John Locke hints at all the arguments that will come later about abortion and dystopian bio-engineering schemes.
His opponent deduces absolute monarchy from absolute patriarchy. He argues that the father is the one who gives life to his children and therefore has complete authority over them, including the right to sell them into slavery of kill them.
Locke replies that a giver does not necessarily have the right to take back the gift at any time he wants. Nor does he have the right to dictate to the receiver in all cases how the gift may be used. This argument fails to prove the position.
Locke also points out that no Father really knows where life comes from. He does not knit his child together in his mother’s womb. Life comes from God, and we don’t understand even how it all works.
So one can see the potential, later in history, when science expands and some humans believe they know all and can “knit” things with better tools, that there might be a crisis in liberty.
But the point here is that the father of Western libertarianism in arguing against totalitarianism was, in the process, arguing against abortion.
