Re: NJ LP Gubernatorial candidate (Sabrin) supports anti-abortion laws! (October 28, 1997, by Mike Doughney, on a Libertarian Party candidate's alliance with 'pro-life' groups)

Subject:      Re: NJ LP Gubernatorial candidate (Sabrin) supports anti-abortion laws !
From:         mike@mtd.com (Mike Doughney)
Date:         1997/10/28
Message-ID:   <63553r$e0j$1@news2.digex.net>
Newsgroups:   alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.libertarian.creative,alt.politics.libertarian.gay,talk.politics.libertarian



In article <3454fb69.10033049@news.erols.com>,  <bobhunt@erols.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 03:44:31 GMT, holson@california.com (Howard Olson)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>	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!
>>

<snip>

>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. 

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.



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