A Conservative Libertarianism?

Over at Right Reason, Edward Feser links to a provocative article of his which argues that libertarians should support not only government protection of the physical environment*, but also the moral environment, at least so far as children are concerned. He also argues that libertarians should, on their own premises, oppose legal abortion.

Feser’s contention is that libertarians can’t consistently maintain neutrality with respect to “moral issues” since their own principles require them to take sides in these controversies.

Feser admits that this puts him considerably at odds with the policy prescriptions of mainstream libertarianism, so he now thinks of himself as a “conservative inclined to favor limited government and free markets.”
—————————————————————-
*It’s often thought that libertarianism implies a lack of concern for the envioronment, but in strict logic there’s no reason that this should be the case. Libertarians argue that you are entitled to do what you want with your person or property so long as you don’t aggress against the person or propety of anyone else. Things like pollution, then, obviously can be construed as aggression from which other people are entitled to be protected. Moreover, public interest in things like clean air, which cannot be secured simply by protecting private property rights (since the air can’t be owned), clearly calls for some measure of government intervention. The fact that libertarians tend to be perceived as indifferent to the environment probably has more to do with the political coalitions that exist in the real world than theoretical consistency.