Abortion and Infanticide: a Radical Libertarian Defence

Abstract

There is an outline of the libertarian approach this takes. On the assumption of personhood, it is explained how there need be no overall inflicted harm and no proactive killing with abortion and infanticide. This starts with an attached-adult analogy and transitions to dealing directly with the issues. Various well-known criticisms are answered throughout. There is then a more-abstract explanation of how it is paradoxical to assume a duty to do more than avoid inflicting overall harm and, instead, positively benefit. A putative counterexample is explained away. A positive theory of intellectual personhood is defended in principle but not made precise, which is sufficient to be practical. The greater moral value of intellectual-personhood is defended. An important putative reductio of the potential-personhood argument is refuted. Several further criticisms that apply to both types of defences are then answered. It is concluded that this different and radical approach is more likely to be error-prone. But conjectural explanations are all we ever have, and criticisms are always necessary to test them.

Keywords: abortion, infanticide, libertarianism, personhood, Don Marquis, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Mary Anne Warren