A board member of the NH Libertarian Party writes an open letter to Ron Paul

I am personally acquainted with this person, as are my parents. That’s how I found this.

Most of the letter is of interest chiefly to Libertarians, but one part of it struck me as worth repeating:

On the topic of the Constitutionality of abortion rights, I could cite a right to privacy, which I do believe in, as a Libertarian. I think the government needs to stay out of our homes, our bedrooms, and our doctor’s visits. Yet, you support government violating the most sacred of trusts, the most intimate of issues. One that should remain between a woman, her doctor, her partner and her conscience.

If privacy isn’t enough, the Constitution contains a second support of a woman’s right to choose. You see, the thirteenth amendment of our great Constitution is the amendment against slavery. In 1865 our Congress ratified an amendment that said that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

If a woman has not consented to sex, the possible result of that rape is, simply put, enslavement. However, a woman who consents to sex yet not to pregnancy, is still enslaved as long as she is involuntary bound to harbouring the body and developing life of something she did not consent to creating in the first place.

Her other objections are well-put and also may be of interest to more Left-leaning readers.  You can read the full letter here.

4 comments

  1. Lib for Life says:

    I, as someone with strong Libertarian beliefs have no right to make demands upon a womans body. The same holds true for a man. Whatever substance someone wish to ingest as long as they don’t hurt or injure someone in doing so, is their affair.

    But to what extent would you allow privacy?

    Is privacy extended to pedophilia, even if the two are “willing” participants?

    Should privacy be extended to an incestuous relationship?

    If a woman becomes pregnant, does privacy dictate that she is not required to tell her partner? May she abort that child without his knowledge? What if she brings the child to term but gives the child up for adoption or decides to keep the child but not allow the father to see or participate in the child’s life?

    Pregnancy requires two willing participants (in most cases). Yet the decision to abort seems to be in the realm that only the woman is affected by this situation. The man in this case is relegated to nothing more emotionally than an orgasmic syringe. That once the moment of ejaculation occurs, his meaning drops to zero importance.

    The problems arises when conception occurs. Is that fetus a living entity at that moment? At what point does that fetus turn into a human being with the same Rights as the mother or the father?

    If an assailant kills a woman who is pregnant, did the assailant kill one or two people?

    If that same assailant kills a woman who is pregnant but who previously had an abortion, can or should the assailant be charged with the second crime of murder. Hasn’t the mother already proven that a child in utero is NOT a human being since she wasn’t charged with infanticide in the previous child’s death?

    Questions like this need to be asked. Questions like this need to be determined at a State level. One size does not fit all when making these decisions.

    As to the thirteenth amendment in regards to slavery this is a fallacious argument. Each time you have sex, you play Russian Roulette with the possibilities of becoming pregnant. Most women who do not wish to become pregnant utilize various forms of birth control whether they be, The Pill, the diaphragm, UID, cervical cap, sponge, condom, morning after pill, tubal ligation or abstinence.

    Men have the same responsibility, if they don’t want to have children, a condom, vasectomy or abstinence is used to prevent it.

    But just like in Russian Roulette, there are consequences involved in playing the game. The game in this case is Sex.

    As I alluded to earlier concerning drugs, if you wish to imbibe a particular drug or alcohol as long as the consequences involve only you, then toke, snort, shoot or drink away. It’s your body to do with as you please.

    The consequences of having sex are similar to those of being under the influence of a drug or alcohol. While you might not have meant to injure or kill your friend who was passenger in the car when you crashed, you must still pay the piper for their death.

    The same thing in my mind happens except that you are the one that created the passenger in the car. While you may not appreciate the drive for the next 9 months, does that really give you the right to kill the passenger?

    Next time you want to have sex, think about the hitchhiker that you might gain. There are consequences to our actions, and while we might not like them, no one else should have to pay the piper for that moment of sex.

  2. michael lipp says:

    I know this person? Email me and remind me… The points are beautiful…

  3. deblipp says:

    You don’t know that person. Arthur wrote the entry; “my parents” refers to Isaac and me.

  4. deblipp says:

    Is privacy extended to pedophilia, even if the two are “willing” participants?

    Should privacy be extended to an incestuous relationship?

    False equivalence. Minors cannot be “willing” participants; if you are below the age of consent you cannot give meaningful consent.

    This is a simple point. If you cannot give consent, there is no consent. If you are a child, or mentally incompetent, or unconscious, you cannot give consent.

    If a woman becomes pregnant, does privacy dictate that she is not required to tell her partner? May she abort that child without his knowledge?

    Yes and yes. This is a very simple principal—men may not have legal rights that women do not have. Women do not have the legal right to force another adult to do something with his body he does not wish done. Women do not have the right to be informed about the private medical procedures of their partners. Likewise, men do not have the right to control what women do with their bodies, or to be informed about their partner’s private medical procedures.

    Some men, mostly the odious “Men’s Rights Advocates,” seem to think that because women have physiology that is different from men’s, that men should have special and different rights to control them. But they do not and should not and must not.

    I assure you, if men acquire the ability to become pregnant, women will not have the right to be informed about, or to decide upon, what men do with their own pregnancies.

    What if she brings the child to term but gives the child up for adoption or decides to keep the child but not allow the father to see or participate in the child’s life?

    This falls under laws governing child rearing and custody and so on, and isn’t about abortion. As you go on to say, once a man has decided to engage in sex, he has cast his vote on whether or not a pregnancy might occur (so has the woman). Each individual has the right to take precautions, or to refuse to engage in potentially procreative activity.

    That male physiology ends their role at that point does not give men special rights over women’s bodies.

    The problems arises when conception occurs. Is that fetus a living entity at that moment?

    No. You go on to ask a bunch of questions about the living nature of the fetus. A fetus is not a person. It cannot vote, go to school, think, act, behave, or exist independently. It cannot be murdered under the law. It is not a human being. The whole “right to life” movement wants to set up this false idea that a fetus is an independent human being, but there’s no support for that notion anywhere in law.

    Questions like this need to be determined at a State level.

    The whole “States rights” argument is specious. You don’t really want it decided by the States, you just want to use a straw man argument as a basis on which to overturn Roe v. Wade. There is nothing about a woman’s rights to own her own body that is different in New York or California or Idaho. A person is a person with ownership over her entire self, even if she is female and fertile.

    Each time you have sex, you play Russian Roulette with the possibilities of becoming pregnant. Most women who do not wish to become pregnant utilize various forms of birth control whether they be, The Pill, the diaphragm, UID, cervical cap, sponge, condom, morning after pill, tubal ligation or abstinence.

    Or abortion. Abortion is a legal and viable and available means to prevent birth, just as all these others are.

    While you may not appreciate the drive for the next 9 months, does that really give you the right to kill the passenger?

    First, your entire argument is based on the personhood of a fetus, which you have failed to prove except by “asking important questions.” Second, no one has the right to my body parts to survive. No one. If you desperately need a liver, and will die without one, that doesn’t obligate me to give you mine. Even if, as in your incredibly strained metaphor, I somehow caused you to need that liver, you still have no right to it. I could hit you with my car while driving drunk, and cause you to lose your liver, but even though I’d be convicted of DUI, you still would not have the right to my liver.

    A fetus does not have the right to my uterus, even though it will die without it. It’s my body part, I get to say what is done with it.