Recently, a pro-life friend of mine witnessed a car displaying two bumper stickers. The first read “Donate Life, Become a Tissue/Organ Donor,” and the second read “Pro-Choice.” He commented that he was amused with what he saw as an apparent contradiction, leading a pro-choice friend to chime in, saying that there was no contradiction and that:
[It] makes complete sense. It's the difference between asking someone to do what you believe to be the right thing and the government intruding on your life to demand that you do what some people believe to be the right thing… Asking someone to consider donating tissue and organs (but not demanding it by law) is completely congruent with asking someone to consider carrying their fetus to term (but not forcing them to do so by law).
The issue of abortion is one that divides many liberty-minded people. Indeed, icons of the libertarian movement seem to fall as far on opposite sides of this issue as one could imagine. For example, Ron Paul writes in his recent book, Liberty Defined, about his personal experience witnessing an abortion as an OB/GYN resident in the 1960s. He writes:
I witnessed… the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds. It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice. Soon the crying stopped…
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