

Libertarians often are characterized as abortion advocates, and many are.  However, many are not.  Abortion is one issue on which libertarians sharply divide.

According to libertarian principles, a person has a “right” to an abortion only if the procedure violates no one else’s right.  You can cut off your own arm, but not your neighbor’s arm.  You can “control” your own body, but not your neighbor’s body.  Thus, for libertarians, the key question in deciding abortion is What is the status of the unborn?  Part of, or separate from, the mother?  Possessor or violator of rights?

There are libertarians who do not view the unborn as, in philosopher Tibor Machan’s words, “a full-fledged human being or person.”  They lack “at least the latent capacity for rational thought and choice,” certainly “until late in their development.”  Sharon Presley and Robert Cooke of the Association of Libertarian Feminists make a similar point, distinguishing between the “biologically human fetus and the psychologically human child.”

Of course, it is impossible to define when someone becomes capable of “rational thought and choice.”  That capability is not imparted at birth.  Rather, it develops over time, presumably starting in the womb but continuing through early childhood.  Some people suffer from disabilities and appear never to develop that capability.  That makes them no less human, however.  Presley and Cooke contend that only after birth is “the organism . . . subject to outside environmental stimuli.”  Moreover, “Birth is also the point at which purposeful action can begin.”  This is true but irrelevant, since it does not address the innate aptitudes of the human person.  People are people because their natures are similar, not because their environments are similar.

At birth, a fetus obviously becomes an independent creature, one whom everyone acknowledges to be a human being—and, thus, possessing the same rights as his mother.  Yet sometime before birth, a baby becomes physically capable of surviving outside of the womb, a status that deserves legal recognition.

Even before viability, the fetus is genetically unique, a being apart from its mother while contained therein.  The baby enters the continuum of life far earlier, however—at conception or implantation.  It is the latter moment when, all else being equal, the new being will begin its natural progression to birth and adulthood.  At early stages, we might not see a baby, let alone a person.  But we see what is destined to become a baby and a person.  And it is destined to develop, in Machan’s words, the capability of “rational thought and choice.”

Science and medicine, then, seem to lean toward according personhood, or “person status,” to the baby.  Set aside religious arguments about a soul.  A fetus is markedly different from normal body parts and, left undisturbed, will become a separate, unique adult.

For some libertarians, the personhood of the baby is not important.  One argument is that a pregnant woman is like someone who wakes up to find himself connected to a world-class violinist: Cut the tube, and the latter dies.  This, so goes the argument, is tragic, but not the person’s responsibility.

A similar claim comes from economist Walter Block.  He presents the issue as one involving trespass.  The pregnant woman is a property owner; the baby is an illegal trespasser.  Block allows that trespass should be remedied by the least lethal method possible, which might change as technology advances.  Should it become medically possible to remove the child and keep him alive at an earlier stage of development, such would be the proper response to the unwanted pregnancy.  (Presley and Cooke object to this argument, since “the real point of abortion [is] not that the woman does not want to be pregnant, or that she does not want to raise a child, but that she does not want to bear this child.”  Even if a baby could be removed safely, the putative mother, they insist, can choose to kill it.)

Walter Block makes a related contention that “there is no ‘right to life’ itself”—that is, “an obligation to keep that person alive.”  While one normally cannot kill another human being, one can kill the baby because it is “dependent” on its mother—living inside another person.  As leading libertarian Murray Rothbard put it, abortion “should be looked upon not as killing the fetus but as ejecting it from the mother’s body.”  The baby’s death is merely “incidental to the act of abortion.”  Presley and Cooke are even more forthright: “[E]ven if the fetus were a person, it could not justifiably claim a right to live at the expense of the woman’s resources, or her right to self-determination.”

Rothbard compared the case of the unborn with a claim that “a full, adult human being has the legal . . . right to remain enclosed within the body of another human being without the latter’s consent.”  That is “absurd,” so, obviously, the baby has no right to remain in his mother’s womb.  He also wrote that barring an abortion effectively enslaves a woman, “alienating her will.”

Presley and Cooke take on the issue from a different perspective.  They contend that abortion should be looked at from the perspective of the mother, not the child:

[T]he woman’s right to self-determination includes not only the right to control her physical body and all that happens within it, but the psychic and existential components of her life and well-being as well.  That is, she has the right to make choices about how her body will be used to further her own happiness and self-interest.

Restricting abortion even for the benefit of the putative father “puts her in the position of a chattel slave.”  Presley and Cooke, quoting libertarian political activist Mike Dunn, sharply criticize “the surrender of a higher value (the autonomy and well-being of a living person) for a lesser value (the biological survival of a pre-human being).”  That judgment reflects their belief that the fetal “entity . . . cannot yet even experience emotions, cognitions, or even physical pain.”  In this way, “to sacrifice existing persons for the sake of future generations” is the same as “slave labor camps” and “compulsory childbearing.”

Much of this rhetoric treats a temporary imposition (nine months of pregnancy) the same as a lifetime condition (chattel slavery).  Thus, the rights of “a pre-human being” (for a lifetime) must be sacrificed to those of “a living person” (for nine months).  An unwanted pregnancy surely is a serious burden, but there is a meaningful difference between temporary and permanent impositions.

Moreover, the baby-mother relationship is different from that of two adults.  Indeed, libertarians base their philosophy on consent.  There are many things in life that even nonlibertarians agree people are not obligated to do.  But people can, by word or deed, commit to such actions, voluntarily incurring duties both moral and legal.  This includes eschewing an abortion.  Almost by definition, a woman having an abortion does not want to have her child.  However, except in the case of rape, she has chosen to get pregnant.

If you have sex, you are voluntarily accepting the risk of becoming pregnant.  Choosing to have sex is choosing to engage in the act that results in pregnancy.  One might not desire to become pregnant, but a person who accepts the risk is responsible for the consequences.  The debate over abortion is a debate over accountability.

Men also incur moral and legal obligations, such as providing financial support for a child.  Biology might seem to let men off of the hook, but that “unfairness” is inherent to pregnancy itself.  The fact that only women bear children does not change the basic moral calculus of abortion.  Even so, libertarians concerned about protecting individual liberty and restricting government understandably feel uncomfortable about involving the state in the abortion decision.  Nor do general principles resolve the complex practical questions surrounding the issue: How restrictive?  Which exceptions?  What punishment?  It’s not a simple issue.

What is simple is the fact that the baby is a separate life, and pregnancy almost always results from a consensual decision.  Thus, Roe v. Wade is not one “of the great libertarian breakthroughs.”  On the contrary, the end of most legal limits on abortion separated responsibility from liberty.  The freedom to have sex brings with it the accountability for the consequences of having sex.

Libertarians are understandably frustrated with their traditional alliance with supposed conservatives, especially of the neo- variety.  In fact, neither the Republican President nor the Republicans in Congress have been genuinely conservative on most of today’s critical issues.  Thus, it is understandable that libertarians are looking for political alternatives.

However, libertarians must always focus on first principles.  Whatever beliefs liberals and libertarians might share, support for legal abortion should not be among them.