RC wonders about the potential use of force to prevent abortion:
For years, I thought criminalizing abortion was consistent with libertarian principle. I can no longer see how. Libertarianism is not against all aggression. For an act of aggression to be criminal under a libertarian legal code, it would have to violate rights. Acts of aggression against cats and dogs wouldn’t be illegal under such a code. Why would unborn children have rights? Do you support the criminalization of abortion on theonomistic grounds? I don’t see how any degree of theonomy is consistent with libertarian principle. You seem like someone who would be familiar with these issues; maybe you’d discuss this on your blog.
The reason unborn children have human rights is that they are human. They exist, they are human, ergo they have the same right to life, liberty and property that their mothers and fathers do. As Ron Paul, a fine and upstanding libertarian, has pointed out, there are few acts of aggression more violent and unprovoked than those involved in murderously vivisecting an unborn child.
There is not a single pro-abortion argument that stands up to science and reason. Every single one is not only spurious, but easily demonstrated to be spurious. It is not necessary to bring religious arguments into the debate to conclusively settle the matter in favor of the pro-life position, in fact, the Bible-based arguments against abortion are, in my opinion, weaker than the rational and scientific arguments.
Criminalizing abortion is no more questionable from a libertarian position than criminalizing murder. It is an act of lethal, unprovoked aggression, often state-supported and sometimes state-dictated, of the sort that every libertarian, religious or secular, should vehemently oppose.