Libertarianism and Abortion

I find myself becoming more libertarian. Libertarians are frequently described as a hodge-podge of liberal and conservative values: they are generally thought of as liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues. Foreign policy issues seem to split libertarians roughtly in half.

That's not a very good description of libertarianism. Instead, the fundamental principles guiding libertarianism is that individual freedom should be maxamized. libertarians are, in fact, classic liberals, in the Lockean sense of the word "liberal."

I generally agree with the premise of libertarianism and most of the policies that flow from the premise. and yet there are still some issues where libertarians and I have divergent policy preferences. As part of my new blog I thought I would explore these issues, and whether the policy preference of most libertarians follows from libertarian principles. Then, I'll comment on why or why not I agree with the libertarian policy preference. Either that, or I'll just write whatever pops into my head.

Let's start with abortion. Abortion is one issue where I part ways with most libertarians, who seem to favor abortion. Because they favor maximizing individual freedom, they believe in allowing adult women to do what they want with their bodies, including having an abortion. The premise is that what is aborted is part of a woman's body.

Of course, the maximization of freedom requires limiting some individual freedom to maximize everyones freedom. For example, I can punch the air all I want, but I am not fee to punch your nose, because that would impinge on your freedom. So we have to curtain some behaviors in order to maximize overall freedom.

While abortion then, increases a woman's freedom to do as she wishes with her body, it also decreases the freedom of the baby inside the woman to basically zero. In this case the fist of "abortion" is punching the "nose" of the unborn.

Of course, that anaylsis, assumes that the fetus growing inside the pregnant woman is a child. That's a factual premise that I'm sure pro-choice libertarians would take issue with. But whatever the factual truth, the principles of libertarianism do not require libertarians to be pro-choice.