To those who read my last blog post and have known my stance on fixing the "Human Scavenging" problem by utilization of a the free market boycott, an obvious question presents itself. Why would you not just attack this practice through the legislature?
I am not against legislation banning this practice. In fact, I find such a position very sensible and beneficial. However, I think highlighting the issue on a political level is not the proper way to change the minds of those around us. I believe that if we truly want to make a difference as far as legislation is concerned, we must first change the philosophical beliefs of the people. It is a well-observed truth that our government changes based on the beliefs of the citizens.
The fight to end abortion is not going to be won in a courtroom, nor Congress. It will be won through grass-roots activism, through changing the ideology of the general public.
As much as I hope this atrocious practice ends, my goal in this site goes much deeper than that. Even most Pro-choice advocates would likely consider these practices disgusting. I view this as a source of common ground, which can be used as a conversation starter, as a way to begin a civil conversation with those who disagree with us. That is why I have started this site, and have tried to raise awareness.
Let us remember that although government is the solution to the abortion crisis, we need a public (regardless of political affiliation) who believes abortion is wrong to produce a lasting piece of government legislation.
Yes, you read my title correctly.
Those who have perused my website Human Scavengers may have noticed that I advocate a free market solution to the problem of products being made with aborted fetal cells and may conclude that I am a strong Libertarian. Personally, I consider myself a Federalist, but I distress over looks I receive upon saying that. Therefore, I identify myself as a Libertarian.
Some may question how a Libertarian could be so strongly against abortion. There seems to be a problem with how people characterize the Libertarian "movement." (I use that term loosely as I don't like how it implies that Libertarianism is a recent development when it was really the groundwork for the Constitution in 1789.)
Perhaps too many people equate Libertarianism with anarchy. Although there are some Libertarians who do believe that government as an entity is completely unnecessary, there are plenty of us who disagree. What most people don't realize about the Libertarian "movement" is that most believe that sometimes government is the answer. That bears repeating.
Sometimes government IS the answer to America's problems.
Certainly these situations are very rare, but nonetheless, they very much exist. Neither I, nor most Libertarians, would fret over government laws making theft, murder, and enslavement illegal. Some of us may disagree whether these laws should be state laws or federal laws, but we would admit that the government is the solution to problems such as these. In fact, that was the reason we believe government was created in the first place.
David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, explained Libertarianism this way in his book Libertarianism: A Primer, Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. To further iterate that there is a misunderstanding of Libertarianism, I find that too often the last part of this definition, namely, "So long as he respects the equal rights of others" is left out. In this way, Libertarianism is restricted to being simply, "The view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses." This is a very weak philosophy which would indeed be unsuitable for the view that abortion is wrong and the government itself should do something about it.
Thus far, we've talked a lot about what Libertarianism is not, but what is it actually? To put it a better way, what do Libertarians believe is the proper role of government?
Although I cannot speak for every Libertarian in the country, I can say that as a whole, the ideology is marked with strikingly similar beliefs to those of nineteenth century political philosopher Frederic Bastiat. (I told you the principles of Libertarianism have been around for a while.)
Frederic Bastiat explains in his brilliant essay The Law what he believes to be the foundation for government. Simply, Bastiat believes that the purpose of government is to protect life, and as an extension, personality (or individuality), liberty, and property of individuals.
We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot support itself. He who has bestowed it, has entrusted us with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it. To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It is by the application of our faculties to these elements, that the phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues the circle which has been assigned to it, are realized.
Existence, faculties, assimilation — in other words, personality, liberty, property — this is man.
It is of these three things that it may be said... that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.
It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life...
If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly for this defense.
Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual — for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.
Here Bastiat has outlined the foundation for government. He explains that people form governments to forcibly protect their rights, their individuality, their property, and their liberty. He concludes this passage by pointing out that the government by its nature lacks the authority and jurisdiction to "Destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes."
[In the United States government, there are many laws in violation of this principle of Bastiat, but alas, that is not the purpose of this post. Thus, I will neglect to mention the NSA, individual mandates to buy insurance of any sort (or anything at all for that matter), and civil asset forfeiture in order to answer my initial question.]
So what do Bastiat's principles and Libertarianism have to do with this abortion crisis? In other words, how does abortion fall within the proper jurisdiction of government?
How it falls within such governmental authority depends solely on your philosophical or religious belief. As you probably know, there are two primary camps when it comes to abortion: pro-choice and pro-life. The former states that abortion is a morally permissible act for various reasons (the most prevalent being that the "fetus" is not yet human). The latter, and in my opinion correct view of abortion, namely, pro-life, states that the unborn baby is both alive and human, and termination of said life would be murder, plain and simple.
Those who misunderstand Libertarianism will automatically say that it allows for "The right to live his life in any way he chooses." Thus, Libertarians must believe that women have the right to live their life without the "burdens" of a child, right?
Wrong. Libertarians must not believe that at all. Some will, just as some Democrats and Republicans do, but that belief is not in any way a staple of the Libertarian Party. Remember, Libertarians believe that "Each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others."
If a Libertarian accepts that an unborn baby is indeed alive and human, and has rights, then he finds the act of abortion to violate (or not respect) the equal rights of others. Thus, he considers abortion outside of a man's natural rights because it abridges the rights of others.
According to my understanding of Libertarianism, the government should have an obligation to reverse Roe v. Wade and to pass a law abolishing abortion entirely. It has the duty to be the solution for America's infanticide problem, just as it is the solution to the remaining murders in America today by punishment through the criminal justice system.
In this belief, I am not alone. Dr. Ron Paul, leader of the resurrection of Libertarianism in politics today, explains in his book, Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues that Affect our Freedom,
On one occasion in the 1960s when abortion was still illegal, I witnessed, while visiting a surgical suite as an OB/GYN resident, the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds. It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice. Soon the crying stopped....
That same day in the OB suite, an early delivery occurred and the infant born was only slightly larger than the one that was just aborted. But in this room everybody did everything conceivable to save this child's life. My conclusion that day was that we were overstepping the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die. These were human lives. There was no consistent moral basis to the value of life under these circumstances.
Some people believe that being pro-choice is being on the side of freedom. I've never understood how an act of violence, killing a human being, albeit a small one in a special place, is portrayed as a precious right. To speak only of the mother's cost in carrying a baby to term ignores all thought of any legal rights of the unborn.
It is now widely accepted that there's a constitutional right to abort a human fetus...It's a giant leap of the federal courts to declare abortion as a constitutional right...If anything, the federal government has a responsibility to protect life - not grant permission to destroy it.
Indeed, the travesty of Roe v. Wade is not a sign of strengthening Libertarianism. When one views abortion as murder, one views Roe v. Wade as very anti-libertarian. Looking back to Frederic Bastiat's essay, The Law, we can remember that the government "Cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes." What Roe v. Wade established was the idea that the Federal Government would force the states to keep this murder legal. The government is now "lawfully" used to destroy countless unborn babies before they have a chance to do anything but simply live.
Abortion laws are the opposite of what Bastiat championed as the purpose of government. Rather, government has an obligation to protect life, not destroy it. So contrary to popular belief, Libertarians can believe that government is the answer to protecting life if government is used properly. So yes, you did read my title correctly. Sometimes government IS the answer to America's problems, and in protecting innocent victims of abortion, it needs to be.
 Early this morning, the Texas legislature voted on and passed a law that would generally make abortions safer for women, and less painful for the babies killed through these procedures. Unfortunately, the law was passed after the midnight deadline and thus won't go into effect. It all started with the filibuster by Democratic Senator Wendy Davis. As the day wore on, Davis would run a legal filibuster of the bill, but as Fox News reports, the senators exercised their legal right to vote the end of the filibuster after the third point of order. Fifteen minutes before the midnight deadline, there was still plenty of time to call a vote on the bill. But then the crowds of non-participating "civilian" people started their own filibuster of sorts, becoming as Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst describes, "an unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics." The following 15 minutes was spent calming the crowd down and stopping the unlawful interference of the people. The pro-abortion advocates showed they had no respect to the laws of the State of Texas by usurping the legislative process. According to Lila Rose, President of Live Action, this should come as no surprise.
A lot of people are talking about how the [abortion] movement should be ashamed of its behavior..But this is the same movement that champions ripping apart helpless, vulnerable, even pain-capable children in the womb.
A movement that's okay with that will have NO SCRUPLES about hijacking the legislative process.
But what about the bill itself? What does it actually do? Based on the response from Senator Davis, the crowds in Texas, and even Obama's campaign Twitter account, you would guess this bill was to make abortion completely illegal. But alas, this bill would still allow babies to be killed before birth. In fact, the bill's provisions are only intended to prevent pain to the mother and the child. According to LifeSiteNews, The new law would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, when medical experts say unborn babies can feel pain. Unlike the recent law that passed the U.S. House, the Texas law has no exceptions for rape or incest.
The bill also imposes tighter safety regulations on abortion facilities, requiring abortionists to maintain admitting privileges at local hospitals and bring their facilities up to par with other outpatient surgical centers. Similar laws in other states have driven multiple substandard abortion clinics out of business. Currently, 37 out of Texas’s 42 abortion centers fail to meet the bill’s standards.
This law contains no provisions that would stop abortion. In fact, even if you take it from a purely pro-abortion standpoint, this law needs to be passed. To prove this, let's take a closer look at each provision of this law. The 20 weeks requirement. When we are required to execute the death penalty, we always make sure that the person we are killing is not tortured before their death. By allowing abortions after the 20 week mark, we are allowing the torture of unborn babies. Tighter safety regulations. At its core, abortion isn't the safest procedure. If done improperly, it can cause severe bodily harm to the mother of the child. As Senator Bob Deuell explains, the bill "Is really about women's health. Sometimes bad things can happen." So why would the supposedly "pro-women's choice" advocates be against a bill that strengthens safeguards to protect women exercising their choice? Perhaps they have become so concerned with protecting their agenda that they have become suspicious of any bill that would weaken abortion, regardless of the purpose. Indeed Senator Davis states, "Because I've been unable to have a simple question answered to help me understand how this would lead to better care for women, I must question the underlying motive for doing so." Senator Davis and other opponents of this bill have painted this bill in a much stronger state than it actually is, as one that will ultimately lead to the end of abortion in Texas, and thus in their view completely anti-women. But they haven't noticed that they themselves are becoming anti-women by opposing this bill. They are ignorant at best; apathetic at worst. I'd like to leave you with the words of Dr. Yoest, quoted in a LifeSiteNews article earlier this morning: Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, thanked the pro-life Texas Senators “for attempting to protect the lives and health of women and girls routinely victimized by a profit-hungry abortion industry, but sadly a large, well-funded, and powerful anti-woman coalition worked to block these much needed legal protections.”
“Since the trial of ‘house of horrors’ Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, the nation has focused on what all too often takes place behind the closed doors of abortion clinics across America,” said Dr. Yoest. “The time is now to save lives and protect women from an unregulated, unmonitored, and unaccountable abortion industry.”
I am a Christian with strong beliefs. I strongly believe that abortion is murder, and to profit from murder is dehumanizing. But people with whom I talked about this phenomenon introduced to me by some of my friends are unaware, responding in either shock or just downright disbelief. So, I created this site and connected Facebook page to spread awareness and attempt to create more proof of the situation than just my own words. Obviously, my page is not the only one dedicated to this. Also check out Children of God for Life, a news source dedicated to unveiling products tested with aborted fetal cells. Through this site, I hope to end this dehumanization in the world by urging others to join the boycott. Boycotts work. And through the boycotts organized by Children of God for Life, Pepsi, Campbell's, and Kraft have all ended their practices, yet no all-inclusive boycotts have been made. That is what I propose. Boycotts will work just as effectively on a large scale. Pledge to join the boycott here.
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