Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdahl!vohra
From: vohra@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Pavan Vohra)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Read it and weep...
Message-ID: <24559@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 14 Mar 88 08:09:38 GMT
References: <12468@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <2111@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <8428@eddie.MIT.EDU> <10725@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: vohra@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (put "KC" in subject line)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 123

In article <10725@ut-sally.UUCP> turpin@ut-sally.UUCP (Russell Turpin) writes:
>In article <8428@eddie.MIT.EDU>, lve@eddie.MIT.EDU (Lucien Van Elsen) writes:
>> ...
>pedigree is questionable. Libertarians would legalize the use,
>...
>"victimless" crime laws, including those against sodomy and
>prostitution; would keep abortion legal, though not government
               -------------------------
>subsidized; and otherwise get the government off the backs of
>...
>Russell

I think that this is not necessarily so.

I do not wish to address the issue of abortion here, but only to
address whether a libertarian would legalize abortion or not.

Please take the following with that in mind.

This is going to start with "if ..." and will continue through "But
if ...", to a conclusion, so please keep in mind that there is
more than one part to this posting.  (Please also keep in mind that the
real poster is not the person named on the account, so that he is not
responsible for any indiscretion that I might inadvertently commit.)

If a libertarian (I cannot speak for Libertarians, i.e. the political
party, for I do not know enough about them; they are little covered in
the press) finds that an abortion (or one type of abortion, or all
abortions) is hurting another person (the other person here is that
which is aborted), then that libertarian would be against the use of
abortion, on principle.  This is because, unless I am mistaken, all
libertarians are against things that hurt other people, on principle.

(This is simplifying it somewhat for some libertarians, but I will not
discuss the metaethics of what is considered an object of ethical
behavior here, just as I do not discuss the abortion issue here.  For
the moment please take "person" to be that which is a legitimate object
of ethical behavior, and bear with me on that simplification.)

With me so far?  By "against" I mean (very roughly) "takes an attitude
toward it that it is wrong and intolerable, according to the
libertarian principle of not hurting other people ..."

Quite a few libertarians are in favor of laws to protect people from
other people hurting them.  (Please excuse that bit of grammar; I am
being somewhat specific about who is taking what action.)  Most
libertarians are at least not opposed to such laws, and see them as
part of the very few genuine obligations/tasks/mandates/purposes of a
government.  Some take such laws to be not only genuine, but
essential.

OK, so we have gotten to the bottom line:

As a result, some libertarians, those who see abortions as hurting
other people, will be in favor of laws that protect against abortions.

That's all that I set out to say in this posting, but we still have a
"But if ... not ..." to go, and a conclusion, too.

But if the libertarian does not see the abortion (or a class of
abortions) as hurting another person, then he will not be against it.

Now, I do not know thousands and thousands of libertarians and their
metaethical views, but I expect that upon lengthy-enough discussion, a
considerable number of them would base whether abortion is hurting
another person or not on factors dealing with the developmental stage
of the child about to be aborted.  Probably (and this too is a guess),
many would say that a two-cell child is abortable with no ethical
consequences, and an about-to-be-born child is unabortable, in that the
ethical consequences are intolerable.  (Please bear with me on the use
of the word "child" here, if it bothered you; I am trying to use terms
that are descriptive and non-loaded and non-evocative and otherwise
appropriate, all at the same time.)

So where does this leave us?  Probably most libertarians are against
some abortions and not against others, depending on developmental
issues.  We did not cover the attendant Sorites problem concerning the
implementation of policy.  (i.e. the old 'drawing a line is difficult'
problem.)  We did not explain the metaethics.  We did not cover the
topic of abortion per se.  Those issues can mostly be handled in other
newsgroups better than here, probably.

But I hope that I did convince you that it is not necessarily the case
that a libertarian would have all abortions be legal.

Now, if you were referring to some Libertarian Party Platform, or
something like that, then I cannot say.  I need to find out more about
the Libertarian Party, if I am going to vote in the next election.

I realize that I am taking the huge risk of starting flame wars here,
because abortion is an extremely loaded, emotional issue.  I rely on
the integrity and judgement of this audience not to start or continue
such wars here, but to take them to "whatever.abortion" if they desire
to post about that subject.  This posting is perhaps a test to see that
this newsgroup can survive as itself.

Please feel free to reply, but please also remember that I do not wish
to discuss abortion, and also that this is not the newsgroup for that
discussion anyway.

Thanks for your patience in reading this long article.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not Mr. Vohra, and he does not have anything to do with this
posting.  The posting is my fault, since I am borrowing his account,
by his kindness, and I would appreciate that
any replies have "KC" in the "Subject" line of the mail.

For example:

Subject: Hey KC! Great article abt. libertarians.

or

Subject: To KC.  You jerk, I was talking about ...

-- 
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Pavan Vohra             {..hplabs|ames|ihnp4|decwrl}!amdahl!vohra
Amdahl Corporation
Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3470
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