Libertarian Silence Letter II

07/15/2022

Libertarian Party National Headquarters, 1444 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA  22314

Dear Libertarian Party HQ,

I am writing again (see letter from May) to ask you to REALLY fight for our bodily autonomy.  It is a phrase that has been employed by my party to protest face masks in a global pandemic, but there has been a deafening silence when it comes to Reproductive Freedom.  Since I wrote that letter in May, the Supreme Court has ruled in exactly the way the leaked decision said they would.  As I stated before: “the majority opinion of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade shows in chilling detail just how autocratic, just how oppressive, just how misogynist the current Supreme Court has become…My party should be up in arms.  Instead, my party, the party of principle, the party of freedom, chooses to focus on anything, literally anything else.”

In the Libertarian Response to the State of the Union, which omitted any words supporting reproductive freedom LNC Chair Whitney Bilyeu spoke of the “heavy hand of government”, she spoke of “the use of force, coercion and theft to control and manipulate us, turning us against one another” and there is no better example of this than the oppressive laws being passed in state after state offering rewards to Americans who turn in doctors and pregnant women who will be jailed for using or providing this basic essential medical service.  These laws will not affect the rich, or the well connected, just poor desperate women who are harassed and harangued at the entrances to women’s health clinics.  I was told by the communications director in February that this is a “Federal Government issue”.  And the Texas LP was addressing the Texas law.  It is NOW a “federal issue”.  A bodily autonomy issue that twenty-six state governments are energetically destroying.  I like to say we, the Libertarians, are pro-choice on everything, but the focus of the Libertarian’s harsh criticism in the light of recent events has NOT been on protecting this fundamental human right, my party is SILENT.  The Libertarian Party must take a strong pro-choice position.  I ask again, if not us, then who?

I would appreciate a response to this letter outlining how my party is planning to end this despicable silence.  

Sincerely yours,

Catherine G. Tripp, Libertarian Silver Member and Monthly Contributor