Doris Gordon, founder and longtime coordinator of Libertarians for Life, died on July 7 at Holy Cross Hospital, Silver Spring, Md., after a struggle with meningitis and other health problems. She was 85. Surviving her are daughter Julie Gordon, son Monte Gordon, and five grandchildren. She lost her husband, Nathan Gordon, in 1987.
A Bronx native, Mrs. Gordon graduated from Hunter College and taught elementary-school students in New York City before moving to Maryland.
She became active in the libertarian movement, and eventually quite active against abortion. She stressed the concept of parental obligation. “By causing children to be,” she wrote, “parents also cause them to need support; it’s a package deal.”
In one of her articles, she used a great example to show the injustice of abortion: “Conception followed by eviction from the womb could be compared to capturing someone, placing him on an airplane, and then shoving him out without a parachute in mid-flight. We have no right to endanger others without their consent and then intentionally or negligently fail to protect them from the harm.”
In another piece, she protested the idea of suggesting different and unequal tiers of humanity. “The unalienable right not to be unjustly killed applies equally to all human beings,” she wrote, adding that a “two-tiered legal policy on human offspring that defines a superior class with rights, and an inferior class without rights, is not libertarian.”
Mrs. Gordon’s burial will be on Thursday, July 17, 1 p.m., at the Veterans Cemetery, 11301 Crain Highway (U.S. Route 301), Cheltenham, Md. 20623 (about eight miles south of Upper Marlboro). Afterwards there will be a reception for friends at 13424 Hathaway Drive, Wheaton, Md. 20906. Memorial donations may be sent to Libertarians for Life at the same address. They will be used to maintain the Libertarians for Life website (L4L.org), which offers a large collection of articles by Mrs. Gordon and other pro-life libertarians.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
