"Is Ron Paul Wrong on Abortion?" by Laurence M. Vance

[mkeller]

So, ErikBlack, when do you think life starts? Where does it suddenly become wrong to kill a baby? A baby is just as human the moment before it's born as it is the moment afterward. If it's okay to kill your unborn baby, why is it wrong to kill your baby a month after it's born? Having to care for an infant can be just as inconvenient as it is to carry a fetus! And why not be able to kill your kids all the way up to when they leave the house? Children can be inconvenient, no matter how old they are!

 

[Cinnaboo]

This thread is going places.

 

[nobody's_hero]

The fact remains that the U.S. Constitution does not grant the Federal Gov't the power to regulate abortion. The word "abortion" doesn't even appear in the Constitution. That means the decisions related to it are left to the states, or to the people (See amendment 10).

I will leave you folks with a quote - many of you have probably heard it before - by Ronald Reagan, which I think pretty much helped me see the whole abortion issue as somewhat ironic (and is why I got tired of debating it).

"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."

 

[nobody's_hero]

Actually the Constitution does make mention of it, its called life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness.

Jerome, respectfully, I'm not trying to sound argumentative here, but that line: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" actually comes from the Declaration of Independence.

 

[Goldwater Conservative]

Another thing that bothers me about pro choice( beside abortion sickens me) is it took two people to create the pregnancy yet only one has a say so in termination of that pregnancy. How is that right?
Shouldn't the potential father have the same right as the mother?

And if the mother does decide to bring the child to term, the father is responsible for supporting the child for 18 years, even if he wanted an abortion. Weird.

Anyway, I'm pro-life, but agree with Paul on devolving the issue to the states. I would always oppose late-term abortions and public funding for any abortion, and definitely think they should be legal when a woman's health or life is at risk, but otherwise think both sides have enough merit that I don't make it much of a voting priority.

 

[G-Wohl]

I think Dr. Paul is correct when it comes to the idea of allowing the government to legislate on the issue. However, I don't agree with his personal views on abortion, nor do I agree with his bill legally binding life as starting at conception. I think that if it's wrong to legislate abortion on the federal level, then it should also be wrong to legislate when "life begins."

Also remember that miscarriages happen often, and that is just as much "murdering" a fetus as an abortion is. Would a woman get charged with having a miscarriage, something that she would in most cases have no control over, as well?

If government's position is truly to protect life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then consider this: Any woman who wants to get an abortion clearly believes that the baby's life would not be of a high enough quality - both for the woman and the baby itself. Abortions are not performed without great consideration - it's a painful, perhaps traumatizing process, which needs to be performed while thinking about the baby's potential life. I believe that the mother is the one who must ultimately decide what is the best way to protect an unborn baby's liberties - or do you all think that the government should decide this for us? Isn't this harking back to Clinton's ideas that it takes "a village" to raise a child, instead of a family? Why should the federal government decide what is in the best interest of a mother and her child? That's not very libertarian to me!

I think that if a state allows abortion as per their local legislation, then it should be allowed. I think that abortion clinics should remain open, though I do not believe that the government should ever subsidize a private abortion facility, nor should they ever perform them with public funds. It simply would not be a representative usage of tax dollars, nor is it within the right of the federal government to do so.

 

[Truth-Bringer]

I don't really care about his position on abortion. I didn't switch to the biGOt Party (GOP) just to turn back now.

Well, there have always been a group of libertarians who were pro-life (myself among them). We're called Libertarians for Life.

"Libertarians for Life was founded in 1976 to show why abortion is a wrong, not a right. Our reasoning is expressly scientific and philosophical rather than either pragmatic or religious, or merely political or emotional. Politically, of course, our perspective is libertarian. Libertarianism's basic principle is that, under justice, each of us has the obligation not to aggress against (violate the rights of) anyone else -- for any reason (personal, social, or political), however worthy.

The Libertarian Case Against Abortion

To explain and defend our case, LFL argues that:

1. Human offspring are human beings, persons from fertilization.
2. Abortion is homicide -- the killing of one person by another.
3. There is never a right to kill an innocent person. Prenatally, we are all innocent persons.
4. A prenatal child has the right to be in the mother's body. Parents have no right to evict their children from the crib or from the womb and let them die. Instead both parents, the father as well as the mother, owe them support and protection from harm.
5. No government, nor any individual, has a just power to legally depersonify any one of us, born or preborn.
6. The proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them."

 

[jclay2]

I believe there should be a constitutional amendment protecting life. However, as long as you are against abortion, it is more a matter of the morals of the people rather than a law. Whether you leave it to the states or the constitution, there would most likely be little change in the people as this is an issue of the culture and not of law or government.