Libertarians on Abortion

I'm going to having more on libertarianism in an upcoming essay. I don't see it as a governing ideology, although certainly we could improve a lot of public life, especially economic life, by adopting a way more libertarian programmatic agenda. That said, I've always disliked the rejection of a lot of social morality in libertarianism, and Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie capture some of the moral spinelessness at the clip:

It's enough to say, as Matt Welch does, that one supports the freedom element of the right to an abortion. That part is fine. I've never argued we should have 100 percent criminalization of abortion. The squishy ground is where Nick Gillespie treads, and I don't think he acquits himself well. In fact, he's so squishy he harms even the liberty case for the pro-choice position. Libertarianism becomes a license for perverse libertinism. It's sick to think about what happens to the baby when a woman exercises that sliding scale for the termination of pregnancy. But again, that's why I'm neoconservative on domestic issues.

Ed Morrissey, who prompted the clip, has more: "Video: What is the libertarian position on abortion?"

Michelle Goldberg: 'A Feminist With Paranoid Fantasies About Christian Fundamentalists Taking Away Her Sacred Right to Choose'

Robert Stacy McCain has an outstanding piece on journalist Michelle Goldberg: "Daily Beast Writer Claims Obama Is a Victim of Washington’s ‘Pundit Class’."

Stacy says he's never heard of Michelle Goldberg, and he writes:

So she’s a “senior contributing writer” for media grand dame Tina Brown, a feminist with paranoid fantasies about Christian fundamentalists taking away her sacred Right to Choose, and an award-winning author who has written for a half-dozen other liberal outlets.

I can't claim the same ignorance of Michelle Goldberg. I own a copy of Goldberg's book, The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. I read the first few chapters but had to put it down because I was getting nauseous at the literal campaign of death Goldberg advocates.

Anyway, here's Goldberg on communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!

Planned Parenthood Takes on the States

From Charmaine Yoest and Denise Burke, at Wall Street Journal, "A majority of Americans tell pollsters they do not want taxpayer dollars to subsidize abortions."

Without a doubt, measures to defund the abortion industry will remain a top priority for states in 2011 and will re-emerge in 2012. Legislators are responding to the majority of Americans—72% in a 2009 Quinnipiac University poll—who say that they do not want taxpayer dollars to be used to directly provide or indirectly subsidize abortions. Planned Parenthood and the administration appear committed to obstructing these efforts. Clearly, they prefer the status quo of taxpayer-funded largess for abortion providers—a bounty that amounts to $363 million annually in federal and state funds for Planned Parenthood alone.

RELATED: At Life News, "Judge Blocks Indiana Law Stopping Planned Parenthood Funding."