Other: Did Ron Paul Convince you on Abortion?

[Wags]

Nah, but the fact that Paul's views on abortion aligned with mine led me to seek out his views on other matters. He did sway me on other issues: non-interventionism, abolishing min wage, laissez-faire capitalism, and so on.

You 'guys' do know we need a lot more college-age girls around here don't you?
Ever wonder why there is (generally) such a lack of women in the ranks?
Pro-choice is the Libertarian way!

Abortion is a woman’s choice and does not concern the state

I'm a girl in college and I'm against abortion. If you're trying to suggest something about genders on this issue, I think it's irrelevant.

If this is true (a fetus being human), no human has the right to force someone else to care for it and sustain their life; as such, neither does a fetus. Arguing otherwise would logically mean that rights belong to groups of people rather than individuals. Ethically, forcing a woman to sustain a fetus against her will is no different than forcing us to sustain people who choose not to work.

This also means that killing the fetus, unless its presence is a mortal threat to the mother, is not permissible. Evicting the fetus, however, is not murder; otherwise, declining to give a sandwich to a starving man would be murder.

"No human has the right to force..."

Riddle me this: How does an unconscious fetus knowingly commit a crime against the mother?

If the fetus doesn't knowingly commit a crime, how does it then follow that we are to hold the fetus accountable, via death?

On your second point here, abortion and evicting a fetus are not the same thing. Abortion is an act to secure the death of the fetus. This is not a matter of simply "evicting" someone. The closest any abortion procedure comes to resembling an "eviction" is something very similar to a Caesarian section which cuts off the umbilical cord while the 6-7 month old fetus is still in the womb (correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe fetuses are said to develop "viability" at this point). Of course, when you cut off the oxygen like that, it results in the suffocation and death of the fetus. If the fetus were permitted to come out of the mother's body before cutting the cord, it would probably live. The C-section abortion is not close enough to an eviction. All abortion procedures aim to secure the death of the fetus.

 

[crhoades]

Check out Ron Paul's book Abortion and Liberty for an expanded argument on his views.

I was already a pro-life proponent (hence taking the effort to retype this book) but i must say I would like to have a sit down discussion with him on the case of rape and the morning after pill. He has broached it a couple of times but they were compressed and he didn't get his whole reasoning out.

 

[muzzled dogg]

He reaffirmed that it's more local than federal

I go as far as to say that let each woman decide

 

[awake]

Defending the idea of life logically involves the smallest and most delicate humans. Government funding and legislation of this moral issue should be stopped. I can't think of something more immoral than to force people (taxation) to fund a relentless attempt to convert a mothers womb into a lethal injection death chamber.

Dr. Paul sealed the deal on my views.

 

[Supernaut]

No, and thankfully he never tried to push the issue down my throat. It never appeared to have been on of his main issues, and it shouldn't be.

 

[Zach Vega]

Well, killing people should be illegal. That's just my take on it.

 

[Tankbot85]

Nope, it is still a womans right to choose what she does with her body.

 

[Kluge]

I put it in the same category as marriage: Get the gov't out of it completely. It's too complex for one person to make the decision for another from many points of view. Between a doctor/patient, and only those others as the woman decides.

 

[HigherVision]

Just curious, because he convinced me about the immorality of the wars and the real danger to our civil liberties. He seems to be the only pro-life candidate/politician who could actually convince people about the immorality of abortion because of his stance on other issues. Just curious though, not trying to start a debate about abortion.

Nah, I was already against killing babies. I don't care if it makes certain women mad, sucking up to immoral women is for chumps. When I was younger though I might have said I was for it.

Nope, it is still a womans right to choose what she does with her body.

Under this logic women should be allowed to strangle people because after all her hands, her body.

If abortion is legal then men should be under no obligation to pay child's support to a woman. He should have the same ability to thwart his responsibilities that she does. We live in a misandrist culture when a woman has every right to kill the baby growing inside her if she doesn't want to assume responsibility for parenting it but if a man doesn't want to assume this same responsibility watch out. He's a deadbeat dad, a no good chump. He needs to 'man up' and 'take care of his'. But when the same standard is applied to a woman it's all 'back off!' 'Her body, her choice!' Well that's a bullshit anti-male double standard and no one who's truly for liberty should support it. & by the way I think that the idea of 'getting the government out of it' is utopian and silly. That to me just seems like a way to dodge the issue and not take a stand on it. Government certainly will stay in it, probably for our whole lives. So we should try to affect the laws that we live under under our government, because realistically it isn't going anywhere. And if that means alienating some people I say fuck it, even if it's people you want to have sex with.

 

[BestVirginia]

After reading Liberty Defined, I definitely came away with an evolved view on abortion. At this point, I am personally against it. But there are a couple problems:

1. The line between fetus and human is too blurry.

2. If abortion were to be outlawed, they would still happen. Only in much more unsafe conditions for the mother.

3. Woman SHOULD have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies, just as much as men. At some point however, it is not just THEIR body we are talking about.

If I could manage to sort out those issues, I'd have a much clearer idea on abortion. But I don't, and this is not a critical issue for me, so it rests in a sort of mental purgatory for me.

 

[brandon]

Nope I'm still pro-choice.

 

[Athan]

Yup. Ron Paul did indeed fully convince me.

At the time, I was just fustrated with the pointlessness of the debate (it was going nowhere) and how it was simply being used as a wedge issue for each side. Dr. Paul gave me a clear conscience and understanding of the position. I could also trust him, and not feel just some fool was trying to make me pull the lever for a party. It means more than you think to simply tell the truth all the time.

 

[fr33]

I was always pro-life but people like Ron Paul set me straight on the death penalty so now I'm truly pro-life.

 

[jmdrake]

Just curious, because he convinced me about the immorality of the wars and the real danger to our civil liberties. He seems to be the only pro-life candidate/politician who could actually convince people about the immorality of abortion because of his stance on other issues. Just curious though, not trying to start a debate about abortion.

Ron Paul's consistency on being pro life for unborn American babies and living Arab babies (anti war) definitely clinched the deal for me becoming pro life. But I started having second thoughts about abortion when I saw how eager the left was to see the life of Terri Schiavo. True that's "end of life" instead of the beginning of life. And I'm not mad at those with differences of opinions on either side. But the way MoveOn.org tried to make pulling the plug on her a cause celeb shocked me and got me thinking. Also learning about the racism of Magaret Sanger (thanks Alex Jones and others) gave me great pause. I handed out fliers for Ron Paul at a pro life rally and found out that most pro lifers seemed like pretty decent people. (Shocker I know!) Then when sign waiving for Dr. Paul at the 2008 primary, I met a Hillary Clinton supporter who kept badgering me about how Dr. Paul should "just support Hillary". I explained to her that he simply disagreed with Hillary on certain key issues. She kept badgering me further so I brought up abortion. She acted like I had just kicked her puppy. After droning on and on about the usual "How dare he try to control my body" crap, she went on to say "There wouldn't be so many people in prison if there were more abortions". Of course it was fine that she was a single mom because she was responsible. Needless to say most of the people in prison are black and she was white. If I had had any food in my stomach I would have thrown up. This confirmed what I had already begun to suspect. Liberal doesn't necessarily mean "not racist" and conservative doesn't necessarily mean "racist" and I shouldn't blindly embrace every policy some party says I'm supposed to embrace.

 

[Kluge]

Ron Paul's consistency on being pro life for unborn American babies and living Arab babies (anti war) definitely clinched the deal for me becoming pro life. But I started having second thoughts about abortion when I saw how eager the left was to see the life of Terri Schiavo. True that's "end of life" instead of the beginning of life. And I'm not mad at those with differences of opinions on either side. But the way MoveOn.org tried to make pulling the plug on her a cause celeb shocked me and got me thinking. Also learning about the racism of Magaret Sanger (thanks Alex Jones and others) gave me great pause. I handed out fliers for Ron Paul at a pro life rally and found out that most pro lifers seemed like pretty decent people. (Shocker I know!) Then when sign waiving for Dr. Paul at the 2008 primary, I met a Hillary Clinton supporter who kept badgering me about how Dr. Paul should "just support Hillary". I explained to her that he simply disagreed with Hillary on certain key issues. She kept badgering me further so I brought up abortion. She acted like I had just kicked her puppy. After droning on and on about the usual "How dare he try to control my body" crap, she went on to say "There wouldn't be so many people in prison if there were more abortions". Of course it was fine that she was a single mom because she was responsible. Needless to say most of the people in prison are black and she was white. If I had had any food in my stomach I would have thrown up. This confirmed what I had already begun to suspect. Liberal doesn't necessarily mean "not racist" and conservative doesn't necessarily mean "racist" and I shouldn't blindly embrace every policy some party says I'm supposed to embrace.

Personally, I've found that many white liberals are quite racist, hence their support for abortion/welfare/affirmative action, etc. They think that black people need them to "make it," like they're some benevolent parental figure.

And they rarely realize it.

 

[Kluge]

dupe

 

[jmdrake]

Personally, I've found that many white liberals are quite racist, hence their support for abortion/welfare/affirmative action, etc. They think that black people need them to "make it," like they're some benevolent parental figure.

And they rarely realize it.

Well those ready to have Clarence Thomas "put back in the fields" or "strung up" certainly are.

 

[WhistlinDave]

As someone who believes in Karma and Reincarnation, the issue is not quite as black and white for me as it might be for others. Because at the point when the baby becomes sentient and capable of feeling pain and suffering, in my world view, the person (baby) chose that body to inhabit, and they chose that family and/or mother and that life circumstance in order to work on whatever Karmic task(s) they are working on this time around, on their path to eventual enlightenment.

So I believe the baby who is aborted, and who is old enough to feel it, chose that experience this time around in order to work off some significant Karmic debt from a past lifetime or lifetimes. Therefore, the baby isn't an innocent, unwilling participant. That person chose to be there and needs to be there, as crazy as that might sound.

I imagine perhaps someone who caused a great deal of death and suffering to others might come back hundreds or thousands of times or more in order to experience the horror of being killed in the womb. (Hitler, for example. He's got quite a lot of bad Karma to work off, and might spend a lot of time getting aborted over and over before he can move on to experience any semblance of a lifetime again. Complete speculation on my part, and yes, probably sounds pretty crazy to most people who are unfamiliar with the ideas of Karma and Reincarnation.)

Now... Even if that's the way it works, that still does not make it OK from a moral standpoint unless there are other factors (unsafe pregnancy/danger to mom, etc.). Because if a baby is sentient, i.e. old enough to feel pain and suffering, then the people doing this to them (the mother and the doctor) are now committing an act that is causing suffering to another being for one's own convenience or profit, and so this is bad Karma for the adults, and they'll need to deal with that Karma at some point. If not in this lifetime, then in some other one.

The thing about Karma and Reincarnation is, it's the only theological philosophy that allows bad things to happen to babies and other innocent people and still allows you to have Cosmic Justice (or in Christian terms, a "just God."). I suppose that's why I've always gravitated to this belief, because I do choose to believe in an omnipresent consciousness at the base core of the fabric of the Universe, that maintains a perfectly balanced, just equation in the end, but the Biblical concepts of God and morality are way too inconsistent and leave far too many unanswered questions for my preference. (e.g. How can you have a just and loving God and have innocent babies aborted, or kids born starving in thirld world countries, or born deformed and/or suffering, etc... You can't. Unless you have Karma and Reincarnation, that is. Atheism didn't resonate with me any more than Catholicism did... But I digress...)

Anyway... I do think once the baby is sentient (able to feel and suffer), even if the victim chose to be there it is still an act of murder on the part of the perpetrator; abortion is some pretty bad Karma for those doing it. I believe people shouldn't do it. I just don't know if I should have government enforce this belief without exception.

I think I agree with Dr. Paul this should not be regulated on the Federal level, and should be left up to the states for a few reasons:

1. As others have already pointed out, people are going to obtain unsafe abortions if it's made illegal across the board;

2. People could vote with their feet; California could keep it legal while North Carolina could make it illegal, and anybody living in a state where it's illegal could still conceivably cross state lines to go get a safe one elsewhere; and

3. Since there will probably always be people who believe it's not murder, and they are going to do it whether I like it or not, then all I can say is, their Karma is on their own head, and I can't make it my concern beyond perhaps trying to convince them to reconsider their viewpoint. To do otherwise (ban abortion at the Federal level) is impractical. You can't make everyone happy, truly, on this issue, but having the government enforce it one way or the other for everyone will simply be too difficult and unenforceable unless done at the state level, with the presumption that some states will probably never outlaw it.

Ron Paul didn't change my mind on this, and I agree with his position on what the government should do, even if for slightly different reasons.

I hope my unconventional beliefs (in this part of the world, anyway) don't cause any controversy here on an otherwise uncontroversial topic.

 

[amateur libertarian]

Congressman Ron Paul is the man! No questions about that. As Sevin said in an earlier post, Ron Paul's vivid description of an abortion as a medical student was compelling. I've always that it was morally wrong, but hearing a champion of liberty like Ron Paul articulate only confirmed my intuition.

 

[dillo]

no, I dont even really feel abortions are immoral. But even if I did, I certainly wouldn't want the federal government enforcing it.