Challenge to Liberty

by Ron Paul

  The illegal market is quite capable of taking advantage of technology and applying what has been learned these past 16 years. But reassurance that illegal abortions will be as clean as legal ones is not where the argument should be focused. Similarly, the argument ought not be that illegal abortions will be as ghastly as pro-abortion forces predict.

  The issue here is hardly that of cleanliness. How can killing be more acceptable just because it’s cleaner if kept legal? The back-alley, dirty hanger argument should be laid to rest. Those who bring it up should be made to look foolish for its absurdity.

  “A woman has an absolute right to control her own reproduction.”

  A woman has a right to have intercourse and a right not to be raped. She has a right to use a contraceptive, and she has a right to end reproduction by surgery whenever she chooses. Women certainly have the complete say of when they want to get pregnant, including whether or not they want to be surrogate mothers or have artificial insemination. This is true, but it takes a giant leap to interpret this to mean that the life that results from sexual intercourse is valueless.

  Women also have the obligation to accept the responsibility for their own acts, even if unforeseen circumstances result. Accidents, carelessness, or ignorance are not justifications to initiate violence.

  We accept the liability concept all the time, but we don’t buy liability insurance because we plan to hurt someone. We buy the insurance because of unforeseen circumstances and the potential of accident liability. And if an accident happens, we don’t duck our responsibility; we’ve prepared for it.

  Accidental pregnancy should be treated the same way. The fact is that sexual intercourse can lead to pregnancy. The pressure, of course, has come in the last several decades, because there have been more pregnancies outside marriage which have inconvenienced a lot of people. Abortion need is generally a reflection of lifestyle and is an attempt to remove the inconvenient consequence of a voluntary act.

  The exception to this obviously is rape. Hardly can a rape victim be told that a choice she made had a consequence for which she now has a responsibility. But does anyone actually believe the abortion movement was propelled by proponents who had deep concern for rape victims?

  Controlling one’s own reproduction is not the issue. Everyone should have that right. But more often the absence of one’s control over reproduction is the problem, and this goes for both men and women. Eliminating the consequence of a voluntary reproductive act is quite different from controlling one’s reproduction. If one does not accept this argument, the newborn could be killed in the name of protecting the mother’s reproductive rights.

  “Abortion on demand is necessary because of rape, incest, and the health of the mother.”

  Proponents of abortion always bring up rape, incest, and the health of the mother as the reason there should be no laws restricting abortion. Of the 1.5 million abortions performed yearly, there’s probably less than 500 as a consequence of rape and incest, and less than 1,000 are legitimately done for the health of the mother.

  Prior to 1973, abortions were done legally under extreme circumstances. The inability of rape victims and seriously ill pregnant women to get an abortion before 1973 had nothing to do with the change in the law and the acceptance of abortion on demand.

  Even today, if abortions were legal for these three categories, a very small percentage of the 1.5 million abortions would be done, and pro-abortion forces would not be the least bit satisfied.

  If 99 percent of the abortions are done for contraceptive reasons, it seems ludicrous to allow the abortion proponents to talk 99 percent of the time about rape and incest. But it’s an attention getter, just like the coat hanger argument. I always find it interesting that the rape-incest argument is purely for the dramatics of the argument.

  If 99 percent of the abortions are done for contraceptive reasons, it seems ludicrous to allow the abortion proponents to talk 99 percent of the time about rape and incest.

  Most rape victims don’t get pregnant. Rape victims can be given emergency treatment before implantation has occurred. As a right-to-life physician, I have no qualms at changing the mother’s endometrial environment in the uterus prior to the entrance of an unwanted guest, arriving through the violent act of rape. This will certainly not satisfy all right-to-life advocates, but creating a hostile environment under these circumstances to prevent implantation, is hardly an overt act of aggression.

  Many of the late abortions for pregnancies claimed to be a result of rape are frequently difficult to confirm and are often accusations made after second thoughts. Although I do not personally endorse late abortions for rape, if it were one of two exceptions, we would still see only the number of abortions that occurred prior to Roe vs. Wade. And a policy that permitted such limited abortions, controlled by law, would still recognize a respect for life that has been lost since 1973.

  The life of the mother argument is really not an issue in this debate. Even the most ardent right-to-life supporters would never deny treatment to a pregnant woman with known cancer, fully recognizing the treatment would kill the fetus.

  The idea that there frequently are times when the doctor has to make a dramatic choice between the mother or child is more the stuff found in novels than what one sees in an obstetrical practice. I certainly have never come across it in the 20 years of my medical practice. Again, the important point is that this argument is used only to emotionalize the issue and avoid discussing whether a fetus has the right to live and whether human life in all sizes and shapes has special value.

  “It’s is a matter of abortion rights.”

  Much of the pro-abortion literature repeatedly refers to abortion rights just as one would refer to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, or freedom of the press. This is done purposely to direct the discussion away from the crucial issue. It does, however, fit the careless way we refer to “rights” today. We hear of women’s rights, minority rights, consumer rights, handicapped rights, gay rights, AIDS-victims rights, education rights, medical care rights, job rights, the right to housing, the right to food, and on and on and on.

  All individuals in each group have rights, but not because they belong to a group or are in need, but only because they qualify as individuals. Only individuals have rights. No one gains a right to life and liberty because he belongs to a certain group or needs or demands something. And having a Constitutional right to liberty means precisely a right to one’s own liberty, not a right to use another life or another person’s wealth.

  When individuals are lumped together, and gain a legislative benefit, this becomes a special privilege, achieved through a collective demand and coercion. All individuals must be treated equally before the law and deserve a right to life and liberty. If someone wants to ride a bicycle, we don’t refer to it as bicycle rights. But obviously, individual liberty grants the right to everyone to ride a bike. Everyone has a right to live and to be left alone, and each has an obligation not to hurt others or damage other people’s property.

  By using the phrase abortion rights, the proponents would like to place abortion in the category of an inalienable right to life, liberty, and property, but clearly it fails the test. It’s a complete contradiction in terms. Abortion means to kill a fetus, and to speak of abortion rights is equivalent to saying killing rights, which makes no sense.

  Abortion means to kill a fetus, and to speak of abortion rights is equivalent to saying killing rights, which makes no sense.

  There is no such thing as a right to kill, unless in self-defense. If the presence of the fetus would truly jeopardize the mother’s life, justification could be made for termination. Although this is quite rare, theoretically it’s possible. But this is not the real concern of pro-abortion forces. As previously mentioned, if all abortions were permitted, as generally they were before 1973, for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, there would be very few abortions performed.

  The obvious purpose of
talking about abortion rights, rape, incest, and the mother’s life is to justify abortion on demand as a convenience to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy. Individuals have no more right to abort a fetus than they have a right to kill newborn children. The term abortion rights should not be acceptable in the debate—the issue is whether or not the unborn deserves legal protection of the law.

  “I’m not for abortion, I’m pro-choice.”

  This is the common political position of the fence straddler. Politicians who would be expected to oppose abortion for personal, religious, or social reasons, but can’t support that position with a liberal, pro-abortion constituency, use this argument. They claim they are personally opposed to abortion and would never condone it for their own family, but for reasons of fairness, cannot take the choice to abort or not to abort away from others. They try to claim the moral high ground by personally rejecting abortion, but survive politically by saying they are for choice for those that disagree.

  And who can be opposed to choice? In a free country, obviously, everyone should make their own choices. But this avoids the issue entirely.

  Many of the liberal and conservative pro-abortion supporters are opposed to choice in owning a weapon, paying taxes, supporting welfare, keeping financial records, serving in the military, smoking marijuana, hiring practices, affirmative action programs, and setting wages and prices. These are instances where real choices ought to be permitted.

  Claiming that a pregnant woman should have the right to choose abortion makes it sound like she is choosing what book to read or what movie to see. And it’s a bit hypocritical to demand choice in this area, while denying choice in the other areas mentioned.

  It’s not a question of choice. It’s a question of whether the fetus is alive, human, and deserving to live.

  To insist that the debate is over personal choice, rather than the legal status of the unborn, does not do intellectual justice to the argument. The tactic here is an attempt to focus the discussion outside the real debate and capture sympathy, since most freedom loving people do want freedom of choice.

  But who shall speak for the fetus? Certainly someone speaks for the newborn, whether it’s one pound, or ten pounds.

  If proponents demand that abortion remain a choice issue, they must show the fetus deserves no say in making the choice. But who shall speak for the fetus? Certainly someone speaks for the newborn, whether it’s one pound, or ten pounds.

  I’m for more freedom of choice than any supporter of abortion could ever be, and I refuse to accept the political demagogue’s argument that this is a choice issue.

  Supporters of abortion are infuriated when pro-lifers refuse to use the term pro-choice. I use only pro-abortion language and never concede the language they prefer.

  One cannot be personally opposed to abortion, be pro-choice in deciding who gets aborted, and say he or she is not pro-abortion. One must either believe that the fetus deserves legal protection or that it does not. If one does not recognize the legal status of the unborn, there is no choice but to label that person pro-abortion.

  Some conservatives who proclaim themselves pro-life are not always pro-liberty. Liberal supporters of abortion challenge pro-lifers to be more welfare-oriented in taking care of the babies that are born if abortion is not permitted, while libertarian pro-lifers demand liberty rather than welfare.

  Since it’s more accurate to use pro-abortion for supporters of such and reject the hypocrisy of the term pro-choice, it’s also proper to use the term anti-abortion in place of pro-life, if the individuals are not truly pro-liberty.

  If one is not pro-liberty in the libertarian sense, one cannot be truly pro-life and is more narrowly anti-abortion. Libertarians who oppose abortion, however, are pro-life, pro-choice, and anti-abortion.

  “It’s a privacy issue.”

  The essence of Roe vs. Wade was that the decision to abort, or not to abort, was a woman’s privacy issue. Even in the ruling, the jurists claimed that privacy was a relative matter, in that a woman had more privacy in her first month of gestation, than in her ninth.

  It was disclosed that the state’s interests were greater, depending on the size of the fetus. The decision dealt more with the state’s interest, than whether fetal life deserved protection of the law. Turning the abortion issue into a discussion on privacy allowed the court’s majority to avoid the key point of the problem—the legality of the fetus.

  Privacy is important and synonymous with liberty. But liberty is not a license to hurt, kill, rob, or damage property. Roe vs. Wade, in avoiding this issue, was forced to make privacy a relative term.

  The privacy argument, if carried to its logical conclusion, means the newborn is not safe in the privacy of the home. Those who pretend to advocate privacy, when discussing the abortion issue, are frequently the ones most anxious to invade other’s privacy when it comes to taxes, gun-ownership, and hiring procedures.

  For instance, what would their reactions be to the privacy argument when it is used against government-forced integration on private property?

  The privacy issue was debated thoroughly at the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Bork. Bork allowed himself to be trapped. To be for privacy, he had to imply Roe vs. Wade was correct. To be opposed, he would be seen as weak on civil liberties. He stumbled on the question of whether or not there is a Constitutional guaranty protecting privacy.

  But that’s what the entire Bill of Rights is dealing with—privacy—and the government’s restrictive role in protecting that privacy, and the protection of life, liberty, and property.

  The issue of abortion has nothing to do with privacy. Arguing that abortion should be legal because a pregnant woman has a right to privacy is like legalizing embezzlement because financial privacy is protected by the Constitution.

  Privacy is the bedrock of liberty, but it is not total license and cannot be used to protect those who would kill, injure, rob, or damage property. Privacy and individual liberty are limited by the rule that acts of aggression are forbidden.

  The real issue, the legal status of the fetus, has to be addressed, as well as whether the killing of the fetus is an act of aggression. It is generally conceded that abortion on demand, in the ninth month of pregnancy, is unacceptable by even the most ardent supporters of abortion. But this raises questions and provides no answers.

  If killing a five, six, seven, eight, or nine-pound fetus is clearly acknowledged as an act of aggression, and should never be done casually, the supporters of abortion must pick a time in gestation which convinces everyone that aborting the live fetus is inconsequential and is not an act of aggression. This is the dilemma proponents face, and thus far, they have provided no answers.

  “Abortion is preferable to being unwanted, poor, or handicapped.”

  This argument is used to avoid discussing the real issue of the value of fetal life. It’s an emotional and Keynesian-interventionistic argument, designed to get one to think about the physical needs of individuals of a completely different category.

  The physical needs of children are certainly a serious subject and should be dealt with in political and economic terms, but they are unrelated to the subject of the legal status of the unborn.

  If abortion is justified because of the possible future discomfort, expense, and burden to others, then denial of medical care to the seriously ill for economic reasons, at any time in the life span, becomes justifiable.

  This argument becomes more acceptable once government is responsible for paying the bills, and we know it’s already being used.

  Some argue that it’s more humane to kill a fetus than to bring a child into the world to suffer. That’s the same logic used for pulling out your pistol and shooting your horse if it breaks a leg. But human fetuses are not suffering animals. They aren’t even poor yet.

  No one has ever proven that handicapped, poor, or unloved children prefer to be dead.

  If human beings are not viewed as something special in God’s creation, we
have a major problem on our hands. If we can selectively eliminate certain new life because it might, in the future, experience poverty, lack of love, or a serious handicap, philosophically the floodgates are open to planning the grand new super-race.

  No one has ever proven that handicapped, poor, or unloved children prefer death to life. Certainly some are distressed, but few are begging not to live. The atmosphere of placing relative value on human life, as is done when abortion on demand is casually accepted, must surely contribute to the feeling of being unloved.

  If we are truly concerned about the care of children, as those who prefer abortion to poverty claim, that concern should be extended to the unborn, and not used in a convoluted fashion as a justification for abortion.

  “Abortion is justified before viability.”

  It’s generally meant that a fetus is viable if it can live outside the uterus, but in the last 20 years this point in fetal life has changed significantly. Not too long ago, a baby born at 30 weeks gestation had a very difficult time surviving. Today infants at 23 weeks gestation, and weighing under a pound can survive.

  Can rights be so arbitrary that they fluctuate with rapidly changing technology? Even if a rigid gestational date could be arrived at, should human life be treated so lightly that this is used as a means test for protecting innocent life?

  Scientifically it’s impossible to distinguish the difference between a 22-week-old fetus and a 23-week-old fetus. It is commonly understood, in the medical profession, that an error of a couple of weeks is possible in estimating fetal age. And who is to say that technological progress might not assure that a 17-week fetus could survive outside the uterus?