Abortion and Liberty?

[Cake]

I think Ron Paul's stance on abortion is probably his most prominent obstacle among women voters. No matter what side of the debate one stands, it is a very difficult issue.

Having examined Ron Paul's words on the matter, I am left with a few questions. Ron Paul has apparently said that he believes life begins at conception. I agree. However, one could even argue that life begins before that. It then becomes necessary that we draw a line.

Semen is not considered a collective of human life protected by the constitution. As unreasonable a question as it might seem, how do we differentiate? Is a sperm human? It is human DNA, yes, but is it a person?

The Constitution is explicit in protecting persons, but does not truly define personhood. The question that must be answered to resolve the logical question of abortion has to do with the moment "human life" becomes a "person" with protected rights under the Constitution of the United States. I am not totally convinced that medical science has yet answered that question, but before the question can be answered, the appropriate question must be asked?

What is a person?

Certainly, such a question has been asked many times before, but no universally accepted answer has emerged. It becomes a principle dilemma for logical analysis independent of emotional or moral attachment to the issue.

This is the crucial question regarding liberty: At what point is a person a person?

Certainly, I have no weight in my opinion above any other person, but I personally define a person as a human being that is capable of consciousness. Now, that is not to say that a born adult or child in a coma or vegetative state is not a person. After all, having been already born, the legal question is simple and thus answered. Once you are born as a person, you are a person, and persons have rights. It is the unborn that remain the mystery and there lies the controversy of abortion.

Consider if a person were born with two bodies and only one head. Would we deny them the right to remove one of the bodies because it is human life? I would think not.

Now, consider if a person were born with two heads, both containing living thinking brains. Now, I believe we would reject the idea that one could simply have the other removed, and thereby have its life ended.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and almost all other sources, the human brain does not start to develop until the fifth week of pregnancy. For this reason, it is difficult to argue that a woman should be denied liberty over her own body, until that point.

Now, I would very much like to know what Ron Paul thinks about this, and this is of course, a deciding issue for many women whom I have tried to convince to support Ron Paul.

 

[teacherone]

Welcome Cake to your first thread - soon to be 25 pages long.

By the way, most forums have a search function - ours is located in the top right corner.

Entering the term "abortion" will yield you hundreds of results where ronpaulforum members talk past each other fruitlessly for pages on end.

 

[sevin]

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and almost all other sources, the human brain does not start to develop until the fifth week of pregnancy. For this reason, it is difficult to argue that a woman should be denied liberty over her own body, until that point.

Now, I would very much like to know what Ron Paul thinks about this, and this is of course, a deciding issue for many women whom I have tried to convince to support Ron Paul.

Yea, I always thought a good compromise on the abortion issue would be to check for brain waves. If there are none, then go ahead with the abortion. Doubt that will ever happen, though.

I think the best thing Ron Paul can do is continue to emphasize that abortion should be left up to the states and not the federal government. Seems like that would make the most people happy.

 

[Cake]

Yea, I always thought a good compromise on the abortion issue would be to check for brain waves. If there are none, then go ahead with the abortion. Doubt that will ever happen, though.

I think the best thing Ron Paul can do is continue to emphasize that abortion should be left up to the states and not the federal government. Seems like that would make the most people happy.

Yes, he should emphasize that. However, he should also be forthcoming in that if it is left to the states to decide, it will always be legal and obtainable somewhere.

 

[Cake]

@teacherone: Thank you for the welcome.

Perhaps I may soon find this thread in the state of debate, but I am not concerned as much with so many individuals' feelings about the matter. What I would like to know, is how Ron Paul would answer the questions I pose.

 

[Buchananite]

If the Supreme Court rules abortion as murder, the states won't be able to legalize it. And I hope they do.

It shouldn't be about getting votes, but about sticking to principle.

 

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

it's not fair to the father and the child to assume because the woman bakes the baby in her oven, she gets to play God and decide if it lives or dies. 99.9% of the time, the woman isn't being forced to have a child. If abortion is legal, it shouldn't be homicide if someone crashes into her vehicle causing a miscarriage, or what not.

Legal responsibility doesn't help either. One of my closest friends got his girlfriend pregnant, then she immediately broke up with him. Now she's pimping him for child support, and won custody of the child. Why should he pay child support for a child he isn't allowed to take care of? Complete crap.

I know another guy that had to pay so much child support, he just quit his job, because the money he had after paying all of the child support was less than if he collected freakin' food stamps.

If women can decide to have a child or not, to keep the father paying with a leash, the father should be able to disown the child if he doesn't want the responsibility for it, but she does, so he isn't an indentured servant for 18 years.

 

[Yieu]

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and almost all other sources, the human brain does not start to develop until the fifth week of pregnancy. For this reason, it is difficult to argue that a woman should be denied liberty over her own body, until that point.

Lets not confuse the issue: being able to have an abortion is not about human liberty (it is a moral issue of who can rightfully be to be an arbiter of life), and it is not about the woman's body, it is about the child's body.

And it shouldn't be about when the brain develops, as the soul is present before there is a brain, and the presence of a soul is what determines of something is alive in the ultimate and spiritual sense, though I understand that not everyone understands that the soul exists.

 

[Icymudpuppy]

What business is it of anyone but that woman if she is pregnant or not?

If she chooses to keep it under wraps and hires an undocumented person to perform the procedure would we even know enough to care?

If she chooses to involve her family or go to her regular physician, who is the public to demand her personal records from her private relationships?

From my standpoint... NO PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN ABORTION.... NO PUBLIC FUNDING TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD.

What they do with their private lives and private funds is none of my business.

 

[klamath]

Honestly I think you need to back up and question your asertion- women voters are for abortion and that is why RP does so poorly with them. In the last 30 years there have been 3 presidents that have won the presidency, some overwhelmingly that have been anti abortion. All the women in my family are the most antiabortion. Now maybe if RP would change his stand on abortion he would do better with you but RP has made his ideas very clear on the subject and isn't likely to change to get proabortion women voters.

Yes and do use search as you could see your very questions have been debated to the ground in many many 100/500 plus post threads.

 

[dannno]

I tend to agree with the OP on some issues.

What if someone, let's call him Scottie, went to a hotel that catered to people on their Honeymoon and after a bunch of new guests arrive, after everyone has gone off to bed Scottie pulls the fire alarm?

One of the couples, Fred and Jenny, were in the process of having intercourse where a sperm, let's call this sperm Charles, was supposed to be released and enter the egg and form a unique life. Before the fire alarm was pulled, this was "potential life" with a unique DNA sequence that would have been formed.. but instead, another sperm, we'll call him "Spencer" ends up in the egg and creating a different unique DNA sequence after all the hub-bub dies down and people go back to their rooms.

So what is the difference before and after the Charles sperm enters the egg? Not much, imo. Both are "potential life". Until "potential life" becomes "actual life", of which the definitions may vary by individual, I don't think it is murder.

But the main reason I am pro-choice is because I think all mother deserve privacy during their pregnancy. I'd hate to see women who have miscarriages investigated by law enforcement.

 

[Shane Harris]

a sperm has insufficient chromosomes in my book to be considered a life. i believe life starts at conception

 

[dannno]

a sperm has insufficient chromosomes in my book to be considered a life. i believe life starts at conception

Right, it is "potential life", imo.. and so are the mass of cells after conception. I don't think life starts until there are brainwaves and on top of that self awareness.. and even at that stage, where I would consider abortion "wrong", I don't know that I want the privacy element taken out of women's pregnancies.

If there is a spirit, I doubt it enters at conception.

 

[Phil]

I have to agree with the OP here. My mom and I were watching RP on Piers Morgan the other night and he talked about how he's pro-life and that shut my mom off almost completely. I'm sure I'll be able to convince her to vote for RP come voting time, but this is definitely a delicate issue for women.

 

[Yieu]

But the main reason I am pro-choice is because I think all mother deserve privacy during their pregnancy. I'd hate to see women who have miscarriages investigated by law enforcement.

You don't have to be pro-choice to be against law enforcement coming after women who may or may not have had abortions. I am pro-life for religious reasons, and I do not think having the law go after women is the answer either. So that alone isn't good enough reason to be pro-abortion.

Also, your analogy above doesn't make sense. To help you understand at which point the sperm and egg become a unique lifeform -- they become a unique lifeform with its own unique DNA when they become a zygote, which is the new cell after they are joined as one (which is the step after the sperm entering the egg).

And back to what kind of punishment there is for abortion. The law of Karma will make sure that if not in this life, perhaps in the next or some several lives down the line there will be punishment/retribution for the bad karma of abortion. So we need not fear that it will go unpunished, and need not have law enforcement go after or investigate women who may well be completely innocent.

 

[Sola_Fide]

No one has ever argued that sperm or eggs are people.

Anyway, if you want to know how Ron would answer these questions, you can Google "Liberty Defined Abortion" and read the first chapter for free.

 

[The Free Hornet]

Is the pertinent question, "How to convince pro-choice* women and men to vote for Ron Paul?".

[* or pro-abortion if that works better]

I would advocate the following,

* Stress all the ways Ron Paul would free individuals to address their own medical concerns without state intervention (hello RU-486 - if heroin is legal, how can RU-486 be illegal? )

* Stress getting government OUT of the patient-doctor relationship

* Ron is pro-freedom and that is more important

* The likely worst case scenario is that an individual's state passes some unpalatable law and the Supreme Court - not Ron Paul - upholds their right to do so. So the battle is on the state and judicial levels.

* Issues like viability, stem-cell research, birth control technologies are always changing as are the morals about these issues. Ron Paul does not want the Federal government exceeding its constitutional power.

* The only risk is if a constitutional amendment is passed. This requires 2/3rds of the House and Senate and 3/4ths of the state legislatures (or ratifying conventions which has been used only once, to repeal prohibition). The President has ZERO authority to pass or block an amendment. (Am I wrong?)

* Argue that, while some AND Ron Paul care vary deeply about the abortion issue, most of us want to restore our republic and not fall like the the USSR or get owned like Greece by foreign creditors.

* Add getting rid of the Patriot Act and other unconstitutional snooping powers which may be how a ban is enforced. A law that can't be enforced is - however unpalatable - not as harmful/effective.

Anywho, I think the thread/argument is best focused on how to market Ron Paul to people who are hardliners one way or the other. This battle won't end here regardless of the presidential vote.

 

[robert68]

it's not fair to the father and the child to assume because the woman bakes the baby in her oven, she gets to play God and decide if it lives or dies. 99.9% of the time, the woman isn't being forced to have a child. If abortion is legal, it shouldn't be homicide if someone crashes into her vehicle causing a miscarriage, or what not.

Legal responsibility doesn't help either. One of my closest friends got his girlfriend pregnant, then she immediately broke up with him. Now she's pimping him for child support, and won custody of the child. Why should he pay child support for a child he isn't allowed to take care of? Complete crap.

I know another guy that had to pay so much child support, he just quit his job, because the money he had after paying all of the child support was less than if he collected freakin' food stamps.

If women can decide to have a child or not, to keep the father paying with a leash, the father should be able to disown the child if he doesn't want the responsibility for it, but she does, so he isn't an indentured servant for 18 years.

I agree that a biological father should have the opportunity to wave legal fatherly obligations, though with the possible exception of when the biologial father is wealthy. Children need more than a possible paycheck for a father. If the biological mother has no way to support the child otherwise, she can put the child up for adoption, where it can get such support and have two capable and willing parents.

 

[dannno]

No one has ever argued that sperm or eggs are people.

Ya, but a lot of people argue that as soon as the sperm enters the egg it becomes a person.. I don't think it's really a person until they are self-aware.

 

[robert68]

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