Mere Liberty

A Libertarian Case Against Abortion

Kerry Baldwin joins Marc Clair on the Lions of Liberty podcast to lay out the case for a genuinely libertarian position on abortion — one that neither the pro-choice nor the pro-life mainstream has adequately articulated.

Baldwin’s starting point is her own intellectual trajectory. She came to libertarianism through Austrian economic theory and natural law, and found that both frameworks, applied consistently, pointed toward the same conclusion: the fetus is a rights-bearing self-owner. That conclusion puts her at odds with the conventional pro-choice position, which treats the fetus as having no independent rights claim, and with Walter Block’s evictionism, which treats the fetus as an innocent trespasser subject to removal. Baldwin’s objection to evictionism is that it creates ambiguity precisely where libertarian theory should be clearest — on the question of whose rights are at stake and why.

The conversation turns to the hardest case: rape. Baldwin argues that abortion in cases of rape is not consistent with the non-aggression principle. The fetus did not commit the act of aggression; the rapist did. Using the fetus as the legal remedy for rape displaces responsibility from the perpetrator onto an uninvolved party. What is needed, Baldwin argues, is a better framework for addressing rape, domestic abuse, and sexual assault — one that focuses accountability on the criminal rather than treating the fetus as a corrective instrument. This is not an argument against taking rape seriously. It is an argument that the current framework does not take it seriously enough.

Baldwin also addresses the question of criminalization directly. She does not argue for government-enforced criminal penalties against women who obtain abortions, partly because such a framework creates perverse incentives — including the prospect of treating miscarriages as suspicious. Her preferred direction is a free-market approach that improves the economic conditions and support structures available to pregnant women, reducing the demand for abortion without requiring state coercion.

The episode closes with a discussion of her 2019 Oxford-style debate with Walter Block at the Soho Forum — a philosophically rigorous exchange that Baldwin describes as respectful and substantive — and her plans to formalize the fetal self-ownership argument for publication.

Main Points of Discussion

FAQs

Here are all six:

1. What is the libertarian case against abortion?

The libertarian case against abortion, as Kerry Baldwin argues it, begins with self-ownership. Libertarian theory holds that every person owns themselves — their body, their labor, their life. If the fetus is a person, the fetus is a self-owner. And if the fetus is a self-owner, abortion constitutes a violation of that self-ownership, which is impermissible under the non-aggression principle regardless of where the fetus is located. The case is not grounded in religious premises or state authority — it follows from applying libertarian first principles consistently to the question of who counts as a rights-bearing person.

2. What is fetal self-ownership and why does it matter for the abortion debate?

Fetal self-ownership is the position that the unborn, as persons, are self-owners with the same fundamental rights claim as any other person. It matters for the abortion debate because it reframes the central question. The conventional debate asks whether women have the right to terminate a pregnancy. Fetal self-ownership asks a prior question: what are the rights of the entity whose life is at stake? If the fetus is a self-owner, the abortion question cannot be resolved by appealing to the mother’s self-ownership alone — two self-owners are present, and the rights of both must be accounted for.

3. Why does Kerry Baldwin reject Walter Block’s evictionism?

Evictionism holds that a pregnant woman may evict the fetus as an unwanted trespasser on her property, but may not directly kill it. Baldwin rejects this on two grounds. First, the trespasser framework fails — the fetus did not originate outside the mother and enter without permission; it originated within her through her own biological processes, which distinguishes it from any ordinary trespass scenario. Second, evictionism creates ambiguity precisely where libertarian theory should be clearest: on whose rights are at stake and why. A theory that cannot answer that question cleanly has not solved the problem — it has restated it in different language.

4. Is abortion justified in cases of rape under libertarian theory?

Baldwin argues no — and the reasoning follows directly from the non-aggression principle. The fetus did not commit the act of aggression. The rapist did. Using the fetus as the legal remedy for rape displaces responsibility from the perpetrator onto an uninvolved party, which is not consistent with how libertarian theory assigns accountability for aggressive acts. This is not an argument that rape is anything less than a serious rights violation. It is an argument that the current framework — treating abortion as the corrective — does not address rape seriously enough. What is needed is a better framework for accountability focused on the criminal, not on the fetus.

5. Why does Kerry Baldwin distinguish between criminalizing abortion and authoritarian enforcement?

Baldwin’s position is that abortion should be recognized as a rights violation and treated accordingly under criminal law — but that the manner of enforcement matters as much as the law itself. Authoritarian enforcement, which characterizes most existing criminal justice frameworks, is inherently unjust regardless of what it is enforcing. Just enforcement of any criminal law requires robust protections for the accused: mens rea requirements, Blackstone’s principle that it is better for ten guilty persons to escape than for one innocent to suffer, and the full procedural rights of the accused. The concern is not that abortion should go unanswered under law — it is that the state cannot be trusted to prosecute it justly without those constraints firmly in place. A libertarian framework demands both: recognition of fetal rights and accountability for their violation, enforced through a justice system that does not itself become an instrument of aggression against the innocent.

6. What is the free-market alternative to abortion policy?

Baldwin argues that improving the economic conditions and support structures available to pregnant women will reduce the demand for abortion more effectively than criminalization. Women choose abortion for a range of reasons, many of which are economic — lack of support, financial insecurity, inadequate healthcare access. A free-market approach addresses those underlying conditions directly, without requiring state coercion. The goal is not to manage abortion through legal prohibition but to create the conditions in which fewer women face the circumstances that make abortion feel like the only option.