I once told a friend of mine that a politician I knew, a Republican, was very Libertarian in his political views. Knowing that Republicans are typically pro-life she immediately shot back, “well what are his views on abortion, then?” because, “a pro-life/Libertarian view does not fit together.” She said this because Libertarians believe in personal and economic liberty. From Libertarianism.com:
Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property, and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life – as long as he simply respects the same right of others to do the same.
For many Libertarians this extends to abortion: women are free to do with their bodies as they see fit and no one should tell them otherwise, i.e. by outlawing abortion. However, it seems that the Libertarian party is pretty evenly split between the pro-life and pro-choice side (Source: Libertarian perspective on abortion).
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, in an interview with South Carolina’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Ron Paul explains the pro-life view of abortion and the right to privacy:
“You have a right to privacy in your home – I don’t want any cameras or any invasion in the home. Your home is your castle in a free society. That doesn’t give you the right to kill a baby in the bed…If there is another life involved, and that crib happens to be the uterus, the issue is not telling the woman what to do. The issue is whether there’s another life…I tell my libertarian friends that if you have a live fetus, and it’s 4, 5, 6, 7 pounds, and it has a heartbeat, and brainwaves, moves and sucks its thumb, and you kill him, you’re committing an act of violence…So, it’s a little more complicated than saying a woman can do what she wants with her body, and that’s why it’s been difficult for a lot of people to sort this out.”
HT: Life News
4 Comments on “Ron Paul, a Pro-Life Libertarian”
I’m prolife and a Libertarian myself.
Thank you for your committment to life! You have an excellent blog, by the way 🙂
I’m glad you put this article up. Libertarianism and pro-life ideas always seemed to go hand in hand to me. Thanks for getting Ron Paul’s name out there, also, as God knows he’s being avoided in the press. I think there is hope that he can win, and I’m praying so hard that he does!!! God bless!
In my humble opinion, Ron Paul is the only sane voice on the political horizon, and I support him, and if possible, I will vote for him. However, there is one point on which I disagree with him, since I am not a Libertarian, and that is we do not own our own bodies. God is our Creator and He owns us. We must use our bodies according to His plan for us, as well as for His honor and glory. If one believes that he owns his own body to do with as he pleases, e.g., unhealthy practices such as drug use, mutilation of one’s body, alcoholism, over-eating, etc., then one can only define libertarianism as libertinism.