The issue that keeps people out of the Libertarian Party (LP) is abortion. This is obvious to anyone who has actually tried to grow this party. The pro-life compulsion to immediately dig into this issue with new potential members and shout down anyone who is not pro-life brings a quick end to their desire to get involved in the LP.
The pro-life position on abortion is like dogs chasing cars. They can’t resist, and they can’t ever catch them, but what would they do if they did?
What would happen if the government could actually outlaw abortion? Here is what it looks like to those who reject the LP because of this issue. I would ask our pro-life activists to please try to see this issue through their eyes. They are not pro-abortion, they are anti-government involvement.
Would Plan B pills be outlawed? They almost certainly would. Would that be effective? Yes, of course… just kidding. Once outlawed, Plan B pills would be directly marketed to schoolgirls by an amazingly well organized network of criminals, the same people who are so effective now at marketing drugs to children in every city and hamlet.
Every teenager would have a stash of them, resulting in more teenage sex, not less.
Would a large number of people start offering illicit abortion services? Yes, without a doubt. Any EMT or nurse could do them. But never fear, the same government bodies which are so effective at stamping out prostitution and drug use would create huge expensive task forces to find and prosecute them.
However, like all other government programs, those working in them would soon realize that if they really found ways to stop abortion, their high paying jobs would end.
Would mandatory pregnancy testing be implemented in high schools? With Plan B and illicit abortion providers everywhere, it would have to be. Would these testing programs result in mistakes and false positives? Yes, lots of them, with the accompanying disastrous damages to innocent lives.
Would doctors be required to report all pregnancies to a government agency so the unborn child could be properly protected? Obviously yes, the same people who had a large enough majority to outlaw abortion would not let this loophole go unblocked. Â Would this government agency screw up almost constantly? Â Would it be corrupt? Â What do you think?
Would pregnancy self-tests be outlawed? They would have to be. Potentially pregnant women would have to be forced into the medical system so their pregnancies could be reported and their unborn children protected. Even though outlawed, the tests would still be available from the same people selling Plan B, making them look like heroes. Dangerous hormonal overdose drugs would also be marketed by these people to induce abortion.
Would organized crime come into possession of lists of Plan B purchasers and those who had provided or undergone illicit abortions? What do you think? A new blackmail industry would spring into being.
Lists and videos of those buying Plan B, those providing and having abortions, and large numbers of totally innocent women, and potential abortion providers such as nurses and EMT’s, would be sold like lists of stolen credit card numbers are now.
Prosecutors would be selectively fed information to keep the blackmail going. Hugely expensive government stings would be run, complete with S.W.A.T. teams and no knock raids, many on wrong addresses.
Thousands of innocent pets would be shot as they barked and growled at the helmeted and body armored intruders. The worst of the blackmailers would be given immunity as they helped in the prosecution of thousands of women and a few token criminals.
How would miscarriages be handled? What would women be forced to do to prove that it was an innocent unintended event? I don’t even want to think about it.
Even if, as the pro-lifers say, only the abortionist would be punished, women would be jailed in contempt of court for refusing to disclose the abortionist.
How many millions of prison cells would be needed to lock up all the girls and women caught up in the new War on Abortion? Would there be mandatory minimum sentences like in the Drug War? Probably – how else to prevent judges from taking pity on those before them and issuing large numbers of suspended sentences?
Would there be any limit to tax money spent on counselors and support for pregnant schoolgirls? Would teenage pregnancy become another untouchable entitlement?
There is a win-win alternative. Leave the platform language as it is and stop demanding that new adherents state their position on this issue. We all know who in our local party organizations are doing this, and need to tell them to stop. Refer all questions on the issue to the platform.
I personally have spent years and lots of money trying to grow the LP, only to have new potential members and potential candidates drop out after being shouted down by pro-lifers. Both our national candidates for 2016 were pro-choice, and the endless agitation by our pro-lifers on this issue only makes the LP look juvenile.
To our pro-life members, discussion of this issue seems to be just active debate, to newcomers, it looks like fanaticism, and they don’t want to be associated with it.
Our pro-lifers have no idea how intensely they come on when discussing this issue and how they appear to others.
What would happen if our pro-lifers realized that this issue only serves to divide us, and declared this issue off limits, and really meant it? They don’t have to give up their pro-life beliefs, but being pro-life and demanding that abortion be outlawed are not the same.
If that happened, a large number of independents, and many Democrats, no longer threatened by the scenarios above, would be freed to express their true libertarian beliefs and become active in the party.
We should always be prepared to discuss the Non-Aggression Principle and Jefferson’s statement in the first inaugural address, “restrain men from injuring one another… leave them otherwise free.”
Plant the One Big Idea!
On a larger societal level, if the danger of what government would do if abortion were outlawed went away, it is likely that abortion would suddenly be seen as immoral by a large majority.
Private support and adoption services would experience explosive growth. Millions of unwanted children would have life and good homes.
The result would be far fewer abortions, a more moral and self reliant society, and a huge surge of LP growth in 2016 that will help bring an end to the insane progressive/liberal era.
It can happen. Being pro-life and wanting to outlaw abortion are not the same.
The anti-abortion faction is a very noisy part of the LP, and it is the huge unmentionable issue keeping people out of the party.
The anti-abortion faction is in total denial of what would actually happen if it got its way, and the damage it is doing by trying.
It is time to think about what would happen if the dog actually caught the car. What always happens when government is given power?
The cure will be much worse than the disease.
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[…] When the Dog Catches the Car Richard Illyes, September 13, 2017September 13, 2017, Featured Articles, Guest Opinions, Abortion, libertarian party, sex, […]
Incredibly excellent article!! Just remember it’s abortion prohibitionists who cause the most problems. There are lots of pro-lifers who do NOT want the government involved. But they must make that very clear or people WILL assume they do. As for the most badgering individuals, how many are just GOP flunkies and prohibitionist fanatics out to destroy the party? One must wonder…
Some of us think the baby in the womb is a human being. And is worthy of the same dignity and the rights every human being has in the U.S.A. The only differences is one is out of the womb and the other is not.
You have a right to believe what you want. But most pro-life libertarians are libertarian enough to know that laws against abortion make the problem worse and have sometimes unimaginable consequences as this article so expertly details! One not mentioned is that women who would have had abortions in the 4-8th week end up having them in the 15th or even 20th week because anti-abortion regulations make it so hard and expensive to get an abortion earlier. How can THAT be pro-life???
We really do have to run the abortion PROHIBITIONISTS out of the Libertarian Party for good, IMHO.
The destruction of your own species is insane. Not allowing a life to live is against the constitution. Read the Preamble to the constitution. Yes it is part of the constitution. “secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity ” is giving liberty to our children. But if you murder them in the womb before they are born is insane.
And kicking out people with a different opinion than your is also very telling of your anti freedom and anti constitutional. 1st Amendment free speech do’s not apply to those you disagree with. And life is being denied by you to those that are “the least of these “.
No one is kicking anyone out. The party has every prerogative to have a platform. The party is overwhelmingly pro-choice.
Libertarians are NOT constitutionalists. We believe in the Declaration of Independence. The right to alter or abolish govt. Even Thomas Jefferson said the US constitution was just an experiment. One that has failed and lead to tyranny. The LP is against tyranny. And people who come in pushing govt tyranny are going to be told to get out. Hey, the LP chair told the white supremacists get out for just being bigots, without the supremacists even declaring loudly their statist intentions. One of those happens to be outlawing abortion to make sure there are More White Babies. (Some supremacists think abortion is still good for brown and black people.) Anyway, it’s always better for people to understand what this article says: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of government are the bigger problem in the abortion issue. Including women having to have later term abortions because they can’t afford/arrange earlier ones.
“Libertarians are not constitutionalist.”
Well you better tell the libertarian writers on this site.
Because they do believe in the Constitution. And thank God they do.
The rest of your rant is Bolshevik BS.
Are you an ANTIFA Bolshevik member, or a NAZI supporter?
Both are the same with different uniforms and signs.
Name me a libertarian who will use military force against secessionists. Libertarians who think people have a right to secede either think it’s already in the constitution, or put Declaration of Independence above the constitution or just think the constitution is irrelevant. What’s the difference between the three, if it means eventual dissolution of the union and most of its states to smaller entities?
Another un-cohesive BS rant. Using diversion and deflection to undermine the national unity. But stupid is as stupid does. You have a right to make stupid comments. And I will defend your right to be stupid.
So you changing the subject means I won the abortion argument, right?
Great article!
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