Libertarians Realizing Rand Paul Is Not One of Them

Reason’s Jacob Sullum looks at Rand Paul’s stance on abortion:

Rand Paul’s position on the Life at Conception Act. As Ari Armstrong notes on his Free Colorado blog, Paul’s anti-abortion stance, unlike his father’s, goes beyond overturning Roe v. Wade and letting the states decide the issue. The younger Paul, who describes himself as “100% pro life,” says “abortion is taking the life of an innocent human being,” “life begins at conception,” and “it is the duty of our government to protect this life.” Toward that end, he supports “any and all legislation that would end abortion or lead us in the direction of ending abortion,” including “a Human Life Amendment and a Life at Conception Act as federal solutions to the abortion issue.”

My understanding is that maybe 20 or 30 years ago, virtually all libertarians were pro-choice. The idea of the government compelling women to give birth to children they didn’t want was anathema to the ideology. In recent years, however, the issue has divided libertarians to some degree, or at least the organized Libertarian Party. Anti-choice libertarians (certainly seems like an oxymoron) obviously view the unborn fetus as a human being whose life the state has a duty to protect.

The way they’ve dealt with this at the party level is to agree that the states should decide the matter. (I know all this from watching hours and hours of LP conventions on C-Span — yes, I am that much of a nerd. I also like the Greens’ conventions — both are far more interesting than the predictable, highly scripted fare served up by the Dems and Repubs.) That’s Ron Paul’s view, but Rand’s a wing-nut in libertarian clothing.

Sullum writes, “the legal regime he envisions clearly violates a woman’s right to control her own body,” and cites another libertarian writer, Ari Armstrong*, with the libertarian take-down:

The logical conclusion of abortion bans is that government agents should forcibly restrain women to prevent them from getting abortions. After all, if abortion is murder, as advocates of abortion bans routinely claim, then driving down the street to obtain an abortion is morally and legally equivalent to driving down the street with a loaded shotgun to blow your neighbor’s head off. Police have every right to arrest and forcibly restrain threatening individuals. If abortion is murder, then a woman who declares her intent to get an abortion has threatened murder and must be strapped down if necessary to ensure delivery.

But a fertilized egg is not a person. A fertilized egg does not properly have the legal rights of a born infant. Abortion is not murder. Women have every right to take birth control drugs or obtain an abortion. Abortion bans place a woman’s body under the control of the government and threaten to unleash a heavy-handed police state.

Anyway, Rand himself has conceded that he’s no doctrinaire libertarian, according to Time:

Pure libertarians, he says, believe the market should dictate policy on nearly everything from the environment to health care. Paul has lately said he would not leave abortion to the states, he doesn’t believe in legalizing drugs like marijuana and cocaine, he’d support federal drug laws, he’d vote to support Kentucky’s coal interests and he’d be tough on national security.

“They thought all along that they could call me a libertarian and hang that label around my neck like an albatross, but I’m not a libertarian,” Paul says …
And Sullum notes that the LP isn’t pleased that Rand is becoming the poster boy for its ideology as far as the media is concerned.

Libertarian Party Vice Chairman Joshua Koch cites Paul’s support for a federal abortion ban, along with his opposition to gay marriage and his refusal to call for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, as grounds for running a candidate against him this fall, which he says the party is considering. “We’re not going to let Rand determine what a Libertarian stands for,” Koch, an erstwhile Paul supporter, told The Washington Post. “I’m here to say Rand does not have the Libertarian ideology.”