Are libertarians pro choice or pro life?
From Libertarian FAQ
Libertarians may hold either pro-choice or pro-life beliefs in private. As a general rule of thumb, regardless of their personal beliefs, most Libertarians tend to adopt a public stance of pro-choice due to their beliefs in individual liberty and feelings that anti-abortion laws bring too much government involvement into private affairs.
Nearly all Libertarians, however, believe that the government has no business subsidizing or funding abortions through welfare or other social schemes.
Pro-life
However, the issue of abortion is more complex. Libertarians state that each individual is responsible for his or her own actions. Therefore, if a woman becomes pregnant because she had voluntary sex, any conceived child is the direct result of this voluntary action of the parents.
A failing contraceptive does not remove the parents’ responsibility, as anyone can know in advance that no contraceptive is perfect. In that case abortion can only be justified by the pro-choice argument when a woman becomes pregnant involuntarily, i.e. through rape.
Libertarians also state that no one is allowed to actively harm another human being. Because the parents were actively involved in giving life to another human being they are not allowed to let it die.
The libertarian abortion discussion now centers on the question at what stage of development the fertilized human egg cell can be considered a human being. Physical completeness and full mental abilities, i.e. a free will and the ability to reason, of normal people can never be the standard as this would classify very small children and disabled adults as not being human and having no right to their own life.
The ability to suffer may be another characteristic. But in that case, why not consider animal rights too ?
Pro-life libertarians avoid these issues by stating that from the moment the parents’ DNA has combined a new individual human being has originated. It then becomes the parents’ responsibility to protect it until it is capable of staying alive on it’s own.
Libertarians for Life (http://www.l4l.org/) is a pro-life libertarian organization.
