The Ethics of Using Force Against Planned Parenthood
On Nov. 27, Robert Dear allegedly attacked a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., killing three people and wounding nine others. He was then in a standoff with police for five hours before surrendering.
The reaction from politicians and pundits was unanimously against the attack, with many calling the attack an incident of domestic terrorism. It is also clear that Dear was mentally ill and did not live in accordance with his professed beliefs. But let us take a step back from this particular incident and examine in the abstract whether or not Planned Parenthood is a legitimate target for defensive force, what kind of force if so, the morality versus the practicality of such a use of force, and what alternatives to said force might be more effective.
First, there is the matter of speaking out against Planned Parenthood. It should be clear to anyone with a functioning brain that calling attention to the fact that potential human beings will be killed at an abortion clinic regardless of whether a shooter is there does not amount to sympathizing with terrorists, but social justice warriors know no bounds of ignorance. Discourse is always justifiable unless the people engaging in it are on private property and acting against the wishes of the property owner.
With that handled, let us start upon the issue proper. Whether or not Planned Parenthood is a legitimate target for defensive force depends solely upon whether it is violating the non-aggression principle. The activities of interest are the receipt of government funding and the provision of abortion services.
While those who steal and threaten property owners with violence in order to gain some of their resources are primarily responsible for acts of theft and extortion, those who knowingly and willfully receive and use stolen resources bear some vicarious liability. A reasonable standard of defensive force allows for the use of force to recover stolen resources that are being held and used by a party other than the thief, as the alternative would justify theft so long as the thief could quickly fence the stolen resources in order to avoid being caught in possession of them. As such, one would be justified in using force against Planned Parenthood to recover and re-appropriate the 41 percent of its funding that comes from government grants and reimbursements.
The provision of abortion services involves removing a fetus from a woman’s uterus and killing it. The reason that most people have difficulty in figuring out the morality of this is that it weighs fundamental rights against each other: the woman’s right to liberty and property versus the fetus’ right to life. Of course, there are some special cases where there is no such weighing and an abortion is clearly justifiable. If a woman’s life is in imminent danger and the fetus is not yet viable, then there may be a choice between aborting a fetus to save the mother and letting both die. In this case, the fetus is out of luck and the abortion should proceed to preserve what life can be preserved. A birth defect or other illness which causes the fetus not to have the potential to become a sentient being (e.g. anencephaly) also legitimizes an abortion, as carrying the pregnancy to term will accomplish nothing and fail to produce a being with a right to life. But aside from these circumstances, a fertilized egg which implants into the uterus has the potential to become a sentient being. (Implantation is a better starting point for when life begins than conception because at least half of fertilized eggs do not implant in the uterus, but instead leave the uterus as menstruation does.) The rights to liberty and property cannot be exercised without exercising the right to life, and that which is dependent cannot supersede that upon which it is dependent. Thus, the fetus’ right to life overrules the woman’s rights to liberty and property. Therefore, the logical position is to be pro-life until the fetus is viable. After the fetus is viable, the woman may choose to evict it but not to kill it. As killing the fetus is not justifiable, stopping someone from killing the fetus is justifiable.
One might object that a bystander has no agency to protect a fetus threatened with abortion because a bystander is not part of the situation by default and the fetus has not asked for help. But if we were to take this view to its logical conclusion, we would also have to accept such absurdities as requiring paramedics not to help a person who is unconscious and penniless. Like a fetus, an adult who has fallen unconscious and has no resources lacks the capacity to make contracts and has nothing to exchange for help of any kind, but has the potential to gain both in the future if spared death in the present. Cantwell’s analogy of a woman who is beaten by her husband but refuses to take action against her is unsound because the abused woman has the capacity to make contracts but refuses to do so, while a fetus does not. The use of force to protect those who cannot protect themselves and cannot ask for help is justified, so one may use force to stop a person who is going to kill a fetus. This varies from the more immediate self-defense standards of contemporary law and some libertarians, but the difference can be easily explained. Contemporary law is designed to perpetuate the state by making people dependent upon it, so it naturally opposes an expansive view of defensive force by private citizens, instead reserving such actions for agents of the state. Meanwhile, some libertarians reject an expansive view of defensive force due to misunderstanding of the non-aggression principle, deliberate fakery, virtue signaling to statists, or a fear of government violence.
The next question is how much force is justified. If there is a limit to how much defensive force may be used, then all an aggressor need do is escalate the use of force beyond that limit. Having a limit thus means that might makes right, and the idea that might makes right is false by performative contradiction; might only plays a role in shaping outcomes. Therefore, one may respond to an act of aggression with any amount of force necessary to stop the aggression. As Planned Parenthood is an organization which accepts and uses stolen resources to commit acts of murder, and the use of defensive force has no limitation on escalation, Planned Parenthood is a legitimate target for as much defensive force as necessary to stop its immoral activities.
The moral case for using any amount of force necessary to stop Planned Parenthood from killing innocent (potential) sentient beings and funding its operations with stolen resources is clear. But while this is moral, it is frequently impractical. While one would be justified in raiding Planned Parenthood to recover and re-appropriate its stolen resources, hacking away at the branches of evil is generally less effective than striking the root. Planned Parenthood (or any other organization which receives government funding, for that matter) would not be able to receive stolen resources if there were no thieves to steal them. The more effective means, then, is to use force to stop tax collectors and central bankers from stealing in the first place. While one would be justified in raiding Planned Parenthood to prevent fetuses from being killed therein, an attack like that perpetrated by Dear will cause the very problem it is supposed to prevent if any pregnant women or fetuses are killed by the attacker. As mentioned above, there are cases where abortion services are needed. While abortion doctors are still allowed to refuse service (though this right is under attack by NARAL and others), their financial incentive is to perform as many abortions as possible. The abortion providers, while not innocent, are operating under perverse incentives, and it is better to correct those than to physically attack them.
With the use of force against Planned Parenthood shown to be morally justified but tactically unwise, it is worth exploring what else may be done. First, the practice of evictionism cannot be fully realized without better technology that will allow fetuses to be viable at an earlier stage of development. Someone must invent this advanced fetal incubation technology and bring it to market in order to save more potential human beings from death in abortion clinics. Second, birth control should be made available without restrictions so that less unwanted fetuses are created. Third, feminist arguments against slut shaming should be countered and the value of its practice against females and males alike should be recognized. Regardless of whether there is a welfare state, people who behave in a promiscuous manner and cannot afford the costs of doing so will visit those costs upon other people. Finally, and most importantly, the state must be abolished. The state is ultimately responsible for Planned Parenthood operating with stolen resources and performing more abortions than would otherwise occur, restrictions on access to birth control, regulations that hinder advances in medicine and technology, and the perverse incentives of welfare statism that encourage r-selected behavior in humans, a historically K-selected species. If these measures are taken, then the problems with the current operation of Planned Parenthood might not be solved peacefully, but they will be solved without direct violence against Planned Parenthood.
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