Natural Rights & Abortion

User-managed groups Natural Rights
21

Murder? absolutely not! I feel that the mother is the host to a growing fetus. If for some personal reason the mother is not ready for the 18 year coimmitment, it can be put off. We are talking about a 17 or 18 year full-time commitment which means 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I raised 3 children and wanted all three. Had I been forced to make such a commitment for a mistake, I would not have done a good job as a mother. Neither of my daughters wanted c hildren. Both are high achievers and professional women. None of us are the same as ouir brains and bodies are different and we all must do as our hearts and minds direct. I come from a long line of classical musicians but I lost part of my right hand in a car accident. So I promote music rather tham perform,. Do I ever feel that the driver of my car murdured my chances of a musical career?

Why does everything have to fit in somebody’ elses category? We are all individuals and not the subjects of some moral/religious culture. I see much in our society that feels necessary to form one model of women and one model of men. If you are more comfortable in being a number rather than an individual person, then sobeit.

I have been an addicted reader for 70 years and every essay, every book intoduces me to someone else. 'I’ve seen this “one size fits all” culture demoralize American values. Apparently the latest thing is to label others as being weaker in morals than others. Your comment was an insult to my being a member of this forum.

I was mistaken in believing Mises Forum was boarder in members than the usual right wing losers. Apparently we are all eager to categorize each other with labels. I’m too old for this crap.

22

Sandra, I’m not sure why you think I insulted you. I was just asking a question that is absolutely relevant, given the topic. No harm was meant.

23

Throwing words like “murder” around is the ultimate insult. Rand wrote much on the subject of defining the terms of a debate. She wanted all debates to go beyond simple label making words. For some reason, this is becoming more difficult even here where all discussions are brought down to a simple level of thought.

Apparently it is not possible for you to put yourself into a position of donating 20 years to perfect your art and then be forced to give it up for a birth control failure. It makes me wonder if you ever watched a talented musician or actor make such a commitment. Some how in your mind, humans must live by rules set down by the great unwashed law makers. Read up on the Inquisition movements in Spain, France and Italy. They took your attitude to a new high and gave the courts full authority over the individual citizens. Every sperm just be given a name and number. Women were simply brood mares increasing the numbers.

It is taking too much of my time to have to deal with childish questions from others who apparently have not lived lives of accomplishment.

24

Sandra, you misunderstand me entirely. First of all, I have no intention of forcing anyone to do anything. If I believed it was right to push one’s own agenda on another, I wouldn’t be here.

In previous posts on this thread I stated that natural law has nothing to say about when murder occurs or when life begins. Biology states that human life begins with the zygote, where the DNA materials of two people, male and female, merge and form a new and distinct individual. From that point, everything is development. Some people say that any intentional taking of life from that stage onward can be considered murder. Others, such as yourself, have differing opinions. All of these opinions should be respected. You seem not to agree with that, but would have only people who agree with you be heard. I think you should continue to stay on this site and express your opinions, and I think you should allow me to state mine as well. Much can be learned from the exchange.

I did not use the word murder to insult you (or anyone else) or to frame the terms of the debate. The word comes up naturally in any discussion of abortion, which is what we happen to be discussing. Murder, or more correctly, when killing is murder, is something defined, not by natural law, but by positive law, though natural law says that a person has a right to live and not be killed except when they behave in a way that engenders the taking of their life, the exception that applies in self-defense, for example. Since people can disagree rationally about whether abortion is murder, all such positions are proper according to natural law. People must be respected.

My question to you was simply to ascertain whether you would consider your mother’s act of abortion a murder. Clearly that is not the case. But your further explanation provides a great deal of material for thought about this. We all hear of people who give their own lives for another, and consider them heroic. If your mother had aborted you as well, your career, your children, the whole tree of descendants would not exist. You put a 20 year music career on one side of the scale, and the entire lives of at least one person (perhaps many people), on the other, and see the music career as being the greater of the two. I find that quite extraordinary.

Perhaps you would have given your life for your mother’s career (which would have been heroic), but you weren’t asked. Neither was the sibling who preceeded you. Of course, having to ask would preclude abortion entirely. So that would imply a kind of ownership by the mother, who may make life and death decisions about the child in the womb, which is, of course, your argument. And perhaps you are right. Still, the same weighing of benefits must occur: this child’s life (and all its accomplishments and its descendants) for my life or some part of it. I do not say that I am right and you are wrong. Both positions have every right to be respected. As I said before, you will never get complete agreement on this issue. But it is worth discussing.

25

I tend to lean toward D, personally. Though I should note that I do make a distinction between a fetus and an embryo, or the embryonic stage of development which is approximately 8-11 weeks immediately following conception, prior to the embryo becoming a fetus.

I take this position because I do believe the fetus inherits natural rights by virtue of being human. It seems to me that a human is defined by appearance, biology and cognizance–all traits which fetuses seem to have as well. How are they different in appearance from a human baby? They’re simply smaller. They have a distinguishable head, housing a brain; body, housing a heart; fingers and toes; eyes and ears, etc. How are they biologically much different? They have developed the same biological systems as humans. How are they any less cognizant than a human baby? They act, they move, they respond to stimuli.

So, humanity is established, IMO, along with the natural rights which accompany the fetus by virtue of being human.

But what about the mother? She has natural rights too, and it is her body, after all.

The mother has engaged in a specific number of sequential actions to have produced a fetus. For one, the mother had to have engaged in sexual intercourse to conceive–most likely unprotected. Various forms of birth control are readily available, but it is true they are not necessarily 100% effective. Nevertheless, this is common knowledge–it is a given that BC is not 100% effective. Next, the mother has either taken action to become aware of conception by way of doctor and/or home pregnancy test which can typically be determined very immediately after conception, now a days. If she has not taken action to become aware, and has instead ignored the possibility, this is still action. Next, the mother would have to allow for the embryo to develop over a period of 8-11 weeks as mentioned before in order for the embryo to become a fetus. This is also action–and perhaps one of the more important actions the mother takes as it relates to my position on this issue. By allowing the embryo to become a fetus–by not aborting prior to conversion to the fetus stage–the mother, it seems, has entered into a contract with the fetus. The mother has effectively accepted the fetus within her by way of her own actions–invited it even–to stay and “make itself at home” for as long as it requires until it is ready to leave. Since there can be no direct communication between mother and fetus, this contract cannot be altered any further after the fetus has accepted the same contract. If the mother did not want to enter into this contract; it seems to me she would have otherwise taken action to disengage the contract–either by way of abortion in the embryonic stage, or through proper use of contraception prior to (or even after) the act of conception.

As an aside, the father is also disregarded from the other three arguments. If it is argued the mother has ownership of the fetus, why is it not also argued that the father has partial ownership of the fetus? His labor and part of his property was required to create the fetus, after all.

To further illustrate my main point about the contract, I’ll refer to an analogy:

Lets say I invite someone into my home and tell them they are free to whatever is inside while they remain inside my home, for as long as they’d like.

Lets say this person accepts my offer, enters my home, and makes himself/herself at home–just as I have suggested they do. They eat my food, sleep under my roof and drink my water–all things which I have given them permission to do.

Eight to eleven weeks of this goes on, and then one morning I wake up, decide that this person is violating my property rights by being in my home, take a shotgun and pump two shells into the person’s chest as they’re sleeping in my living room without so much as a word. They’re now dead in a bloody mess.

This is essentially what aborting a fetus amounts to–absent of any direct and immediate danger to the mother, and perhaps also in cases of rape. The mother violates the agreed-upon contract, just as I did in the above analogy, at the expense of an innocent life. The mother has initiated aggression, just as I did in the above analogy, and is thus acting immorally.

Some would argue it is the fetus who initiates aggression, but I find this to be an absurd argument. The fetus did not choose to be conceived in any particular mother, or womb. The fetus does require a womb, however, and accepted the womb the mother offered to it upon entering into the contract between them. There is no initiation of aggression on behalf of the fetus, unless, again, the fetus poses a direct threat to the life of the mother.

To address the opposing argument of: The fetus is a guest in the mother’s property, therefore the mother has the right to eject the fetus whenever she wishes. I would suggest this is also absurd, because then this would mean that say… a two year old is subject to the same disposal at the whim of the mother, simply because the two year old lives in the mothers home.

I realize this is an unpopular stance to take for a libertarian, but I’ve yet to hear any arguments or reasoning to convince me that this is not an acceptable, reasonable, logical or moral position. This position, as well, also allows for a bit of compromise. Eight to eleven weeks the mother has to decide if she wants to retain the baby, or be rid of it without acting immorally.

26

I say that the fetus is a body, discrete in its own right. That it depends on the mother inside the womb does not change its dignity, which is fixed and constant, regardless of its dependency status.

One way to look at it is to correctly order the state with respect to abortion, as should other practices which destroy human flesh, with tax money:

NO TAXATION FOR MUTILATION - No state money for abortion, torture, circumscision, sterilization, sex-reassignment surgery, human experimentation or any destruction of flesh.

How’s that for keepin’ it simple?

27

Robert,

It seems you misunderstand what this discussion thread is about. We are not talking about positive law (no taxation for mutilation), but how natural law relates to the act of abortion. Positive law is the type of law enacted by parliaments, etc. Natural law is the immutable law that relates to our being human. Our unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property, for example, are unalienable because they are ours by nature. What is being thrashed out here is the somewhat tricky situation where you have two (really three) lives that are directly affected by an abortion, and the apparent clashing of natural rights that results.

28

I am not convinced by Rothbard’s take on this, which I reckon would fall under the option c.

So the embryo is inside the mother’s body but who put it there? Embryo did not do anything to get itself there. So it can not be an intruder.

Lets imagine you offer a travelling person lodging for the night, but then you wake him up in the middle of it and throw him out in the rain. Would this traveller have the right to complain? I think he would.

Of course you can say that it is not the same since the traveller was an invited guest whereas the embryo is “an accident”. But is that really important? If you get drunk and damage somebodies property by accident then you have to pay the damages whether you intended to do this damage or not. It is now your obligation to the owner of that property.

What is different in the case of conception? If you get drunk and accidentally invite an embryo into your body? Provided that embryo’s self-ownership has been conceeded, what clears you of the obligation that you would have in the two other examples that I mentioned?

29

There are millions of people who believe that abortions, miscarriages and any circumstances resulting in an abrupt end to a pregnancy is murder and a mortal sin. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court passed Roe Versus Wade, giving the woman the choice of keeping or expelling their unwanted fetus. Many hysterical moralists seem to think that abortions could be mandated. Individual freedoms cannot survive when threats from the government direct our individual actions.

In subjects and comments on this individual choice, it is not necessary to change the scenario using a woman’s womb as a rental facility. Women are not brood mares anymore.

30

I see that many posters here believe that abortion is murder. That is only natural in a culture that believes in the supernatural. The subject of abortion is the choice of the mother. If the mother believes abortion is murder, than abortion is out of the question. It is the ultimate insult to force all humans into one class of morality. There comes a time, and I believe we face it today, where survival becomes a top priority. Many families cannot feed their children healthy and nouishing food so they buy junk and their kids are fat and filled with diabetes. Many families raise their kids in front of a television where no moral values ever reach their small minds. This is the factor that faces many American families. When families cannot raise their children to make healthy decisions, they absolutely need God to blame for the consequences. It is easier and cheaper to pray than to get off their lazy asses and change the attitudes that prevail in the home.

31

Sandy,

I tried to answer to your post earlier by replying by email I guess that was wrong I’m fairly new to this website. I am pro choice even thou I was raised a catholic the form of government the majority of this country chose states that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. Natural law to me still means individual rights which supports pro choice we can change our form of government and hopefully our views would still stand. People continue to debate abortion while billions of animals are euthanized and our government gladly pays for it no one considers that murder although by definition it is premeditated. Where are the pro lifers then? I also think that television is the bane of our society and am an avid reader. Ironically it does seem that even though there are many who want children and can’t have them there are many that don’t need to raise them that have them. unfortunately the ones that are really affected are the children and they grow in blissfull ignorance and the cycle is perpetuated.

32

David, I too have a problem using this site. I have tried to ignore poilitics as there is nothing left in America that I consider worthy of my efforts to attempt to locate the best party or the best actions for Americans. When capitalism still had a chance in America, I worked for the candidates that understood free enterprise. Before my kids went off to college, they read all of Rand’s essays and novels. They understood what was meant by individual freedoms. The problem was that in America the majority of the citizens needed guidance from Big Daddy in the Government as well as in the sky. Our own federal government was only too eager to set down social prohibitions probably realizing that individuals had lost their ability to know right from wrong. The complications of begging for forgiveness took the place of making reasonable and rational personal choices. My panic came from the fact that I was born and raised smack dab on the San Andreas Fault where survival training was even taught in schools. The idea that God shook our area was absurd and unless we learned how to survive… we wouldn’t…

It was a lesson I took even when our Representatives were running every 2 and 6 years. The States were given the responsibility for the health and safety of everyone in the USA. The Federal Government was to protect us from foreign invasion. This responsibility grew when interstate airways and highways had to be protected by Federal controls. My grandmother laid down the laws of social restrictions clearly in the minds of the children as I did with my own kids. We lived in a time when abortions were illegal in our state and many young women bled to death in dirty motel rooms. My family consisted of Hollywood Studio people and musicans where 20 to 30 years of study prepared them for their talents and if and when they got into trouble, they aborted either illegally or died in the attempt. There was no birth control available. Back in the 1940s, women had no individual rights when it came to expressing their talents. Even the war in Europe stopped flights for these gals, for legal abortions abroad. My mother had an abortion when she got a contract to travel with another pianist. After she married, she accompanied a famous opera soprano and in those days, a pregnant woman never was seen in her condition. In 1930 she visited a doctor and aborted the fetus. She settled down and had me in 1933. She was teaching and concertizing and I was given to my grandmother. I understood musicians and actors and my mother’s music was a big part of my childhood.

Not all humans are raised in the same social religious manner and to ask the government to set the values by which we choose to live is a step into slavery. I will never believe that the human brain cannot handle the choices that we make in our lifetimes. I reject the vision that some spirit is sitting in the sky searching for my sins. I rejected this at the age of 9 and learned right from wrong by observing others and reading the stories in our library. During WW2, I remember learning that Mendelssohn’s music was prohibited in Germany because he was a Jew. How is this possible?

I took an interest in Renaissance Art and ran head long into the Inquisitions of Europe. What the hell were humans doing to each other? I was a bitter old woman at the age of 18. I had read the Origin of the Species a couple of years before and I felt a shudder of self destruction within our species. I kept reading about our human development and panicked at the ignorance of people at not recognizing the source of our developed brains.

Even with the warnings from many intelligent writers, America is heading for mediocrity. You call it blissful ignorance and I call it the downsizing of our ability to survive. The answer is not from our government telling us what not to do. I’m pretty certain I am on the wrong internet site. I understand Von Mises’ economics but it takes a better educated nation than America can provide. American government is based on corruption and the winners always win all the toys. I do not blame this on open borders as many others do. I blame it purely on a lack of ethics within the voters. One cannot trade ethics for a belief in the supernatural.

33

Sandy, I stay on this site because it gives me practice putting my thoughts on paper. I was raised by a lawyer who is now a judge and learned from an early age to debate orally very well. I would rather have got spanked than cross examined. I was born into the age of the “pill” so I have not witnessed the horrors that you write about of woman who decided to prematurely end their pregnancies. That was still their choice which is their right and I support that and I’m sure they knew the risks. Music is also a huge part of our life we live in south Georgia which is right in the middle of the bible belt I do not believe in all the Hell fire and brimstone and abortion debates are a big topic down here but I stick to my guns and clearly say I’m pro Choice. I also think we do not need big brother watching over us and think we should be able to make the decisions needed to govren our daily lives. Natural law tells me we should have individual rights and be able to make the choices for better or worse that run our daily lives. And, yes there is no political party that totally ascribes to natural law. Although I agree my economic views are Randian and yes our country is run by the PACs so we do not have a real free market even though we call our selves capitalists. In my views on abortion for the most part I agree to disagree with the pro-lifers. People could go on and say it should not be used loosely as a form of contraception and should only be reserved for cases of rape, incest etc. but in the end it is the womans choice. As far as borders yes I do not blame open borders they should stay open as far as I’m conserned. Our country is a mixing pot and no its problems are not caused by "foreigners we all are unless you are native american Our problems stem from this blissfull ignorance and letting others decide our futures for us or simply following like in a herd instinct. We have for the most part given up on thinking for ourselves.

34

There is nothing written in the Constitution that recommends we all think and act alike. The bible is pretty firm on what we must not do to be saved. In California there was practically nothing but our social lives to consider and many communities simply did not judge others on some terrorist theory from God. Most of my mother’s side of the family were Mormons. They all married Catholics and none of the matches were kindly and loving. There was a lot of alcoholism and my generation got into heavy drugs. I was a hermit and stayed away from all of them. My addiction was books and Bach. I’m still a hermit and still addicted to books, Bach and Opera. My children are very successful with strong marriages. The girls married Jewish men and my son a Catholic girl from Ireland. No complaints.

I know what you mean by cross-examination. I am pleased that they all understand the value of independence and freedom. My husband was a firm follower of Von MIses and had many meetings with the newly developed Libertarian group in Los Angeles. I served coffee and cookies and would listen at the door. The enthusiasm was active and I had a difficult time following the economics of the discussions. I tried to study this subject on my own but did not have the ability to understand the system. My younger daughter understands the Austrian Economics but has not accepted it as her own.

I am a Secular Humanist which seems to fit in with the discussions found on this site. I find that most posters here are open minded and eager to learn as well as share their opinions. I also find that there is no generation gap here and we all can understand the differences of our own years. I picked that up from your post.

Sandy

35

The first string of questions is most interesting:

“Regarding the issue of abortion, there seems to be multiple natural rights approaches, including:
a. The mother owns the fetus and thus can expel it. Once the fetus is born it gains the normal rights of a human being.
b. The mother owns the fetus and thus can expel it. Once the fetus is born it does not gain the normal rights of a human being.
c. The fetus has the right of self-ownership, but the mother can have an abortion because the fetus is inside the mother’s body.
d. The fetus has the right of self ownership and thus the mother cannot have an abortion.
Which one do you support and why?”

According to John Locke a child is not the property of the parents. The parents only have dominion as long as they educate and feed the child adequately. If they fail they lose dominion over the child. However according to Locke the child does not have full rights until it has reached a certain level of understanding. Self determination rights are gradually earned. This means for instance in the case of child abuse that it right and proper that a child be taken away from the parents. As a child cannot contract society must therefore become the protectant agency. It is in fact one of the few governmental agencies that I approve of.

As far as when and who can decide about to abort and when life starts is an issue that neither science no religion can decide. It has to be a choice of the underlying society, it is a societal and legal construct..

For me as a very social liberal and Pro-Choice Swede and a hard core libertarian living in the US I find the US abortion practice abhorrent, that second and third trimester abortion is a choice of the pregnant mother alone. Roe vs. Wade should in fact be amended. Even in the super social liberal Sweden, supposedly one of the most equal countries in the world with women’s rights right at the top of the agenda, certain lines has been drawn. Sweden is ultra secular and therefore relies very much on technocrats and scientist for decision making.

I don’t approve of many of the social engineering wonders of Sweden but its view on abortion I fully uphold. For me this is one of the best ways forward as a tentative position, it is a legal, scientific and societal compromise on the different issues raised above, a-d.

  1. First trimester abortion is the sole choice of the pregnant woman with optional counseling. Consecutive first trimester abortions require mandatory counseling and Social Services will be alerted. (Counseling is done from the perspective of the pregnant woman, not from a moral or religious point of view.)

  2. Second trimester abortion is not the pregnant woman’s choice it’s authorized by a doctor after a psychological evaluation of the pregnant woman.

  3. Third trimester abortions are only allowed if the mother life is in danger, and is extremely restrictive and rare in practice.

For those that hold a social conservative view read this piece below on Charles Krauthammer. It says the same thing as Swedish law but in a US and social conservative perspective. I also like his distinction between “personhood” i.e. acquiring rights and “life”. However I don’t think third trimester abortion should be outlawed.

For me you cannot be a social conservative fundamentalist that upholds that rights start at inception but nor can you uphold the feminist fundamentalist view that it’s the woman’s choice alone. Roe vs. Wade went too far but it was a product of the crazy 60-70s and the extreme left liberal and interventionist Supreme Court. The Supreme Court from the 60-80s was a disaster for property rights, state rights and the limitation on executive and legislative power. Civil rights for women and minorities were and are extremely important but the pendulum swung to far, it nearly destroyed the US constitution made it a sham, and as a consequence got Affirmative Action legislation and Roe vs. Wade, I’ve always held the one wrong does not make another wrong right.

“Critic-in-chief: Obama’s hour is also Charles Krauthammer’s.”

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Critic-in-chief:+Obama’s+hour+is+also+Charles+Krauthammer’s.-a0211555588

"Readers may want to know Krauthammer’s position on abortion–it is slightly complicated. The first thing to say is that he is for legal abortion. But other things follow. “Life begins at conception,” he says, “there is no doubt about that.” That is simply “a biological truth.”

But “personhood,” in his view, is something else: a social construct and a legal category. And society [my quote: not organized religions interpretations] has to determine, in some fashion, when the fetus is imbued with this “personhood.”

“I would outlaw all third-trimester abortions,” continues Krauthammer. “I’ve seen abortions, as a medical student, and they are quite horrible. I detest them at any level, and I would outlaw them in the third trimester. That really is a human being, that really is murder–and partial-birth abortion is barbarism.”
In the middle stage of pregnancy, abortion is a “grave moral sin,” Krauthammer believes, and “you should not do it lightly” and “you should feel bad about it.” [ My quote: It is between you and your priest/god not for society to decide]

But he would not outlaw abortions at this stage. And he has no qualms whatever about abortion in the early stage."

36

What has happend with the editor in Mises? It’s completey whacked. Me text looked fine and then Iposted it and it bacema gibberish.

37

Illuminatus,

Thanks for the interesting comments. My understanding of the biology of humans is that, as Krauthammer said, life begins at conception. Since all that stands between conception and birth is time and a lack of outside intervention, termination of a pregnancy from that point (conception or the zygote state) always accomplishes the same thing: the end of a human life, a life of accomplishments, and the potential for many other lives in the future. It is not a single life that ends with an abortion, but the whole family tree that would sprout from that person into the future. So my question is, if a human life begins at conception, why does the right to that life begin later? All agree that it begins at some point. Why not at the point at which the life itself begins? The determination of “personhood”, and with it the “right to life”, other than at the point of conception seems entirely arbitrary. If the right to life coincides with the beginning of that life, can you understand why people could consider abortion as the intentional taking of the life of another human being, and reprehensible at any stage? Is the start of the right to one’s life that arbitrary?

38

Another thought occurred to me after I sent my last message. If the right to life is a natural right, shouldn’t its commencement be determined by nature (conception) and not by government or any other function within society?

39

@kritarchist,

Krauthammer makes the point I made. The time when “personhood” occurs rights etc. is a societal and legal construct and as such arbitrary per definition.

Life in a biological sense does not mean that it incurs rights at the same time. In the case of the mother and the fetus we have two rights colliding, the right of the female and the right of the unborn. This conflict has to be resolved by man and man alone. We cannot base societies laws on metaphysics in general and in particular in response to religious dogma. Every religion has its own interpretation on when life begins and even in a specific religion there are different views. Further there are also different views intra- and inter-religon on whether or not religious dogma and interpretation should have influence on legal procedure and legislation. As a matter of fact a minority of the US religious population holds the view that abortion should be prohibited i.e. they accept the legal and societal construct that “personhood” is determined by jurisprudence and legislation, not by metaphysical concepts and/or religious dogma.

As I stated I do not agree with fundamentalists of any kind, be they religious or ideological (radical feminists, socialists, ecologists et al). We have time after time seen what happens when ideological purity and dogma rule; terror and repression. I would not want to live in a theocracy such as Iran, during the theocracy in Europe before the Reformation and subsequent Enlightenment or in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.

I firmly believe what is said by Jesus: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s" i.e. man rules on earth and god rules in heaven, A clear cut argument for the separation of Church and State as any i.e. man legislate but at his peril of his immortal soul. That said religious morals are for those that believe, and should not be imposed on us that do not believe or hold faith to be a purely personal matter, issue of morals. Those that believe will be judged by god and should not be judged by men.

.I’m totally opposed to all forms of moral legislation such as legislation on whom to have sex with drinking, drugs, prostitution and gambling, in thsi John Stuart Mill was absolutely right in “On Liberty”.

I met quite a lot of religious persons that call themselves libertarian. However they only uphold the freedom they believe in i.e. property rights and religious freedom but at the same time firmly wants to intervene through legislation as regards to my private morals, prohibit drinking and drug use, pornography, forbid flag burning, etc.. Hayek had it right in his essay “Why I’m not a Conservative” a social conservative libertarian is an oxymoron.

40

I am only concerned when the federal government tries to add prohibitions to our Constitutional Republic. In the past when any nation accepts any God who claims to have moral values and prohibitions integrated into the laws that cuts into the individual freedoms and choices of the people and then the God write the laws by a committee of members of his sect. This causes civil wars.

The individual person determines the rights and choices of his/her own decisions. Some times the majority calls their action as murder but it does not change the laws found in our Bill of Rights. In America the individual states take on the lives of their residents and the federal government has no authority. Murder has always been tried in the State’s courts with the acception of the murder of a federal person in charge, like an FBI or federal Policeman.

Often when the States cannot handle a series of laws, the whole thing is turned over to the Supreme Court. When Bush 43 was President he appointed two pro-life judges for the purpose of repealing Roe v Wade but Obama wants a new judge that will stick with a pro-choice,

Every nation as determined its own government authority. In America every State has its own laws. We all must take responsibility for our own moral values and stand by them.