NJ LP Gubernatorial candidate (Sabrin) supports anti-abortion laws !

Murray Sabrin, New Jersey's Libertarian Gubernatorial
candidate apparently supports anti-abortion laws according to the
Sunday Oct. 26th, 1997 San Francisco Chronicle. How could this happen?
Kissing up to Conservatives will not work! It is time to send a clear
message to Sabrin and his ilk that the LP is not a stomping ground for
disgruntled liberals OR conservatives. All support for Sabrin should
be stopped by true Libertarians immediately!

Howard R. Olson, MA
Bioethicist

Ive known liberal catholics to be pro-life.
Ive known conservative republicans to be pro-choice.
Ive known atheists to be pro-life.
Ive also known good "L"ibertarians to be both pro-choice and pro-life.
Abortion is not litmus test of libertarianism.
There are many sets of "3 questions" that would be a good indicator of
liberal vs conservative vs libertarian views; but adding abortion to
any other 2 questions would only produce confusing results.
Murder is not libertarian. If abortion is murder; abortion is not
libertarian. No matter what your views are, if someone views abortion
as murder, they have made a libertarian decision by concluding
abortion as wrong. Libertarianism is not the final set of answers on a
multiple choice quiz. It is the thought process that leads one to a
consistent set of results; which in most cases is in harmony with what
would be concluded by most people who consider themselves libertarian.
It is this thought process and outlook which is more important.
This is one reason why I have favored the no initiation of force
statement or something like it. A short statement of basic principle
or outlook that all libertarians can agree to without reciting some
laudry list of outcomes that would be a cause for debate either
because it would be incomplete or include include items without full
agreement.
bob hunt
ps that being said I would hope that no libertarian would campaign
heavily either way on the abortion issue.

<snip>

I'm also quite surprised to learn that a high-profile Libertarian has
taken a so-called "pro-life" position.

Although I've often called myself a "small-L" libertarian, I've never
looked in detail at the Libertarian platform to study exactly what the
party's stated positions and arguments are. I found a quick look
around to be rather disturbing, despite the fact that governmental
silence on the abortion issue is part of the platform.

As I see it, laws against abortion are unenforceable; moral arguments
against abortion are largely irrelevant when considering such laws.
They only serve, as the prohibition of drugs and so-called "victimless
crimes," to drive the products and services underground and create a
black market. Those who can afford to obtain them - those who can
either pay the high price, or are willing to sustain risk - will
continue to obtain them. In the case of abortion, prohibition only
makes the practice unavailable or life-threatening to poor women or
those without connections. This has been the case both here in America
and currently in other countries where abortion is technically
illegal. Ultimately, through the use of herbs or menstrual
extraction, abortion may be available to all women regardless of
legality.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find such a justification in the
Libertarian platform for the legalization of "victimless crimes."
It appears that the justification given in the platform is just that
the crimes are victimless - not because of the unenforcability of the
laws, or the erosion of individual liberties and rights which occurs
when the laws are randomly or selectively enforced against particular
individuals or groups. Not to mention the erosion of liberties
across-the-board that is inevitable when the apparatus of a
totalitarian police state is the only effective means available to
enforce such prohibitions.

I thought the party would at least attempt to present something
resembling a logical explanation for one of its most radical
positions. I guess not.

I've spent the last few months studying the actions of anti-abortion
activists, including a week watching Operation Rescue National
blockade Dayton and Cincinnati clinics, and attending "American Life
League" and "Pro-Life Action Network" conferences. Perhaps there are
some similarities between commonly-held goals among the anti-abortion
crowd and the Libertarian Party. In particular, if you watch Randall
Terry's campaign video, if you strip away all of the Christian
propaganda, what largely remains is a position - anti-tax,
anti-big-government - that is generally libertarian.

However, the justification consistently given by the anti-abortion
movement is that this country must be governed by "God's law." In
practice, this would constitute a dictatorship of a particular group
of religious leaders, or theocracy. Many of the leaders of the
movement openly insist that democracy is evil, and make it clear that,
like dictators of the past, democracy is only a method to be used to
eventually take absolute control. When insisting that the anti-abortion
movement must not accept compromise, Operation Rescue National
director Flip Benham recently said (to cheers from the American Life
League audience):

: We are not looking for a place at the enemy's table where we can
: negotiate with him. We are looking to kick the table over in the name
: of jesus christ and take over!

Clearly, the religious extremists that support Sabrin's anti-abortion
position don't want to just stop there. They are quite serious about
criminalizing all behavior that they don't think is permitted by their
particular reading of the Bible, and providing brutal means of
enforcement. What's more, they're rewriting American history to match
their twisted tunnel vision, insisting the "Founding Fathers" intended
that this be, not a country with secular values, but a "Christian
nation."

And if you think that they're only a fringe group, just turn on your
TV, and watch the top corner at the beginning of any program.

The allies of the "Christian Right" - and many others, perhaps because
such things are always proposed to protect some mythical and
seldom-very-well-defined thing called "family values" - have
successfully demanded a so-called "voluntary" TV ratings system, which
exists not to protect all children, but to ensure that their children
will never view positive portrayals of lifestyles that they plan to
outlaw. New FCC commissioners in their confirmation hearings have gone
so far as to propose that NBC, the network that hasn't complied with
all the ratings fine-print, should have its broadcast licenses
threatened with revocation as a result. This is what happens when you
try to make a "voluntary" deal with these people!

Christian extremists go into bookstores and tear up books, demand that
libraries remove books, boycott media conglomerates, complain about
Howard Stern - not to actually change these media, but to reinforce to
their following that secular bookstores, libraries and non-christian
media, that they seldom buy or use anyway, are to be avoided. And
then there's the V-chip and CDA, and the pastors that use Net Nanny
not to keep their children from seeing dirty pictures, but so that
they won't themselves be tempted to have their extremist positions
challenged. These are the actions of a group that not only wants to
shelter its next generation from the reality of life, which shares
little or nothing with the biblical version, but wants to eventually
force that vision upon the rest of us, first through mass cultural
shift through a large movement (Promise Keepers), then through raw
state power obtained through whatever means necessary. "Civil war" is
a frequent reference among this group when discussing means to make
abortion illegal.

Anti-abortion activism generally springs from this culturally
isolated, extremist element that shares no other values of the
Libertarian party and that only uses abortion as a wedge issue to gain
political and social power.

I would certainly hope that Libertarian Party candidates would
carefully consider that an alliance with extremist movements of this
nature is not in their long-term best interest.

--
------------- Copyright (c) 1997 All Rights Reserved. --------------
----- "I am Promise Keeper of Borg. Prepare to be assimilated." -----
Mike Doughney ---- mi...@mtd.com ---- http://mtd.com ---- PP-ASEL

What about the enslavement of women to support bloodsucking parasites at
great financial cost, personal inconvenience, & hazard to their health?

Do you think THAT is libertarian?

"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police,
the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the
government--and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
--Edward Abbey (1927-1989), _Abbey's Road,_ p.39_(Plume, 1979)

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Think Universally, Act Selfishly

Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of The International
Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL), http://www.isil.org/
Personal home page: http://www.creative.net/~star/timstarr.htm

Liberty is the Best Policy - tims...@netcom.com

You think that the unborn have the right to have their lives supported by a
woman just because she happens to get pregnant. That's just like some of the
people here in Berkeley who think that people have the right to have housing
provided for them just because they're homeless. You're just another
squatter's rights advocate, an apologist for parasitism.

Unfortunately, the LP's all too willing to have you & take your money.

Except for pregnant women.

>Whenever any American can have his rights taken capriciously, then we are all
>at fascism's door.

You mean like having your right to control your own body usurped by being
forced to support a literal bloodsucking parasite for 9 months at great
personal inconvenience, financial cost, & hazard to one's health?

I think it's Libertarian to say, "If you choose to call the tune,
then it's your reponsibility to pay the piper". We're not talking about
virgin births here. We're talking about people who have chosen to ommit an
act, which we and they know can result in pregnancy. Let them bear the
consequences of their choices.
Chris

Comparing the yet to be born child of a woman who (except in rape and
incest cases) chose to become pregnant to a homeless parasite (to use
your term) is an ubiquitous non-sequator (ie: it's an apples to oranges
comparison). BTW, though staunchly pro-life, I will concede cases of
rape, incest and life endangerment, because of many of the arguments you
snidely make.

However, lest your anarchistic views go unchallenged, freedom comes
inexorably linked with responsibility. Murder cannot be an excuse for
irresponsible behavior. If the sex that produced the child was
consentual and the mother's life is not endangered, then there is no
moral or ethical reason to kill the child for the sake of the mother's
convenience.

I suppose that you'd be in favor of post-birth abortions if the parents
didn't think they could handle the child after birth. If not, then
pre-birth abortion for any than the above cited exceptions is murder and
should be treated as such.

BTW, I don't think we're helped at all by telling people who agree with
the other 59 planks of the 60 plank LP platform that we don't belong.
If you wish to be a political party of one, go and be happy. Let the
rest of us try to get people elected and change policy for the nation.

Finally, my appologies to the NG for the poor spelling in this post. My
monitor is dying and I can barely see what I'm typing.

Political Director - Libertarian Party of Connecticut

Well, Hugo,
Thanks for the additional rhetoric. How about responding to the
argument, rather than adding more simplistic blather?

>Well, Hugo,

You still haven't clarified your earlier statement.

Was it a specific (and erroneous) claim that no one ever advocated
abortion (ie "capital punishment") in case of rape? Or was it simply
confused and empty verbiage?

--Hugo S. Cunningham

What's shallow about my rhetoric?

>his parents...

Not necessarily, but let's explore this theory: are you obligated to accept
anything that happens to you as long as it's the result of an action you took
voluntarily?

So, you're for the prohibition of abortion even in cases of rape? Why the
lip service to "the voluntary acts of his parents," then?

> At the heart of the Libertarian concept of justice is that each
>person must be accountable for his own actions. When two adults have
>intercourse, then they are choosing to risk the consequences.

Yep. And when I walk down the street in a bad neighborhood, I'm choosing to
risk getting mugged. Does that mean I have no right to resist if someone tries
to mug me?

When a woman walks down the street in a tight miniskirt, she chooses to risk
getting raped. Does that mean she has no right to resist if someone tries
to rape her?

>The risk of pregnancy (or STDs, but that's not the issue here) is less
>important to them than the physical pleasure or intimacy satisfaction that
>comes from sex. If you want to play the game, then you have to pay the ante.
>It's their choice. Why should they be immune from the consequences?

Because sex isn't a form of Russian Roulette in which a woman consents to be
enslaved to a fetus for 9 months or more if she happens to get pregnant.

> That's what distinguishes Libertarians from liberals. We believe in
>responsibility. They believe in mushy views of "compassion".

Belief in unchosen responsibilities to those you haven't injured in any way
is what distinguishes conservatives from both liberals & libertarians.

Go take your desire to turn what's left of the Land of the Free into a partial
copy of Ceaucescu's Romania & shove it where the sun don't shine.

[deleted]

> My position is that rape should be a capital crime.

That is absolutely poisonous, reminding everyone of the most bloody
days of Jim Crow and lynchings. The US Supreme Court has, with good
reason, declared the death penalty for simple rape to be
unconstitutional. (On the other hand, I support the death penalty for
rape in case of AIDS transmission, or in conjunction with another
extremely serious crimes, eg murder, or severe and lasting
mutilation.)

>Since a
>distinction of time is an artificial distinction, and increasing meaningless
>as medical technology improves, I do not accept a distinction in the child as
>to preborn or potborn.

There we disagree fundamentally. I believe that protected humanity is
correlated with brain activity, not DNA. (Does a drop of blood
contain millions of "children"?) As one with libertarian sympathies,
I have no intention of imposing my belief on you and those you love; I
wish you would extend the same courtesy to me and those I love.

>And the child is as much a victim of his father's
>crime as his mother is, and therefore should not share in the consequences of
>the father.

I do not offer rape as grounds for late-term abortion, after a fetus
demonstrates human mental activity. It is not unreasonable for
society to demand that the victim make up her mind more quickly.

> You are right about the misfortune to the mother, carrying the child
>of rape for nine months. But Americans in general, and Libertarians in
>particular, do not believe in hurting one person to protect another from
>emotional difficulty. We punish the perpetrator, not the victim.

Except that forcing a rape victim to bear her rapist's child does
indeed punish the victim, degrading both her and women in general. It
is an act of violence, that would appropriately be met with violence.
I am reminded of an article that appeared last year in the "New
York Times" about a traditional community in Ghana (I believe). A
12-year-old girl was raped by an older member of her family. The case
went to the local shaman, who decreed that the family should be fined
for this violation of the social order. And, guess who from the
family was assigned as a menial slave to the shaman, to work off this
fine? The twelve-year-old rape victim!

--Hugo S. Cunningham

So do I. Which begins in the seventh week of pregnancy. Anyone know
what percentage of abortions happen before the 7th week? It's got to
be very small. And in any case, the only abortions that Sabrin said
he would work to ban if he were governor of NJ are the `partial-birth'
abortions, which generally happen in the 6th to 8th month, when the
baby is certainly exhibiting brain activity, and may even be viable.
So I take it that you have no problem with Sabrin's position, then?

Good. And since nearly all abortions happen after the baby has
begun measurable brain activity, such that if it were someone
dying, rather than being born, we would consider them still
alive, and not permit them to be chopped up for parts, I take it
that you would support the banning of nearly all abortions, not
just the `partial-birth' ones that Sabrin said he wants to ban.

IMHO a woman who has been raped should get herself cleaned out as
soon as the police have finished doing their stuff, so that she
never needs to know whether she would have been pregnant, and never
has to face this issue. Unless, of course, she wants to keep the
baby if there is one.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

According to New Jersey Right to Life, Sabrin told them he favored
amending the U.S. Constitution with a "human life amendment". This
would ban virtually all abortions, and many forms of birth control as
well.

So if I kidnap you & hook you up to a guy who needs your blood for 9 months
& will die if he doesn't get it, you don't have any right to disconnect him?

You're a supporter of bloodsucking parasitism, pure & simple. Quit pretending
you have anything to do with libertarianism.

> I was going by what he said in the 2nd debate (the only one I
> remembered to tape - I heard later that he really shone in the
> 3rd debate), where he only specifically said that he would work
> to ban `partial-birth' abortions. Since state governors have no
> role in ratifying amendments to the federal constitution, it
> doesn't really matter what Sabrin thinks about this amendment,
> whether your characterisation of it is correct or not.

I'm going by the "action alert" sent out by NJ Right to Life. I assume
that Sabrin agreed to their Constitutional strategy, or else they
wouldn't have endorsed him. In any case, their "scorecard" shows him
favoring a "human life amendment". In response to your second point, I
think it does make a difference what a governor thinks about
Constitutional amendments. Do you think most libertarians would favor a
gubernatorial candidate who wanted to amend the Constitution to ban
firearm possession, even though as a governor he would have no say in
the matter? I really don't think so.

> I'm not sure what forms of birth control you think this hypothetical
> amendment would ban.

Since the proposed amendment would grant "person" rights from the moment
of conception, any method of birth control that prevents the fertilized
egg from implanting and growing would be considered the taking of a
human life. This would include the IUD and most birth control pills
(the pill's primary action is to prevent the egg from being released,
but in other cases it will prevent a fertilized egg from imlanting in
the uterine lining.)

> Ron Paul wrote an article in _Liberty_ about
> 8 or 9 years ago justifying the legalisation of RU486 even from a
> right-to-life POV, on the grounds that it has legitimate medical
> uses, and it's a breach of privacy to inquire of a woman exactly why
> she wants it; she doesn't have to disclose her medical history to
> every policeman or chemist to justify why she wants the pills, and
> the presumption of innocence means that they should just presume that
> she wants it because she's got some medical condition that it will
> help.

Well, I certainly don't think Ron Paul would have gotten the endorsement
of a group like NJ Right to Life, not if he talks like that. But Murray
Sabrin did.

> In article <345A0A6E...@isaac.engin.brown.edu>,
> Jon Arata <ar...@isaac.engin.brown.edu> wrote:
>
> [snip]

> Unwanted pregnancies are just like having homeless parasites squatting in your
> own home, except that they're much worse since they're an invasion of your
> person instead of just your property.
>
> Don't you believe that people have the right to evict invaders of their own
> property?
>
> BTW, you need to look up the meaning of "non-sequitur."

> Since you called my views "anarchistic," let me clue you in: I'm a
stark-raving
> anarcho-capitalist, like most good libertarians who've thought about it. You
> must be new to the libertarian movement.
>
> The moral/ethical reason to "kill the child for the sake of the mother's
> convenience" is that she has every right to evict tresspassers from her own
> property. She didn't consent to let the child in any more than she would've
> if she'd built a house & had a homeless person break in & squat in it.

> "Post-birth abortion" is an oxymoron.
>
> You're trying to make an analogy between abortion & infanticide. The only
> similarity is that there's death in both, but that's not enough. Infanticide
> is wrong for the same reason that shooting squatters after you've kicked them
> off your property is wrong.

> I do.

> There's lots more pro-choicers in the LP than there are Ceaucescuites like
> yourself.
>
> It's your attempts to change American policy to make it more like that of
> Romania under Ceaucescu that I object to.

Sabrin is nothing more or less then a right wing conservative that has no
political standing in NJ GOP politics so he and his cabal have basically
Hi jacked the NJLP to promote their own Guns /No taxes/anti-abortion &
just forget the rest of our platform version of libertarianism. Worse he's
a right wing hitman hired by the Nat'l GOp which is dominated by these
folks, His one job take out Whitman. These people hate everything about
the LP. They hold all of us in total contempt. However, they are just
vicious and cynical enough to hi jack us to carry off a political
assinanation! Sabrin is hiding his contributor's list because knows what
would happen if the rest of the NJLP got wind of whose really behind his
run. As to his being Pro-life personally I find it an oxymoron to be
anti-choice and still call yourself a Libertarian. Especially since our
core belief is centered around control of one's own person.I guess Sabrin
and his ilk thinks that only means men can truly be Libertarians. He's a
hypocrite as was Jefferson. Slaves weren't real humans just 2 thirds of
one for representational purposes. Sabrin and his ilk should return to the
GOP were they belong The party of Hypocrisy!

If Sabrin actually got elected governor of NJ, which he thankfully doesn't
stand a chance in Hell of doing, it would be a symbolic statewide referendum
on abortion in favor of the Ceaucescuites. Although he wouldn't have any
official role in ratifying any amendments to the constitution, he would still
wield considerable patronage power to manipulate others with as well.

>amendment would ban. Ron Paul wrote an article in _Liberty_ about

A very principled position for him to take. What makes you think that the NJ
Right-to-Life PAC & the rest of the Ceaucescuites share it?

No, because blizzards don't last 9 months, & the drunk will be capable of
making compensation to me after he sobers up. Neither condition applies to
pregnancy.

[Stuff that should've already been snipped snipped]

What's more, the lesson that will be learned if Sabrin actually succeeds in
spoiling Whitman's race is that pro-choice GOP candidates will lose, so they'd
might as well not even bother running.

Jefferson was against slavery. One of the first bills he introduced in the
Virginia House of Burgesses when Virginia was still a British colony was to
abolish slavery. His original draft of the Declaration of Independence
contained language condemning King George for allowing the slave trade. He
had nothing to do with the 3/5 rule in the Constitution, because he was in
Paris at the time serving as the US Ambassador to France. He remained an
abolitionist sympathizer for the rest of his life.

Jefferson's far more admirable than Sabrin.

: 1) They want abortion treated as murder.

: 2) They want the death penalty for murder.

: 3) There's no statute of limitations on murder.

: 4) Thus, they want every woman who's ever had an abortion, & every
: doctor who's ever performed one, executed for murder. Q.E.D.

Don't forget every boyfriend who gave a woman money for an abortion
(I forget the legal term: solicitation to murder?).

--
Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher at netcom point com
"How'd ya like to climb this high WITHOUT no mountain?" --Porky Pine 70.6.19

Don't forget every boyfriend who paid for an abortion

: .... Slaves weren't real humans just 2 thirds of
: one for representational purposes. ...

By the way - the abolitionists would have preferred that slaves count
for zero in the census, not one. The 3/5 rule in the Constitution
effectively gave a slave-holder 3/5 of an extra vote for every slave;
counting slaves as whole citizens would have done them no good.

True. He was imperfect, but he still accomplished great things.

>Sabrin on the other hand is a small time weasel! As to the anti-choice
>elements in the Libertarian movement what to do about them? I suspect that
>many of these folks are also very much against our stands on prostitution
>and drugs also. They are what I like to call conservative republicans that
>are confused.
>Liberty!

Indeed. Consider:

"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police,

You're assuming that all libertarians agree with the current law that
someone who solicits a murder is guilty of murder. I haven't taken a
poll, but here's one libertarian who strongly disagrees with that law.
The murderer is a moral agent, and therefore bears full responsibility
for his crime. The person who asks him to do it did not cause the
victim's death, because she did not control the murderer's actions,
therefore she cannot be guilty of murder, just as if I tell you to
jump off a cliff and you do it, I didn't murder you. In more technical
terms, there was an intervening act by a moral agent, and that puts
the moral and legal responsibility (same thing in a lib system) on the
one who made the last moral decision, and not on those who came before
him. See David Kelley's _Truth and Toleration_ for a similar concept,
where he says that those who taught philosophy to Stalin can't be
blamed for his actions, because if it's their fault then it can't be
his as well, and vice versa.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

Congratulations! You've just exculpated all of the Nuremburg defendants,
except for the lowest ranks. After all, they were only giving orders to mass-
murder millions of people, they didn't actually do the deeds.

If I hire someone to murder you, we're BOTH guilty of murder, plus conspiracy
to murder. If abortion is murder, every woman who's ever hired a doctor to
"murder" her baby is equally guilty of murder & subject to the death penalty
if the Ceaucescuites get their way. So is every boyfriend who ever paid for
the operation, & every doctor who did one.

So, in other words, anybody (or any group of bodies) that has enough
money can have people whacked with no consequences at all? Fascinating.

>I watched most of the debates on CSPAN. The attack on several
>planks was done in such a sneaky way that I didn't understand
>what was going on.
>
>A motion to alter the Platform was proposed and debated. The motion
>was itself amended, with some debate. Then, when the allotted time
>was running short and everyone was getting bored with the debate, a
>substitute motion was offered and approved, discussion was closed,
>and the substitute motion passed without debate.

I'm not sure which debate you're referring to. I was on the floor
during the abortion and children's rights debates. In the abortion
debate everyone I saw and heard looked like they meant what they
were saying, and the people who offered a compromise wording didn't
pull something out that they had already prepared, they were running
around scribbling something on the fly to propose. In the children's
rights debate, I don't recall any amendments or substitutes; the
motion was to drop the plank, and it succeeded. The only debate
that sounds like what you describe is the gay rights issue, and in
that one see my previous post, where I described some of the reasons
for the substitute motion. I wasn't there in the morning when the
final motion was passed, but I do know that the substitute motion
that was offered was at the request of LGLC, not Tim Starr's
alleged conservatives. I know this because I was at the LGLC
meeting where the substitute motion was put together.

>It's over a year later and only now do I appreciate the enormity of
>what was done. I was blinded by an assumption that the floor debate
>was sincere. I'm glad my membership lapsed: I don't want to defend
>or support a Party in which backroom maneuvers, with phony debates
>on dummy motions, take the place of open debate on genuine issues.

I don't know about `backroom manuevers'. The only one I know about
was the way they kept that Nazi Collins or whatever his name was
from speaking on C-SPAN at the presidential nomination. The last
thing we needed was the eyes of all C-SPAN addicts on us at our big
moment, and this Nazi giving a 10-minute speech or however long it
was. As it was, once the requirement for 35 pledged delegates was
passed, and it was clear that Collins wasn't going to get them, he
didn't even bother showing up, and hasn't been heard from in the
LP since. Yes, it was a backroom manoeuvre, but in this case it
was in a good cause. And yes, I'm not 100% comfortable with how
it was done, because of the precedent it sets.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

>Memory is hazy, and I'm probably mixing up some episodes. I'm sure,
>though, that at least twice a substitute motion (inferior to what I'd
>already thought of, while watching tv at a safe distance <g>) was voted
>on with no debate, and at least one such passed - I'd say two, but your
>account seems to preclude that.

Sometimes a substitute motion is drafted so as to take into account
all the issues that were addressed in the debate, so when it's
presented everyone agrees that there's no need to debate it, and
just votes on it and goes home.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

>RE-But, except in the cases of rape or incest, YOU are the one who moved
>them into there, or at least had half of the blame of it.

This keeps bothering me every time I see it. Why do people insist on
making an exception for incest? I can see that in the case of rape
one can argue that the baby is trespassing, though it's *not* an
invader, because it didn't get there of its own will, it was thrown
in through the window. When someone is tied up and thrown in through
your window he's not an invader, and you certainly have no right to
use force against him in evicting him. But let's put that aside for
now. Why the incest exception? Incest is just as consensual as any
other kind of sex (in cases where it isn't, it's covered by the rape
exception), so why do people who oppose abortion when the pregnancy
results from consensual sex with a non-relative support it when the
parents are relatives? AFAIK there's nothing in libertarian theory
or practise to support the theocratic ban on incest, so what gives?
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

RE-Which would be suicide, but anyway...

RE-Agreed. Both parties must have some of the punsihment. The one who killed
them, and the one who hired the hitman.

No, if you were not a moral agent at the time, e.g. I had hypnotised
you and told you to jump off the cliff, then I would be guilty of
murder.

--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

> Glenn L. Klotz wrote:
> >
> > Sabrin's campaign put out a news
> > release last nite saying most of his support is going to probably vote
> > with Mcgreevey the Demo. and thats ok because Whitman is the target. This
> > fits with my theory about him being a right wing "hitman" for the RTL
> > movement and those factions within the nat'l GOP that want her cut down to
> > size before the next nat'l election. Sabrin and his whole phony ass
> > campaign are a not so clever attack on Whitman. It pisses me off that the
> > nat'l GOP and the fucking RTL assholes would just HI JACK our party in NJ
> > for an inter-party fight. What SCUM these people are. It's happened though
> > because to many Libertarians are to naive. Another reason is too many of
> > our ranks are really only disaffected conservatives and don't really know
> > our whole platform or really understand what being a 'real" libertarian is
> > about. For many of these folks being anti-abortion and anti-drugs and
> > anti-porno/prost. etc etc etc is somehow OK? They want us to be just a
> > purer version of the GOP. NOT!!!!
> > Liberty! Not Fascism!
>
> Glenn,
> Here's a verbatim quote of an exchange between NJN's Rich Young and
> Sabrin Campaign Manager Hal Turner last night:
>
> ==============================================
> Rich Young: Your goal was to get her [Whitman] out. Why?
>
> Hal Turner: Well, our goal was to win the election. But, a secondary
> goal was to let it be known in the rank and file of the Republican
> leadership that you cannot pay lip service to the conservatives and then
> go govern like liberal Democrats. And so, we are perfectly willing to
> sacrifice Christie Whitman on the altar of conservatism, so to speak, so
> that other pepole understand the next time they campaign and court
> conservative voters, they have to govern conservatively, not pay us lip
> service, or we'll throw them out too.
>
> Rich Young: If, in fact, you were successful in getting Governor Whitman
> out, and Jim McGreevey was elected, then you're putting a Democrat in
> office, well, your efforts were then futile.
>
> Hal Turner: No, not at all, because we're going to maintain control of
> the legislature. As a matter of fact, most of the people in the
> legislature who are Republicans are good consservative Republicans, and
> I think they felt that they couldn't be who they were with a liberal
> Republican in office, in the governor's mansion. So, I think that
> they'll be keeping Jim McGreevey in check in the event that he does win
> election.
> ================================================
>
> Did you catch the "we're going to maintain control of the legislature"
> part? Unfortunately, Rich Young didn't, because he let it drop. But I
> think it's significant that Murray Sabrin's Campaign Manager identifies
> himself as a Republican.

Oh Well! Now that the cat is out of the bag I guess we can dispense with
any further discussion of Prof. Sabrin and his gang being Libertarians. As
I have said repeatedly here and to every Libertarian I could reach
SABRIN'S A PHONY!
Well, they didn't succeed in destroying Whitman but they did hurt her. I
wonder how many of those votes they got where in fact Libertarians? These
guys made themselves sound more and more like conservative republicans as
they went. Wearing Libertarian garb was just the sheeps clothing these
woves had to don to get in the race. Once in it they took it off and
resumed being the right wing wolves they really are. This is why he hid
his contributors list and also why he had absolutely no compunction about
taking the matching funds from the state. He also put off questions about
drug legalisation and prostitution with the position that these were
issues that could be better handled after an election. In other words lets
just stick to good old conservative GOp positions that I'm comfortable
with. We can expect such things to happen in the future as long as where
going to let these kinds of slick political operatives into our ranks.

The difference is that those newborns were capable of surviving outside
the womb.

> How is it that we defend until the death the right of any newborn in the
> hospital nursery to own guns, take drugs (alcohol and otherwise), say or
> write anything at all, marry who they choose, pursue a career without the
> hindrance of state licensing and a plethora of other things, and yet not
> one word is spoken if the same child is killed hours before birth?

"Hours before birth"? If you're talking about abortion, you should
probably say "hours before stillbirth", since virtually none of the
fetuses in question are viable at the time they're aborted.

> > > >Look, we had this out at the last convention. The platform recognises
> > > >that libertarians of good will have different opinions on this issue,
> > > >without either side being less committed to the libertarian cause,
> > > >i.e. the non-agression principle. If you don't like living with us
> > > >in the same party, feel free to leave.
> > >
> > > The conservatives who the Browneshirts have been recruiting from packed
> the
> > > convention & drove enough of the veteran LP activists out in order to
> win a
> > > battle against one of their targets, the abortion plank. Their attack
> on the
> > > Children's Rights plank was even more successful, getting it deleted
> com-
> > > pletely, while their attack on the Gay Rights plank failed for now. So
> > they'll
> > > have to try it again next time, recruiting more conservatives &
> alienating
> > > more veteran activists.

> > > >I greatly resent that remark, and I'm sure all pro-life libertarians
> > > >would too.
> > >
> > > Yep. They haven't gotten around to recruiting enough conservatives &
> driving
> > > out enough veteran activists to attack those planks yet. Just enough
> to
> > > delete the Children's Rights plank & attack the Gay Rights plank.
> >
> > So what happened here in NJ then is what's happening all over to the
> > Libertarian party? The conservative movement already has the GOP why
> > bother with us?

> At what point are we discussing a human being who, other than lacking a
> trip through the birth canal, has the right to live? I cannot give an
> adequate answer to this question, but it sorely needs discussion.

> BTW, yes I was conservative before I became a libertarian. I switched for
> many of the same reasons that others have switched. It is only this one
> issue that causes me to pause and question the libertarian "line".
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Dann
>
> Libertarian made by God, the Constitution, and Rush, in that order.
>
> Gun control is the theory that blacks would be safer if only Mark Furhman
> had guns.
>
> Remove the x bit for reply.

The whole partial birth thing is a clever attempt to put the whole
pro-choice position and those of us that accept it on the defensive. It's
partially worked but, it's just a political ploy and it's already growing
very transarent in it's real goal. Many of us that are pro-choice have
long ago conceded the pt. that were dealing with a lifeform a human
lifeform so it's no real shock that the RTL has tried to use this
particuliar form of abortion as a wedge to destroy all abortions. The
logic is inescapable once your inside the mother. But I ask all of you do
you really want to enter into the mother? Aren't we in fact trespassing
when we do this. Do any of us have the right to trespass into this realm?
The RTL movement seems to, think so. I believe they do because they really
have little respect or concern for the women. Their focus is so
singlemindedly on the child they have in fact made the women in this
equation transparent. She has vanished! Now I agree the pro-choice side
has done just the opposite. We have to try and fins some middle ground.
One that creates situation where abortion becomes much less acceptable as
a method of birth control but still allows for this procedure if
absolutely necessary. Respect for life at all levels of development has to
br instilled. The right fails in it's moral impertative because it's focus
on the child ends at it's birth. The left fails because it's doesn't
teach a sense of awe and loss for what occurs when abortion is used.
Life is indeed precious at all pts. in the miracle of human evolution but,
to focus on only one phases of this experience is wrong no matter which
phase that is. Human life has to be treated in it's entire cycle! We are
part of a living system and to be really correct in our analysis of life
we must all understand that at no pt. in the process of becoming is life
not present. The egg is alive as is the sperm! Where the person aquires a
soul though is indeed a religious question not a scientific one at this
pt. At some pt. in the future it may be possible to ascertain this. But
even at that many will say just having a simple soul/conciousness doesn't
confer full citizenship. Our forefathers believed it wasn't until what was
called the quickening that the child could not be aborted. Plus even today
by law you are not a citizen of the state fully till birth. The RTL and
the Catholic church would like to extend this citizenship to conception!
The rest of us realize this would negate women's right's almost totally.
So different cultures/religions different approaches to this pt. We are in
the midst of a clash of all these various cultural/political streams. What
we as Libertarians most do is try to find a peaceful answer to this
quandry! Not by one side dictating to the other. The problem as I see it
is one of Tolerance! If we can't find a way to tolerate each others views
then civil strife will grow as it did over the slavery issue. God forbid
it grows into the chasm that that condrumn did!

>The socially conservative person cannot accomodate the idea in
>there mind that liberty isn't just a dollar and cents issue. To them for
>some reason social/religious conservative ideas and economic liberty go
>hand and hand?

Conservatives and `liberals' have the same problem - they both believe
that money has some mystical power. `Liberals' believe in individual
liberty, until a dollar changes hands; the moment that happens, it
becomes a matter of commerce rather than liberty, and society has to
regulate it. Conservatives are the mirror image of that. They
believe that there's a right and a wrong, and `society' expects that
everyone conduct their lives from waking until sleep in accord with
what they know is right. But the minute a dollar changes hands, for
some reason that makes it holy, and nobody should regulate it.

Prostitution and Drug dealing present problems for both parties.
On the one hand, it's sex and drugs, so `liberals' are for it and
conservatives are against. But these things are being sold
for money, which conservatives think is a good thing, so they
should be for it, while the `liberals' should be horrified that
these things are being tainted by evil money, which is the very
devil itself :-)

Libertarians are the only ones who realise that money isn't
anything mystical, it's just money. If you have it you can buy
stuff, that's all. It can't change good to bad or bad to good.
It's just not that important.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

'Cause economic conservatives are being driven out of the GOP by the Religious
Right & the Neocons.

>The abortion plank stayed, with a vote of about 6:1 - that's hardly a
>conservative takeover.

Stayed, yes, but in a substantially amended form. That's evidence of the
inroads conservatives have been making into the LP. I never said it was
evidence of a takeover. There HAS been a takeover, but that's not the evidence
for it.

>All we achieved last year was that the platform recognizes that while this
>is the opinion of the party, people who disagree with it are still
>libertarians.

Which they aren't.

>It's a topic on which libertarian argument can be mde on either side. I'd
>like to see someone try to make a libertarian argument for drug prohibition
>or special privileges for heterosexuals.

The "libertarian" argument for drug prohibition is just as straightforward as
the one for abortion prohibition: "The purpose of rights is to protect the
exercise of free will. Drugs impair free will, so no one has any right to
take them. Banning drugs will protect people's rights."

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, etc.

>>getting it deleted completely,
>
>While I agree that was a pity, IIRC the arguments from such people
>as Jon Coon were more along the lines of let's be silent about
>children's rights; we all know what we really believe, but let's
>not give the press yet one more thing to yell about, especially in
>the current climate where there's a witch hunt against anything
>that can be characterised as `hurting children', regardless of
>facts or logic.

How cowardly. If Coward Coon had any guts, he'd confront those witchunters
directly & honestly, & win. So should every other libertarian.

>I don't recall anyone saying that the plank was *wrong*, just that it
>shouldn't be in the platform. Except for David Nolan's crack that the plank
>reads as if 5-year-olds should own guns because it was written by Neil Smith,
>who thinks 5-year-olds should own guns.

Whose 5-year-old DOES own her own gun. Or did, last I heard.

Apparently it has escaped your notice that they could BOTH be guilty of murder.

You're exculpating Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, etc. Is
that really what you want to do?

Since when does passing one of the biggest tax cuts in state history count as
governing "like liberal Democrats"? Who are these tax-cutting liberal
Democrats, & how can I trade in my tax & spend Democrat representatives for
some of them?

The hell "I" am. You're presuming that consenting to sex equals consenting
to pregnancy. It doesn't, unless you think you can somehow justify this
presumption.

What about contraceptive failure - cases in which steps are taken for the
express purpose of preventing pregnancy? How can you possibly argue that
having sex under those conditions constitutes consent to pregnancy?

Consenting to sex no more constitues consent to pregnancy than consenting to
walk down the street in a miniskirt means that a woman consents to being raped.

[snip]

>RE-But she did consent to have sex (except in the case of rape or incest,
>which was already mentioned above), and therefore the possibility that she
>might get pregnant.

Crap. If a woman "consents" to walk down the street in a miniskirt, that
doesn't mean she consents to "the possibility that she might get" raped. She
can take steps to prevent it if she wants, but even if she doesn't she still
has every right to repel the invader by lethal force if necessary.

Tim Starr <tims...@netcom.com> writes
: The "libertarian" argument for drug prohibition is just as straightforward

Hm. Between drugs, sex, chocolate and television,
I can't decide which impairs my will most.

: > ... David Nolan's crack that the plank

What kind?

It hadn't escaped my notice, I just disagree with the notion.

How about the socialist professors who taught Pol Pot in Paris? Would
you charge them with murder too? Now, in many of these cases I think
those who obeyed their orders did so under threat of being executed if
they didn't. That serves to exculpate the person with his hands on
the trigger, and pass the responsibility up to the person giving the
orders. It's all very well to say that a decent person would have
let himself be killed rather than kill an innocent person, but I don't
think one can blame someone for not following that path. In Hitler's
case I believe that it's adequately documented that the people
directly involved in the murders did have a choice, and those who
refused to do it were not penalised. That tells me that the primary
guilt rests with those who chose to pull the triggers and release
the gas, not with those who gave the orders. Charge the higher-ups
with something else, if you like (and I do like), but not murder.
I don't like it, but I find myself forced to that conclusion.

BTW, have you read Kelley's _Truth and Toleration_? I highly
recommend it. He goes into this whole issue in much more detail
than I have room for here.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

Fine. By the whole world I'm a libertarian, but by you I'm not a
libertarian. Have it your way.

>The "libertarian" argument for drug prohibition is just as straightforward as

The big flaw there is right at the beginning. `The purpose of rights
is...'. Sez who? Since when do rights have a purpose? I thought the
point of libertarianism was that rights are primary; they aren't *for*
anything, they just are.

The libertarian argument against abortion is set in libertarian terms
- given a set of factual assumptions, libertarian principles lead to
this conclusion. Your argument is with the premises, not with the
conclusion. I can't think of any premises which would yield a
libertarian argument for drug prohibition.

Note that no other plank has that free-to-differ clause in it.

At any rate, Klutz alleged that anti-abortionists in the LP are
really conservatives and secretly want to ban drugs and prostitution,
etc, and I stand here to refute that assertion. I haven't been a
conservative since I was 17, and I resent his imputation on my
character. And I'm far from the only one. AFAI could tell, most
of the anti-abortionists in the LP are fully committed to the NAP,
and to the proposition that if there's no victim there's no crime,
and I regard the Klutz's allegation as libellous.

Which reminds me, there are lots of issues that libertarians of
good will come to different conclusions about. Libel is one of
them. I don't know where you stand on libel laws, but wherever
it is, do you claim that those who disagree with you are not
libertarians? How about `intellectual property' laws? That's
another issue that libertarians take different positions on.
Are those who take the wrong side on that (depending on where
you stand, which I don't know) not libertarians? So why should
abortion be different?
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

>> When someone is tied up and thrown in through

>You do if you can't get him to leave any other way. If he decides: "No, I'm
>gonna stay here for the next 9 months & make you provide life-support for me,"
>then you're perfectly justified in throwing the bum out with lethal force if
>necessary.

Not `decides' not to leave. He *can't* leave. He's tied up, he had
no choice about entering your house, and he has no choice about
staying there.

In any case, what I'm really interested in is an explanation of why
people make an exception for consensual incest. I can understand the
rape thing, even if I don't agree with it, but why incest?
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

Then there's a disanalogy, 'cause there's no way to evict a fetus without
killing it, while you can simply untie the guy & let him leave of his own
accord. In order to make the analogy sufficient, you have to make it so that
he can't be evicted without being killed.

Do you believe that you have no right to evict tresspassers, if the choices
are either that they stay in your home, to be supported at your expense, for
9 months, or be killed?

I say that you can kick them out, even if they didn't choose to enter into
your home & even if they'll be killed if they leave.

'Cause the conservatives you're cozying up to don't believe there can be any
such thing as "consensual incest."

TV, for me. It would be sex, but I can't get that as easily as I can get TV.

.22 revolver. Ruger, I think.

Except to real libertarians.

>conclusion. I can't think of any premises which would yield a
>libertarian argument for drug prohibition.

I just gave you two: the premise of rights having the purpose of protecting
free will, along with the premise of drugs impairing free will. Do I really
have to give you more?

OK, here's one that was used lots in establishing the drug war: "Cocaine makes
black men rape white women, so banning it is a way to protect white women from
being raped by black men."

Do I really have to go on?

Or has it gotten through that thick skull yours yet that you can't defend
libertarianism in the absence of supporting premises which include facts?

[snip]

Not on that issue, no, they aren't.

Same.

Then I was being overly charitable to assume ignorance on your part.

Who'd they order him to kill?

Not unless they committed some concrete act in the furtherance of murder,
such as giving orders.

>person with his hands on the trigger...

No, it doesn't. Not when it comes to murder.

You're reversing yourself. First, you said that only the ones who do the
killing could be guilty of murder. Now, you're saying that the ones who do
the killing can be innocent, but those who force them to do it can be guilty.

May I suggest a good course in criminal law? Especially as under the U.S.
Code of Military Justice, where these issues are dealt with at length?

Yep. He doesn't exculpate murderers for hiring others to do their dirty work
for them.

> --
> Zev Sero
> zs...@idt.net
In a pro-life regime of the future every man and every women will have
nano-devices planted in them from birth for the BIG computer to monitor
their sex lives. This future 2084 Big Nanny state will not just be
interested in saving fetuses. it will also be interested in all unapproved
sex! The sex police of the 21st century will be the direct descendents of
Iran's morals squad. Men will be monitored as well as women. Of course the
elite will not be as monitored as would be expected. In this future land
the final triumph of the RTL crowd will be realized. Sexuality is what
this is all about anyway isn't it? The right wants it's control back in
this area. In the last century the prudes ruled wherever the so called
law was. it was only on the frontier and in certain corrupt cities that
sex was out of the control of these repressive nanny's. So ironically with
the advance of Nano -Technology the Nanny's will reign supreme again
someday. But the first step is to get a Life admendent fixed to the
Constitution. Then the logical technology to enforce this removal of half
the populations rights. Before you know it Libertarians of the 21st
century will be arguing over which nano-technology is over the line etc...
Is this what you want Zev? it's what's coming and all your neo-libertarian
ranting won't stop it! Your crowd are like the conservative/royalist in
1933 Germany. All you folks need now is the right demagogue.

Liberty!

Here's another analogy that I've heard used: You're taking your twin
brother out for a drive, and you're speeding. You lose control of the
car and run into something. You're not hurt too badly, but your brother
suffers severe damage to both kidneys. He'll die if he doesn't get a
kidney transplant right away, and you're the only compatible donor
available. Does the government have the right to force you to donate a
kidney? (Note that the question is not whether you have a moral
responsibility to donate a kidney, or whether it would be nice of you to
donate a kidney; the question is whether the government should be able
to require you to do so.)

I too was concerned about this quote. Having defended Sabrin against
Klotz et cie through the campaign, does it now turn out that they were
right, and we've been played for suckers by the GOP? So I forwarded
that quote to Hal Turner for a response, and here's what he wrote
back to me:

>I am a Republican. Mike Buoncrisitano KNEW THAT when he asked me to join the
>Sabrin campaign; MurraySabrin knew it when I came aboard. There was no
>hiding what my party affiliation was. When Murray fired Mike (for saying "I
>can't take this anymore, I'm outta here" and walking out on the campaign for
>the 4th time in two weeks) Murray asked me to take over. When i took over,
>i made it clear this would be a Libertarian campaign, not a Republican
>campaign. Jackie bradbury, Ena Wheeler, Norman Rule as well as Libertarian
>State Chair Len Flynn and his wife were all very active in how the campaign
>was run.

>If Libertarians PARTICIPATE as much as they COMPLAIN, you may actually
>accomplish something in the future. As it stands now, the overhwlming
>majority (not all) of your party seems to think that writing checks and
>pounding away on computers will win elections. They are sadly mistaken.

So there's the explanation. *Turner* is a Guppy, and in the interview
he was expressing his *personal* viewpoint, not that of the candidate.
Just like Rudy Guiliani's campaign manager, Fran Reiter, is not a
Republican but a Liberal, and when she was interviewed on Tuesday
night she spoke from a Liberal Party perspective, Turner did the same
thing. The difference is that the reporter probably didn't know that,
and Turner probably didn't make it clear, which IMO he had a duty to
do. But maybe he did, and that part ended up not being shown. Was
the interview live? In any case, I'm relieved to note that this is
not the view of the Sabrin campaign, just that of the manager.

Is that enough to satisfy Klutz et cie? Or are you still convinced
that Sabrin was a GOP hitman?

--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

You continue with your libellous allegations. Substantiate this
or shut your filthy mouth. Or I will start accusing you of having
a secret agenda to kill all the bicycle-riders in the world (`why
the bicycle-riders? why the Jews?'), or some equally ridiculous
notion.

Get this through your wooden skull, Klotz. We're not talking
about `the right'. We're talking about *libertarians* who have
come to the conclusion on *libertarian* grounds that abortion
is an initiation of force and must therefore be opposed. So
don't drag Pat Buchanan *or* Louis Farrakhan into it.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

Now Now Zev don't get your panty hose in an up roar. Fortunately most of
us have our brains alittle more securely anchored in our heads. We as
Libertarians accept self defense as our right also don't we? if the mother
deems the baby (if you like) as an unwanted guest in her womb the majority
feels she has the right to evict it. As nasty as this eviction seems just
remember she's evicting a unconsciousness non-entity. A proto-person
unrealized in any way except in the most base manner. Zev face it buddy
we kill all the time for various reasons in our societies. The difference
here is you folks see this killing as unjustified and therefore it's a
murder. In nature animal mothers kill their young for various reasons.
Abortion resides within the natural order and I believe is part of natural
law. It's a form of justified killing. If Mom doesn't want one of her
eggs to fully ripen that's the end of it Zev. Thank God the Supreme Court
as weird as it is agrees with the majority of us on this one.

I'm not convinced one way or the other with regard to Sabrin's
motivation. I think it's obvious, though, that some portion of Sabrin's
support was coming from frustrated GOP conservatives. How big a portion
it was, and how it influenced the campaign, are questions that haven't
yet been answered.

I do hope that this puts the abortion question to rest in NJ, though.
With 94% of the voters backing the two candidates who oppose restricting
abortion rights, I think New Jersey has spoken on the issue. And, with
every Assembly and Senate seat up for grabs, only one opponent of the
proposed "partial birth abortion" ban was defeated, and that race had
nothing to do with the issue. If Sabrin had been pro-choice, perhaps he
might have drawn more than 5% of the vote.

zs...@idt.net (Zev Sero) wrote:
>snip

Robert Felt
San Francisco, Ca

Making light of my name is 4th grade level nastiness asshole grow up. i'm
done wasting my breath on you. The people in NJ spoke on Abortion loud and
clear. 94% want the discussion ended or is that Aborted!

> Substantiate your libellous allegations or shut your filthy mouth,
> klotz. If you want me to engage you in rational debate, first
> apologise for your insulting insinuations against pro-life
> libertarians. Tim Starr disagrees with us just as strongly as
> you do, but he doesn't seem to find it necessary to run a smear
> campaign against us. Learn from him or stuff it, you homophobe
> (gratuitious and unfounded accusation inserted to let the klotz
> have a taste of his own medicine; not to be taken as fact).
> --
> Zev Sero
> zs...@idt.net
No sense of humour either huh. No I don't think I will apologize. I think
you folks have no place among Libertarians and I repeat why not return to
your real home the republican party. You'll be right at home with the
likes of Ron Paul, Murray Sabrin etc. maybe the Libertarian party needs to
split it's ranks if just to rid itself of all you social conservatives
(wolves) in sheeps clothing. Go away Zev your humourless and your
commentary especially your threats are boring.

Folks, Glenn Klotz has a secret agenda here. He really thinks that
private schools are bastions of privilege, and that everyone should
start on a `level playing field' with a state school education, so
he would like to see private education banned. Of course, he doesn't
come out and say so, because he knows that that won't fly in the
Libertarian Party, yet. So he hides his goals behind libertarian
rhetoric, and bides his time until his friends infiltrate the Party
and put compulsory state education in the platform. <evil cackling>

PS: For the record, I don't believe that the above is actually true,
I just made it up this second. But it's the exact equivalent of
the klotz's libellous games, and until he apologises I will continue
to post these scurrilous allegations of ideological unsoundness
against him.

PPS: I've redirected followups to fewer groups. This thread has
nothing to do with alt.politics.libertarian.creative, so I've
directed it away from there. It also has nothing to do with
alt.politics.libertarian.gay, but in that case I've been engaged
in a long running campaign to reclaim that group from the spammers
who think that it's a proper place to crosspost from biz.sex and
alt.pictures.feelthy, so any discussion about libertarianism is
welcome there, even if it's not strictly on-topic.
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

Bill wrote in article

> The difference is that those newborns were capable of surviving outside
> the womb.

The babies I'm speaking of are of the otherwise healthy variety. If it were
not for the intrusion of surgical instrument into the bases of their
skulls, these other children would have been just as capable of surviving
outside the womb.

> "Hours before birth"? If you're talking about abortion, you should
> probably say "hours before stillbirth", since virtually none of the
> fetuses in question are viable at the time they're aborted.
>

Are you saying that only non-viable babies are subject to late term
abortions?? Or are you saying that because they were aborted they became
non-viable??

I'm not sure where you're getting your information. Something like 90%
of the abortions that would have been prohibited under the "partial
birth abortion ban" take place before the fetus is capable of surviving
outside the womb. Of the remaining 10% or so, evidence suggests that
virtually all of them take place because of medical complications
affecting the fetus or the woman.

If you want legislation that prohibits abortion of viable fetuses for
non-medically indicated reasons, you should ask your legislators to
draft such a bill. The "partial birth abortion ban" was written to
primarily target abortion prior to fetal viability, which is one of the
reasons it failed.

What does "late term abortion" mean? With something like 90% of all
abortion taking place between 8-12 weeks gestation, anything from 13
weeks on could be described as "late term". Viability is a valid topic
in the general abortion debate, but it has no place in a discussion of
the "partial birth abortion ban", because the bill itself doesn't make
any mention of viability.

And carrying a pregnancy for nine months and delivering a baby is not
taking an action?

No. What action is she being required to perform? Specifically?
*She's* the one who wants to take an action. Why don't you answer
my point? Is the brother who had his kidney removed entitled to
demand that his brother be ripped open and have the stolen organ
taken out and reimplanted in him? Yes, or no?
--
Zev Sero
zs...@idt.net

Bill <bwillis...@ix.netcom.ihatespam.com> wrote in article
<346488...@ix.netcom.ihatespam.com>...

I am most concerned about the elective abortions that occur in the final
weeks/months of pregnancy. You may remember the doctor that testified
before Congress that none of the PBAs that he performed in the final months
of pregnancy were elective. He later recanted and reversed his statements,
acknowledging that the vast majority were elective.

The one party plank that I cannot support is the Libertarian pro-choice
plank. As a father of 4, (3 pregnancies) I had the opportunity to feel my
children grow within their mother. In the final months, you could tell when
certain foods weren't appreciated down there. (Hey mom, skip the carrots,
I'll get enough of that later) There were active times as well as times
where rubbing down mom's stomach seemed to help soothe the inner beast. I
cannot believe that in those final months and weeks that my children were
anything less that what they were at birth. I cannot see how anyone can
turn a blind eye to the killing of a viable baby in those final
months/weeks.

I thought Libertarians, among other things, to be people of reason and
science. Medical science now regularly helps pre-maturely born infants born
in the eighth month of pregnancy to survive. There are those rare occasions
where children born before that point also survive. It seems to me that
science has already proven that viability occurs well before the time of
birth.

It bothers me to see people cavalierly disregard babies that could easily
survive if only someone wasn't trying to do them in.

I've never seen any evidence that there are any. Not if you're talking
about the 3rd trimester. And not if you're talking about "elective" as
in "not due to medical indications".

I don't remember this at all, and I've followed the issue pretty
closely. Do you recall the man's name?

In that case, you should complain to the anti-abortion folks in
Congress, who could have gotten legislation passed and signed into law
that would have restricted abortions after fetal viability. Instead,
they chose to stick with their vague, overly-broad legislation, which
was specifically drafted to be "veto-bait". I could speak to the
cynical motivation behind this legislation, but I think the following
quote, from a nationally-known anti-abortion leader, says it best...

"You are never going to see a prosecution of a partial-birth
abortion.
There is physically no way to enforce that law. The whole issue is
a scam being perpetrated by people on our side of the issue for
fund-raising purposes."
-- Mark Crutcher, President, Life Dynamics
Detroit Free Press, April 15, 1997

And the Supreme Court has ruled that abortion can be restricted after
viability. Many states have passed laws restricting such abortions, and
those laws have been upheld. Bill Clinton signed such a bill into law in
Arkansas, and he said he'd sign a similar bill if Congress sent it to
him. Again, the question is, why wouldn't the anti-abortion legislators
support legislation that actually had a chance of becoming law and,
presumably, "saving babies"?

And it bothers me to see rhetoric like that flying around, with no
actual evidence that such things are actually happening.

[snip]

>anything less that what they were at birth. I cannot see how anyone can

I would support laws to the effect that anyone with an unwanted pregnancy at
the point where the baby could survive outside the womb would have to put it
up for adoption before aborting it. If there aren't any takers, no one willing
to pay for its life-support as a premature baby, then abortion could proceed.

RE-There would be SOME of them that might interpret it as "the mark of the
beast", and therefore be against it.

>> You may remember the doctor that testified

RE-I don't know the doctor's name either, but I DO remember that happening
though. It was widely reported even in the major media.

Okay, I suppose I can guess who he was thinking of. Ron Fitzsimmons,
the Director of National Coalition of Abortion Providers (NCAP),
admitted to making misleading statements about how often intact D&E
abortions are performed. This was widely reported in the media.

This is just a guess on my part, since Fitzsimmons is not a doctor, has
never performed an abortion, didn't testify before Congress, and never
said that the vast majority of abortions in the final months of
pregnancy are elective. I'm familiar enough, though, with the level of
misinformation out there that I can be pretty sure he was thinking of
Fitzsimmons.

Do you want to know what Fitzsimmons' point was, though? In the early
days of debate on this issue, pro-choice advocates made a critical
mistake by focusing on 3rd trimester abortions, and offering estimates
of how often (500 or so per year) and why (for severe medical
complications) such abortions are performed. In fact, the law being
considered would have impacted much more dramatically on 2nd trimester
(pre-viability) abortions, which were thought to be protected by Supreme
Court rulings. When you add 2nd trimester procedures to the debate, you
not only add dramatically to the number of incidences, you also include
abortions which are "purely elective", i.e. not due to medical
complications. This information was revealed in the Bergen Record and
the Washington Post in fall of winter of 1996. When Fitzsimmons made
his big admission in spring of '97, it was basically old news, except
there was a vote coming up in Congress, so it suddenly became
*very*important*news*.

It's also interesting to note what the media *didn't* report.
Fitzsimmons made headlines everywhere, but when Life Dynamics' Mark
Crutcher admitted in the Detroit Free Press that the whole PBA ban was a
"scam being perpetrated by people on my side" for "fundraising
purposes", it was ignored by the national media. When the Catholic
Bishops Council admitted that their ad agency had simply made up stories
about women having abortions "so they can fit into a prom dress", and
had instructed an artist specifically to illustrate a full-term fetus
for thier newspaper ad, it was again ignored by the national media.

I spoke with Ruth Padawer, the Bergen Record reporter who was among the
first to write in-depth on this issue, and I asked her if she thought,
after all the articles, talk shows, debates, etc., that the public
understood the issue now. Her answer was "no". I'm in complete
agreement with her on that point.