Abortion - State Rights

[Feeding the Abscess]

Then why has he introduced legislation defining life as begining at conception this congressional session and why is it in his issues page? He doesn't necessarily support a constitutional amendment, but that's because he sees it as redundant.

Good question, because he endorses hormonal birth control, the morning after pill, and an estrogen shot after rape to prevent implantation. Taken in conjunction with the personhood stance, Ron Paul is a mass murderer. He also endorses expelling ectopic pregnancies.

From legal peeps:

Such legislative declarations are nonbinding statements of policy and are used by federal courts in the context of determining the intent of the legislature in legal challenges.

The purpose of the act is to completely sever the federal government from involvement in the issue.

[eduardo89]

Good question, because he endorses hormonal birth control, the morning after pill, and an estrogen shot after rape to prevent implantation. Taken in conjunction with the personhood stance, Ron Paul is a mass murderer. He also endorses expelling ectopic pregnancies.

He doesn't "endorse" any of those, but he has stated that those options are more acceptable that abortifacients.

And why even bother bringing up ectopic pregnancy? If those are not removed te mother will almost surely die and there is no chance the child will ever live if the egg implants itself outside the uterus.

[Feeding the Abscess]

He doesn't "endorse" any of those, but he has stated that those options are more acceptable that abortifacients.

And why even bother bringing up ectopic pregnancy? If those are not removed te mother will almost surely die and there is no chance the child will ever live if the egg implants itself outside the uterus.

If life begins at conception, that would be ending the life of the fetus, according to some (I don't see it that way - I see evicting or expelling and neglecting to feed the fetus/baby is not murder. Chopping it up is a different issue). What right do we have to play God and determine what lives and what doesn't?



He says, as an OB doctor, he endorses the idea of birth control, stated in the most recent debate that he dealt with hormonal birth control for years as an OB doctor, and said to Piers Morgan that he'd give a shot of estrogen to a raped woman to prevent implantation. He also endorsed the morning after pill in Liberty Defined and in a debate during the summer.

I'm not stating all of this to undermine Ron Paul's pro-life stance, call him a murderer, etc. I'm stating all of this to show that clearly Ron Paul holds conflicting views on personhood and his medical practices. I have a very hard time believing that an OB doctor wouldn't understand the implications of personhood and hormonal birth control, so I'm left to conclude that his personhood signing statements are political gamesmanship.

[MaxPower]

If life begins at conception, that would be ending the life of the fetus, according to some (I don't see it that way - I see evicting or expelling and neglecting to feed the fetus/baby is not murder. Chopping it up is a different issue). What right do we have to play God and determine what lives and what doesn't?



He says, as an OB doctor, he endorses the idea of birth control, stated in the most recent debate that he dealt with hormonal birth control for years as an OB doctor, and said to Piers Morgan that he'd give a shot of estrogen to a raped woman to prevent implantation. He also endorsed the morning after pill in Liberty Defined and in a debate during the summer.

I'm not stating all of this to undermine Ron Paul's pro-life stance, call him a murderer, etc. I'm stating all of this to show that clearly Ron Paul holds conflicting views on personhood and his medical practices. I have a very hard time believing that an OB doctor wouldn't understand the implications of personhood and hormonal birth control, so I'm left to conclude that his personhood signing statements are political gamesmanship.

FeedingtheAbscess, expelling ectopic pregnancies is a strictly defensive practice, protecting the mother from physical harm or death; Libertarians do not hold that strictly defensive killing is unlawful. As for birth control, it appears to me that Ron Paul's position may be that personhood must be recognized from the point of implantation, not fertilization-- and lest you think this is necessarily inconsistent with saying that "life begins at conception," note, for example, that in "OB & GYN Terminology," (E. Hughes, ed., Philadelphia: F.A. Davis, 1972), "conception" is defined as occurring at the point of "the implantation of the blastocyst," not at fertilization.

[Feeding the Abscess]

FeedingtheAbscess, expelling ectopic pregnancies is a strictly defensive practice, protecting the mother from physical harm or death; Libertarians do not hold that strictly defensive killing is unlawful. As for birth control, it appears to me that Ron Paul's position may be that personhood must be recognized from the point of implantation, not fertilization-- and lest you think this is necessarily inconsistent with saying that "life begins at conception," note, for example, that in "OB & GYN Terminology," (E. Hughes, ed., Philadelphia: F.A. Davis, 1972), "conception" is defined as occurring at the point of "the implantation of the blastocyst," not at fertilization.

I'm aware of that definition of conception, but Gingrich was pilloried by personhood groups for using the implantation definition. The personhood groups are using fertilization as their definition, as do many here. And in the interview with Piers Morgan @12:40 mark, Ron seemed to take the fertilization definition, too, and still advocated the use of birth control and an estrogen shot to prevent implantation, saying there's no way to prove that conception took place:



"Well, you don't know if you're taking a life" - Ron Paul

Also factor in the following, @36:45:



To wrap up, Ron's pretty clearly personally pro-life, but his political stance is not aligned with what pro-life groups advocate. When talking to pro-lifers, discuss Ron's personal stance, as he typically does in interviews, and back that up with his idea to strip federal courts of jurisdiction as a way to achieve fewer abortions; when talking to pro-choicers, play up his statements like the one found in the video above, and buttress it with the quotes from Liberty Defined, like:

This is a profound issue to be determined by society itself based on the moral value it espouses.

and

So if we are ever to have fewer abortions, society must change again. The law will not accomplish that.

[Wags]

I think it boils down to the quote you ^ provided:

So if we are ever to have fewer abortions, society must change again. The law will not accomplish that.

He also said something like this: "The law does not influence the morality of the people. The morality of the people will reflect on this issue/on what's right."

The more localized the government, the more people become involved in the issues. I'm not sure about amendments so I can't comment on that, but he has stated many, many times during debates and perhaps in a few interviews that the states should decide whether to legalize abortion... just as with any other moral issue. Murder, rape, and so on are handled on the state level. Abortion is a particularly tricky issue, but I can give you good reasons why it shouldn't be regulated on the federal level:

1) Banning it across the board will not influence the morality of the people as stated before; women will still get abortions, and seek out unsafe methods to do so
2) Banning or legalizing it across the board will make half the nation unhappy with that kind of national, moral jurisdiction. It'd be near impossible to overturn something that I think is immoral if it's legislated on the federal level. So, while many women are happy to have the choice available to them, I am unhappy that the unborn are silenced by their own mothers. A fetus is an individual entity with its DNA as the biological proof. The mother owns her body, but not her unborn child's body and so she should not feel compelled to do as she pleases with the innocent fetus.

And on the morning-after pill for rape victims, I don't see anything wrong with Ron Paul's views on that. You can't legislate against the pill if you can't detect and prove that a zygote had formed. The crime would be silly: "Arrested because there may or may not have been an innocent life that formed" ... and what if there WAS no life? Then it was not a crime, and we'd be punishing women for committing nothing wrong.

My personal belief is that I don't condone the morning-after pill, but that's not to say it should be criminalized. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Paul is essentially saying the same.