Just as George W. Bush repeatedly found it convenient to violate the Constitution he swore to “protect and defend,” the Gazette simply abandons previously published positions when convenient. In the January 5, 2009 “Opinion” column, the Gazette rejects its allegedly cherished libertarian principles by cheering the latest attack upon the most basic of human freedoms – the freedom to control one's own body.

“Abortion is not an entitlement”¹ supports George W. Bush's “...late-hour lame duck edict,” the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) oxymoronic “Final Regulation to Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination.”² The editorial (and the “edict”) hold that the rights of hospitals, administrators, employers and individuals providing medical services from positions of paid professional responsibility supersede the rights of individuals paying those providers for medical services from positions of medical need. Apparently, the medical provider's “right” to withhold medical services extends even to denying abortion in cases of ectopic pregnancy, in which incorrect implantation “ultimately ends in [the] death of the fetus,”³ and the mother faces emergent organ rupture, hemorrhage, sepsis and death – a situation some 73,700 women experienced in 1986 alone.⁴

The Libertarian Party Platform states, “...all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.”⁵ While almost everyone chooses their career and where they work, very few choose where they receive medical care, especially in emergencies. It is unethical for anyone to accept a position including responsibilities they have no intention of providing (such as a person opposing birth control taking a job as a pharmacist then refusing to dispense birth control), especially in professional medical settings. If a person opposes human freedom (such the right of women to control their reproduction), it appears unethical for them to claim to defend human freedom or accept positions including the responsibility to defend human freedom – be that at a newspaper or the White House.

This exact fallacious, spurious and illogical argument - the service provider's right to deny services to (discriminate against) [insert minority name here] trumps the [insert minority name here]'s right to purchase those services (not to be discriminated against) - litters history, often in conjunction with the most infamous examples of gross violations of human equality and civil rights. By employing this argument in support of Bush's HHS “final regulation,” the Gazette shatters its assumed facade of libertarianism, formally supporting a policy that would allow employees of the United States to discriminate at will (against those least able to defend themselves) by forcibly denying human beings' access to medical care. Historical precedents for such governmental policies are chilling.

The “Abortion is not an entitlement” column and its anonymous writer(s) at the Gazette demonstrate what appears as complete disregard for the foundations of their alleged philosophical framework and rejects basic human freedoms defined by the United States Constitution. The fact that this editorial aligns the Gazette with probably the most demonstrably unethical, incompetent and discredited presidential administration in history suggests that the writers of “Abortion is not an entitlement” are far more supportive of the discriminatory policies of George W. Bush than the libertarian principles they so often and so loudly proclaim.

This response was submitted to the Colorado Springs Gazette via email on January 12, 2009 but apparently was not published.