(Click for detailed report and photos)
Pro-Choice Libertarians Letter to the 2002 Platform Committee
We believe we speak for a large number of libertarians, including delegates at the 2002 LP Convention, who Convention after Convention for most of the party's history have rejected well-organized attempts to remove any mention of abortion from the platform.
We reject any proposal by the Platform Committee that the LP strike any mention of the abortion issue from the platform.
We reject any further Platform Committee moves to add more language to the Women's Rights plank that effectively apologizes for or otherwise dilutes the party's stand on the issue.
We believe our party's reputation for being "pro-liberty" and "pro-choice" will be harmed by any elimination or further "watering down" of the plank.
Please focus on those parts of the platform that need updating, clarification, etc. and do not waste delegates' time and energy proposing language that will generate yet one more unnecessary round of floor debate on the abortion issue.
Signed (as of July, 2002):
| Barry Allen Randal A. Anderson III Ron L. Boozell Dena Bruedigam Joe Dehn Sean Dingman Bruce Dovner Ilana Freedman Richard N. Freedman Jeremy Robert Furbish Dick Gach Mary Gingell Frank Gonzalez Dennis Hawver Bill Hartwell Glenn Howard Dick Illyes |
John E. Jasen John A. Johnson Bea Jordan Spear Lancaster Cullene Lang Eric Lund Gail Lightfoot Dave Margolis Tom Martin Vincent J. May H.L. McCoy Carol Moore Tonie Nathan W. Rick Nichol Nancy O'Brien Tim Peterson R.L.Reed |
Tristan Reisfar Tina Reisfar John L Robinson Emily Salvette Mary Lou Seymour Larry E. Shashy Alina Stefanescu Noelle Stettner Gene Trosper Clark Walter Frank Warren Pablo Wegesend Mark B. Wilson Diane C. Wilson Joanthan Wright David Yett Jonathan Zwickel |
(Excerpted from Carol Moore's full report, including that printed in LIBERTY Magazine)
Regarding
the always
controversial
abortion issue, Robert Murphy proposed a stronger statement of the
party’s
position. But other members were happy to leave the plank as it
was.
One women even quoted from the Pro-Choice Libertarians leaflet
requesting
the LP do just that. See above...
...At each convention the
delegates vote on whether to “retain” each plank of the Platform. A
majority of those voting decides whether or not to retain the
plank. Abortion
prohibitionists were ecstatic to note that the Women’s Rights plank
passed
by only 53%. However, at least one Platform Committee member, helped by
several friends, encouraged delegates to vote “none of the above” on
the
whole platform as a way of showing support for the Platform Committee’s
proposal to re-write the platform. Considering that 73% was the highest
percentage garnered by any plank, it is likely that this effort cut
down
the Women’s Rights plank’s vote total by at least ten points. See www.dehnbase.org/lpus/library/conv/vote-plat.html
for all totals. So don’t believe any abortion prohibitionist who
tries to tell you that delegates almost dumped the plank!
(Note: Although Pro-Choice Libertarians 2002 position was there should be
NO change in the platform, this is included as FYI)
Libertarians are well
aware that the “protection
of our nation’s children” is an excuse used by politicians to increase
their political power. The Drug War, the virtual nationalization of our
country’s school systems, welfare systems, Medicaid, anti-obscenity
laws,
Internet controls – all of these political crusades depend wholly or in
part on the sentimental rhetoric of child protection.
The abortion issue is no different. To grant
the legal premise that two individual persons with equal rights can
exist
in the same body lays the foundation for unprecedented government
power.
There is no ambiguity here. The Libertarian principles of
non-initiation
of force and property rights - when applied to adult fertile women –
direct
us to oppose laws which would interfere with women’s freedom of action
and support laws which protect women’s rights to do what they choose
with
their bodies.
Women’s Rights and Abortion (additional language proposal)
We recognize that
different moral codes and
religions
have many different opinions about human intervention in the natural
processes
of human reproduction, ranging from a total ban on any form of
interference
-with sometimes severe physical or social punishments for deviations
from
orthodoxy - to a willing acceptance of any and all scientific and
medical
techniques and advancements. We therefore make no judgements about
whether
violations of sexual taboos, birth control, genetic manipulation,
abortion,
or other forms of reproductive intervention are morally right or wrong.
We are concerned only with the consequences of an important legal
presumption
to the freedom of women.
If an embryo developing inside a pregnant
woman is presumed by the law to be a separate person, then the
consequences
for women's freedom is potential disaster. Such a presumption lays the
legal foundation for laws that could subject fertile women to such
things
as monthly pregnancy testing, strict diet control, involuntary medical
treatment, and criminal and civil liability for fetal injury caused by
ignorance, accident, negligence, or the purposeful termination of
pregnancy,
all in the name of protecting the unborn child.
Regarding abortion, we hold that the law must presume that women are competent to make decisions concerning their own reproduction, and that the potential child inside a pregnant woman is not a separate person, but a part of the woman, and, absent some prior contract with the father, her property to do with as she will, until the moment at birth when the umbilical cord is cut and she is no longer providing it with nourishment. We further urge the repeal and prohibition of any and all laws that would restrict a woman's right to determine her own course of nutrition and treatment during pregnancy, to terminate her pregnancy either chemically or surgically, or to transfer her embryo for medical research. Women who are pregnant must be free to judge for themselves whether or not to carry a pregnancy full term, since only they are competent to judge whether or not they and their children will be loved or unloved, cared for or abandoned, free agents or resources for the State.
History shows
that the suppression of
women's
rights to life, liberty and property was tied for centuries to the fact
that women had no dependable control over their reproductive cycles. It
was only with the technological development of dependable birth control
in the mid-twentieth century that women could truly act on their claims
to equal political rights with men. As Libertarians, we cannot stand in
the way of reproductive freedom, even if that freedom means that some
women
will decide to end the potential life within them. We should encourage
education programs to aid women in determining the best course for
their
own reproduction.