Planned Parenthood, Social Peace, and the Libertarian Approach

The controversy raging over Planned Parenthood is one of the most acrimonious public discussions in recent memory. While the immediate issue concerns the disposition of fetal tissue after abortion (pregnant women can have tissue donated for medical research), the controversy taps into the more basic, and highly charged, conflict between defenders of women's reproductive rights -- the right to choose an abortion -- and defenders of unborn children's right to life. But my purpose here is not to settle that conflict.