Even in my own (admittedly shallow) dives into libertarianism, I’ve noticed that, just as within the larger world, there are a host of different opinions on various topics. Although the basic principle of liberty (aggression is always wrong) and the first harmonic of ideals that stem from it (therefore, murder, rape, fraud, etc. should be outlawed) are ubiquitous, there are a lot of issues that have tended to fractionalize the libertarian movement. One of these issues is abortion.
In coming to see things from a libertarian perspective, it has been hard for me to accept that many libertarians are pro-choice. I could not understand how one person can make the jump from “everybody has a right to live” to “a mother has a right to kill her child in the womb” — especially when these same people would say that parents not only must refrain from hurting that same child once outside the womb, but they also have the responsibility to protect that child from harm. I.e., it is a right of the child for its parents will provide for it.
Anyway, today while doing some general browsing of some libertarian sites, I came across a site called Libertarians for Life which aims to open (and then close) the debate about abortion among libertarians and show why abortion violates the tenets of liberty – from a non-religious, non-utilitarian (i.e., Objectivist) philosophical viewpoint.
The site has a lot of great resources (including two open letters from Gary Cherone to Eddie Vedder), the flagship of which is a special issue of the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, titled Abortion and Rights, dedicated to the idea that abortion violates libertarian ideals.