From Free Life (the journal of the Libertarian Alliance, Editor - Sean Gabb), No. 24, December 1995:

INTRODUCTION

Like Sean Gabb in an ancient issue of Free Life [No. 16, April 1992], I regard abortion as murder. To destroy a live foetus is no different from compulsory euthanasia for the mentally handicapped. Eugenicists and race scientists can come up with clever excuses for murder: rather as Nazis explaining that Jews weren't real humans, that they wouldn't feel a thing, and it was all for the best really. Excuses for murdering helpless individuals don't impress me. To shoot a mugger to death is one thing: he chose to risk his life. But the handicapped and the unborn have not made choices for which they can be held responsible. They can't be punished for their condition. At Auschwitz, Josef Mengele would argue: "but they're not real individuals" only "the potential for individuals", (in truth Mengele might not acknowledge the existence of individuality as a property of human beings). It is strange, and somewhat disturbing to hear libertarians talk of creatures a few weeks away from possessing full human rights in terms which most slave owners would have considered demeaning to their negroes.

Apart from urging libertarians at least to doubt the wisdom of supporting an activity which is most enthusiastically advocated by social engineers, there are technical issues which lead me to reject abortion as a moral, or merely useful, killing mechanism. The reasons for having abortions are all incompatible with a libertarian philosophy, a philosophy that rejects determinism, behaviourism, and utilitarianism. Let us consider these justifications:

1. THE MOTHER'S HEALTH

It is a serious question as to whether, in the case of a host that is endangered by a pregnancy, a choice is permitted between one life and another. Two contrary principles may be applied in this case: triage or children first. Under triage, one chooses to save the person with the best chance of survival. Because infant mortality at the best of times is about 50 per cent higher than for women of child-bearing age, this tenet dictates that the foetus should be sacrificed for the safety of the mother.

Children first operates on the principle of who will benefit most from being saved. For a potentially healthy foetus, the length of a future life is bound to be longer than the remaining years of its host. The relative benefits measurement also favours the child. After all any lifespan is a massive relative benefit compared with none for the unborn foetus, whereas the mother has already had at least a decade and a half - so the extra years are relatively less valuable.

Fixing the Odds

This is one place where the abortionists blissfully lie and cheat. They pretend that the risk to the mother is absolute, and minimise the survival chances of the foetus. The extreme presented is very unlikely to be an accurate depiction of most currently legal abortions. In reality Triage is being adopted with a heavy bias against the unborn. To paraphrase a German politician who was explaining why Germany hadn't put many former Nazis on trial for war crimes: "Six million dead Jews don't vote". Well, neither does a foetus. Should this be an argument for libertarians?

The question as I see it is a matter of risk. Given the ability of medical practitioners to save foetus that are born prematurely, I rather suspect that some abortions involve removing a foetus and letting it die when it could be saved in an incubator. When I was born, abortion in the United Kingdom was illegal. I was born ten weeks early with a "certain" prognosis of not surviving. Indeed I was given the last rites at birth to save me from limbo. Yet today the same prognosis two weeks later in a pregnancy would offer justifiable grounds for an abortion. It so happens that because my mother is a Catholic she would probably not accept such advice. But a foetus in my circumstances five years later was probably tossed into a dustbin. Some people today, including among them people I would otherwise agree to call libertarians, believe that such foetus could be used in vivisection experiments. No wonder Mengele's huts have been destroyed: who needs them?

A Technical Problem which can be Solved

This type of abortion - to "protect" the mother - is at most a technical problem. The technical abilities of medicine to bring a foetus to birth safely after a very early removal from the womb are advancing to the point where no danger to the mother will be credible. Adoption would answer most other questions about abortion, or so one would imagine.

Rape: Moral Health Questions

Rape cases are the same: if the mother won't give birth, the foetus can be removed at a stage where it can be reared. The only argument I know against this solution is that a raped woman can't cope with the knowledge that the son of the man who raped her is alive. This is feminism at its most nazi. The assumptions are that the child will be a boy, that all sons of rapists are rapists, and that rape victims who claim to be "feeling suicidal" can't help themselves from committing suicide. This argument would be consistent with the view that the crimes of parents should be visited on their children. I must have missed that line in The Purpose and Strategy of the Libertarian Alliance!

2. SOME PROVISIONAL CONCLUSIONS

My argument so far is that any abortion is a killing. It is deliberate and premeditated, so it is either murder or self-defence. I have argued that the self-defence argument is exaggerated and that a biased form of triage is really being used in most cases of "danger". A few comments are necessary to give more precision to my position.

Risk Taking Denied

This issue arises from my claim that the risks to the mother are exaggerated. "Might kill" isn't "will kill". I might suffer a stroke before finishing this sentence. But I didn't. What I am reluctant to trust scientists of any kind with - let alone abortionists whose livelihoods are at stake - is when they give estimates (i.e. guesses) of the dangers to the mother.

Beware the Apostles of Everlasting and Safe Life

The health profession is frequently prone to terrorism when it comes to finding causes for drastic and - where possible - expensive solutions. When it comes to merely verifying the validity of the results, condescension and intimidation set in. Patients are guinea pigs strapped to electrodes for all the choice they are entitled to. Risk taking is only to be permitted by the medical priests either when it is caused by the incompetence of practitioners - in which case the incident is suppressed, or when it involves glorification of a "selfless" scientist - in which case the worst crimes will be forgiven if the awards are won.

Law or Corporatism

I am therefore convinced that risk-taking is restricted to whatever medical practitioners dictate rather than the preferences of free, willing agents. The argument that to prevent the medical profession from assuming the right to play God is an encroachment of personal freedom does not seem to be compelling in a society where State regulated professional bodies can exempt themselves from competition and market behaviour.

Dictatorship and the Worship of the Common Good

Given the choice between a law - compulsory and harsh - applied through courts which prevent killings and the pseudo-freedom of a corporatist web of vested interests, I will reluctantly accept the former overt Statist position. The greatest long term threat to freedom is not dictatorship or arbitrary rule which are overt, but the insidious worship of the common good.