Why I'm Pro-Life

It's great that this many people were willing to collaborate on this project. Thanks to everyone for their cooperation, and here's hoping that everything runs smoothly. I thought I'd begin by explaining why I, Michelle, am pro-life. Every pro-lifer has their reasons, and if you ask someone why they support the cause, you'll get many different answers. As a libertarian conservative, it's not always a popular stance to take as far as libertarianism goes. I thought I was a lone libertarian regarding this issue, until I found out that Ron Paul, one of the leading voices in the right-wing libertarian movement, is also pro-life.

I support maximum individual and economic freedoms. When I tell people that I'm pro-life, I am often called a hypocrite. However, people should try to understand how I and so many other libertarians can be pro-life. It's simple, really: Libertarians believe that every individual has the right to life, liberty, and property and equal protection under the law. The only way a libertarian can be pro-choice is if he or she believes that the fetus is not an individual, which it clearly is.

First of all, no one can doubt that the fetus is human. Saying that it's anything but is like saying that it's the same as a fetus or embryo produced by pigs, chickens, or cows, which everyone knows is false. When a sperm produced by a human and an egg produced by a human meet together, something very radical happens: an individual human zygote forms with its very own set of DNA. Later this zygote will develop its own eyes, limbs, fingers, hands, toes, feet, spine, mouth, nose, internal organs, heart, and mind. It may be small, but it is human, and because it will develop its own features, it is, without a doubt, an individual. Denying that life begins at conception is also a mistake. Humans are living things.

When you take the life of an unborn child, you are taking the life of an individual. That is scientific fact. The question is this: Do all individuals deserve equal protection under the law, or do only a select few? The libertarian position is to protect the rights of all individuals regardless of race, gender, disability, age, size, or development. Why are the unborn excluded? Leaving the unborn exempt from equal protection laws is discrimination, no matter what you call it. It is discrimination based on dependency, size, and development.

Ron Paul once said that abortion on demand is the ultimate form of State tyranny. I certainly agree with him. When the State has the ability to deem the unborn as less valuable than other human beings, they have the ability to deem any group of individuals as such. What will stop the government from taking people off of life support based on dependency? What will stop the government from taking the lives of disabled persons based on a collective "quality of life" statistic? What will stop the government from killing the elderly because they're no longer considered people?

It is often argued that individuals should have the right to decide when life begins, but if someone decides that life begins at forty, they can't go and murder every individual under forty. If there is a child in your home, and you kill it, you are convicted of homicide. Every individual has the right to choose. When a couple has sex, they take the risks attached to it, whether it be sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. An individual, by having sex, assumes responsibility for the outcome of his or her actions. As soon as a couple is carrying a child, that child is living. Smiley-faced fascism has labeled abortion as a mere "terminated pregnancy." In this politically correct world, it has become evil to call it what it really is: Abortion is murder, plain and simple.

I'm not going to judge people who have had abortions, but the act itself is despicable in every way possible. One minute before birth, the child is less than human, but one minute after birth, all of a sudden its an individual with rights. The only difference is that the fetus is physically connected to its carrier before birth and physically disconnected to its carrier after birth. Either way, its always dependent on somebody else to live. That doesn't mean we can kill it!

Abortion teaches that violence and killing is the answer to inconvenience and emotional distress. Murders today are at all an all-time high. We've got kids killing kids because they have been taught that violence is the answer. We may think that making exceptions to the right to life issue here and there is no big deal, but once the seed of disrespect is planted, it is a plant of rapid growth that extends beyond the womb. If we can't defend life from its very beginnings, then how can we defend liberty?

Life is the greatest liberty there is.