Rand Introduces the Life at Conception Act:

[kathy88]

At that point, a government would become completely overwhelmed trying to prosecute all murders that take place, unless they became a police state with surveillance in every household and public place.

We're almost there, what's your point?

 

[TheGrinch]

No matter where you stand on the abortion issue, there are 2 fundamental differences between prosecuting murder and abortion. Therefore the "abortion is murder and should be illegal" argument put forth by Collins & others is deeply flawed.

One is that approximately half of the public believes that abortion is OK in some circumstances, and have much more well-reasoned arguments on their side than anyone who would condone murder of independent human beings. THAT DOES NOT IN ITSELF MAKE ABORTION OKAY. Human rights are not based on majority opinion, but what if 50% of the public thought murder (of other adults or children not in the womb) was okay, and had sound (if not valid) arguments and literature to base it on? At that point, a government would become completely overwhelmed trying to prosecute all murders that take place, unless they became a police state with surveillance in every household and public place. Since 50% of the people would be likely to commit homicide at any time, the only solution would be a fascist government that followed everyone around at every moment.

Second, as has been pointed out by Justin Raimondo and a few others, abortion involves an adult or teenager and another living being which is inside of them and completely dependent on them. Women can, albeit dangerously, give themselves miscarriages and easily lie about it, or find a dozen other ways to dangerously & illegally abort a pregnancy. It is impossible to follow every pregnant woman around for 8 full months with government surveillance to keep her from throwing herself off a flight of stairs or sticking metal objects up her vagina, without becoming a surveillance state. Didn't Ron Paul write in Liberty Defined that prosecuting or policing early-term abortions would be futile for these reasons?

It is very comparable to trying to prosecute suicide. A person can do it to themselves so you would need an incredible amount of surveillance and intervention in everyone's daily lives to try to prevent all suicides. Another parallel exists in the War on Terror, as men, women or children blow themselves up in order to kill Americans. The neoconservative/statist solution is to bankrupt your country in order to spy on & frisk every possible man, woman or child around the world who may have a bomb strapped to them. The libertarian (& I would argue Christian) solution is to peacefully persuade those people that there's a better way of life than sacrificing themselves for radical and violent sect of Islam. As Ron Paul said once in an interview where he compared the two issues (abortion/terrorism,) "force never works."

I am very disappointed in Rand Paul's views on this issue and I hope Gunny is right when he says the LACA is just states rights in disguise. I also feel that Rand will have to moderate his rhetoric & undo the damage already done in order to win the Presidency while taking questions about abortion. That's just a personal opinion, I can't prove it but it seems impossible to contradict yourself that much and not receive terrible PR from an already hostile media.

Good post, there is no doubt that the smear artists will use it against him, it's really a no win issue, but hopefully you can still applaud Rand for doing what he feels is right, even if philosophically I agree with you, as Dr. Paul has said on other issues, "you have to change the morality of the people, not the laws". Prohibition has never brought forth the desired effects, just the opposite of creating dangerous balk markets with little recourse for those who are wronged, as they too become criminals.

However, let's remember that Rand was raised by the man who had to personally witness gruesome abortions, which strengthened his worldview that he cannot accept it.

 

[whoisjohngalt]

The idea that over a billion abortions would still have taken place in back alleys with no reduction, even after the profiteers, pushers and paid propagandists were broken up, is conjecture beyond the realm of reality. It's just an old talking point.

Yeah because we don't have any real world evidence of the ample black market for abortion Look at El Salvador, India, or our own pre-1973 history. This is exactly what they said about the war on drugs before they started waging it. Most of us aren't willing to bear that cost for a 1 to 3% reduction and a major increase in the risk associated with each abortion.

 

[Sola_Fide]

Yeah because we don't have any real world evidence of the ample black market for abortion Look at El Salvador, India, or our own pre-1973 history. This is exactly what they said about the war on drugs before they started waging it. Most of us aren't willing to bear that cost for a 1 to 3% reduction and a major increase in the risk associated with each abortion.

What did they say about the war on drugs?

 

[whoisjohngalt]

What did they say about the war on drugs?

That the idea that the war on drugs would have no discernible effect on drug usage was conjecture beyond the realm of reality. Surely, if we make laws and pump in a bunch of money, we will see a reduction in this immoral evil.

I'm not equating the two issues. Just pointing out that claiming the idea that laws and enforcement effort will have little to no effect is a more sound conjecture than the opposite. Look at the war on terror, poverty, drugs. They all become money pits that see no change or net increases in the very thing they are trying to combat.

 

[KurtBoyer25L]

Good post, there is no doubt that the smear artists will use it against him, it's really a no win issue, but hopefully you can still applaud Rand for doing what he feels is right, even if philosophically I agree with you, as Dr. Paul has said on other issues, "you have to change the morality of the people, not the laws". Prohibition has never brought forth the desired effects, just the opposite of creating dangerous balk markets with little recourse for those who are wronged, as they too become criminals.

However, let's remember that Rand was raised by the man who had to personally witness gruesome abortions, which strengthened his worldview that he cannot accept it.

Absolutely. It doesn't cause me to not respect Rand. I still think his views on the subject are more or less religious in origin. "Life at conception" ignores the concept of WHY human life is so valued, namely because we are sentient & conscious beings. A "life at sentience" standard would lead to a law code which allows early-trimester "mass of tissue" abortions but not abortions of a developed fetus. That's why the "heartbeat law" recently introduced in Arkansas may in fact be a major step forward. Pro-choice folks hate it but at least it separates the valuing of actual developed, sentient human life from the religious valuing of the *exact* moment of conception (it is interesting that so many Christians think premarital sex is evil, but think that the orgasm involved is often holy enough to create a human soul right between "want" and "a cigarette?" Why don't more Evangelicals argue FOR abortion of these evilly-created fetuses but against all abortions by married women?).

 

[KurtBoyer25L]

Yeah because we don't have any real world evidence of the ample black market for abortion Look at El Salvador, India, or our own pre-1973 history. This is exactly what they said about the war on drugs before they started waging it. Most of us aren't willing to bear that cost for a 1 to 3% reduction and a major increase in the risk associated with each abortion.

This is why anti-abortion and pro-abortion liberty folk can & should favor less government intervention in abortions.

 

[KurtBoyer25L]

Yeah because we don't have any real world evidence of the ample black market for abortion Look at El Salvador, India, or our own pre-1973 history. This is exactly what they said about the war on drugs before they started waging it. Most of us aren't willing to bear that cost for a 1 to 3% reduction and a major increase in the risk associated with each abortion.

PS I tried to rep you on this but it won't let me. Fascist RPF! j/k

 

[KurtBoyer25L]

What did they say about the war on drugs?

"They" said that prohibition of certain dangerous or unethical actions by the individual only leads to more danger & harm on a grand scale. They were right.

Wait, I misunderstood. JGalt was saying that people who argued that the War on Drugs was winnable were wrong. And they were.

 

[Christian Liberty]

No matter where you stand on the abortion issue, there are 2 fundamental differences between prosecuting murder and abortion. Therefore the "abortion is murder and should be illegal" argument put forth by Collins & others is deeply flawed.

One is that approximately half of the public believes that abortion is OK in some circumstances, and have much more well-reasoned arguments on their side than anyone who would condone murder of independent human beings. THAT DOES NOT IN ITSELF MAKE ABORTION OKAY. Human rights are not based on majority opinion, but what if 50% of the public thought murder (of other adults or children not in the womb) was okay, and had sound (if not valid) arguments and literature to base it on? At that point, a government would become completely overwhelmed trying to prosecute all murders that take place, unless they became a police state with surveillance in every household and public place. Since 50% of the people would be likely to commit homicide at any time, the only solution would be a fascist government that followed everyone around at every moment.

Second, as has been pointed out by Justin Raimondo and a few others, abortion involves an adult or teenager and another living being which is inside of them and completely dependent on them. Women can, albeit dangerously, give themselves miscarriages and easily lie about it, or find a dozen other ways to dangerously & illegally abort a pregnancy. It is impossible to follow every pregnant woman around for 8 full months with government surveillance to keep her from throwing herself off a flight of stairs or sticking metal objects up her vagina, without becoming a surveillance state. Didn't Ron Paul write in Liberty Defined that prosecuting or policing early-term abortions would be futile for these reasons?

It is very comparable to trying to prosecute suicide. A person can do it to themselves so you would need an incredible amount of surveillance and intervention in everyone's daily lives to try to prevent all suicides. Another parallel exists in the War on Terror, as men, women or children blow themselves up in order to kill Americans. The neoconservative/statist solution is to bankrupt your country in order to spy on & frisk every possible man, woman or child around the world who may have a bomb strapped to them. The libertarian (& I would argue Christian) solution is to peacefully persuade those people that there's a better way of life than sacrificing themselves for radical and violent sect of Islam. As Ron Paul said once in an interview where he compared the two issues (abortion/terrorism,) "force never works."

I am very disappointed in Rand Paul's views on this issue and I hope Gunny is right when he says the LACA is just states rights in disguise. I also feel that Rand will have to moderate his rhetoric & undo the damage already done in order to win the Presidency while taking questions about abortion. That's just a personal opinion, I can't prove it but it seems impossible to contradict yourself that much and not receive terrible PR from an already hostile media.

A few things here...

First of all, most abortionists are going to get away with it. I have conceded this. I'm also not a utilitarian. So even if a surveilance state would reduce abortion frequency, its still evil and still should be opposed. In the same way, abortion should still be punishable, even if ineffective. This doesn't mean that we have to set up an entirely new department of police in order to prosecute abortionists, stealing more of the taxpayer money is also an evil. It does mean that vigilantes who kill abortion doctors should be considered heroes, or at the very least providing a valuable service, rather than killers. Simply pardoning Scott Roeder would send a huge message to the murderers that their actions are not welcome in this country. It does mean that anytime evidence does in fact happen to come up that someone is guilty of abortion, if there is probable cause, you arrest them and have them placed on trial for murder.

I agree with you that a lot of hearts and minds have to change for that to actually happen. And the change of hearts and minds in and of itself would end a lot of these problems. AuH20 was right, what is really necessary to slow the epidemic is not more laws, but SHAME. That said, I will still continue to advocate that abortion be treated as first degree murder as that is what I believe it is. I don't think that's ever going to happen. I also don't think we'll ever get any kind of a freedom candidate in the White House, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop advocating for it and stop telling the opposition how wrong they are. Same thing with abortion.

As for Raimondo's argument, he does have a point. As strongly as I feel about this issue, I'm willing to admit that the libertarian position on it is far from "Settled." To me, the humane, justifiied position is "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice" is not, but I acknowledge that libertarian theory has failed to conclusively solve it at this point. That said, the "Inside her body" argument fails for a few reasons. Firstly, eviction theory (The only pro-choice argument with any bit of credibility, every other pro-choice argument is just deiberate but well-hidden support for the right to murder, I can prove this but I won't do so in this post, if anyone asks I'll address hat next time as its already getting long) doesn't make much sense because the infant is really just as dependent on his mother after birth as before. The only difference is that somebody else can theoretically take responsibility after birth. Even still, for someone else to agree to do so takes time, and you can't just leave a newborn baby on a table to die. Even Walter Block, the founder of eviction theory, would argue that in order for your obligation to a child to end, you must first notify the world that you are abandoning the raising of that child. Walter Block would, I believe, say that if nobody was willing to raise the child (Admittedly fairly unlikely scenario) that it would be legally acceptable to leave that baby to die. I reject this as absurd and inhumane, and I think 90+% of the population also realizes that this is wrong. But then... this proves eviction theory wrong in its entirety. If you have an obligation to your child outside the womb, surely you also have an obligation to it before birth? If not, why not? The only possibility is to prove the absurdity that a fetus in the womb is not a human person. DNA proves this wrong.

Secondly, you are correct that a ban wouldn't "Work". But then, who cares? Why does it matter? Utilitarianism is the argument for all kinds of statism, and while they likely do not come to the utilitarian answers very often, it wouldn't matter if they did. Its still wrong. So is abortion. No matter how many people support it, its legality is still WRONG.

As for suicide, I'd say suicide is immoral but should not be illegal. You have a right to kill yourself. The only exception is in the case where you have a child that nobody else has as of yet agreed to care for, in which case you are breaking an implied contract with your child.

As for Terror, while I certainly disagree with mass surveilance, wars against all kinds of foreign nations, exc. I see absolutely nothing wrong with going after those who organize these attacks and putting them to death for conspiracy to commit murder.

 

[CMoore]

Ron said that in all his years in medical practice, he never saw a case where the woman needed to get an abortion in order to save her own life. 95% of abortions occur for convenience reasons only; they have nothing to do with any medical problem the woman has. Let's at least start there and end those 95% of abortions.

I have heard him say that before. In 4000 pregnancies I wonder how many ectopic pregnancies he saw. Surely a few. I wonder how he treated them without terminating the pregnancy.

 

[tttppp]

Ron said that in all his years in medical practice, he never saw a case where the woman needed to get an abortion in order to save her own life. 95% of abortions occur for convenience reasons only; they have nothing to do with any medical problem the woman has. Let's at least start there and end those 95% of abortions.

Yeah and I pointed out ways to reduce abortions through convienience, which you denied. Also there are plenty of casss where women get abortions for health reasons. Just because Ron Paul said it, doesnt make it true.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Yeah and I pointed out ways to reduce abortions through convienience, which you denied. Also there are plenty of casss where women get abortions for health reasons. Just because Ron Paul said it, doesnt make it true.

Knowing Ron Paul, he was telling the truth. I've never heard him lie. He probably did never see an abortion performed to save the mothers life. That doesn't mean they don't happen, merely that he himself never saw one. He also said "Over 4000." That doesn't mean that there isn't one occasionally. What it does mean is that those rarities are no excuse for on-demand abortion.

 

[Brett85]

I agree, this also makes the socon argument against contraception hypocritical and naive, as these are ways that we can prevent a conception from occuring, as frequently happens naturally when sex does not lead to unwanted pregnancy (or of course even wanted pregnancy).

What social conservative wants to ban contraception?

 

[erowe1]

There's a big difference between "health reasons" and saving a mothers life. When Roe v. Wade included health reasons as a legitimate cause for abortion all the way through the third trimester, that included mental health, which essentially means there's no limit at all.

 

[osan]

If you're someone who believes that abortion is murder, then there can't be any issue more important than this.

Ending this is pretty important.

http://www.wrtl.org/abortion/pictures.aspx#abortionpics

I respectfully disagree with vigor. The problems I listed outstrip the abortion question by worlds. Unless we address those other issues, the question of abortion will by necessity disappear from the immediate concerns of virtually everyone in the nation.

You and people who reason as you do need to the step back from the emotions of the issue and take a close and hard look at the looming problems. When there is no work and therefore no food because the money is not money and the economy has been nuked, your stomach will be dictating your immediate concern with greater and more forceful eloquence than your sense of moral outrage. If things go far enough, your fear will almost certainly give you cause to no longer give a damn whether your neighbor's daughter is looking for a coat hanger to take care of her little "problem".

Seriously folks, the failure of perspective to which I here bear witness is pretty disturbing. Do as you please, but when you one day find the barbarians are at your gates you will have no basis for complaint because now is the time to prioritize with some application of your brains. If you willfully fail to do that much, you will deserve the rotten fate that awaits you. But don't listen to me, do what you think is right.

 

[CMoore]

Knowing Ron Paul, he was telling the truth. I've never heard him lie. He probably did never see an abortion performed to save the mothers life. That doesn't mean they don't happen, merely that he himself never saw one. He also said "Over 4000." That doesn't mean that there isn't one occasionally. What it does mean is that those rarities are no excuse for on-demand abortion.

But that is not what he said. He said he had never seen one to save the life of a mother. I suppose that since he did obstetrics that he never saw an ectopic pregnancy. Maybe the local gynecologist spotted them before an obstetrician got involved in the pregnancy. But I still wonder how he managed to avoid having to deal with at least a few.

 

[CMoore]

I respectfully disagree with vigor. The problems I listed outstrip the abortion question by worlds. Unless we address those other issues, the question of abortion will by necessity disappear from the immediate concerns of virtually everyone in the nation.

You and people who reason as you do need to the step back from the emotions of the issue and take a close and hard look at the looming problems. When there is no work and therefore no food because the money is not money and the economy has been nuked, your stomach will be dictating your immediate concern with greater and more forceful eloquence than your sense of moral outrage. If things go far enough, your fear will almost certainly give you cause to no longer give a damn whether your neighbor's daughter is looking for a coat hanger to take care of her little "problem".

Seriously folks, the failure of perspective to which I here bear witness is pretty disturbing. Do as you please, but when you one day find the barbarians are at your gates you will have no basis for complaint because now is the time to prioritize with some application of your brains. If you willfully fail to do that much, you will deserve the rotten fate that awaits you. But don't listen to me, do what you think is right.

That!

 

[CMoore]

Depends on your definition of murder and a lot of people do not and will not ever consider the aborting of a barely fertilized embryo as murder whether you like it or not. This bill is little more than pandering. I agree with all of Rand's stances on most liberty issues, but giving the federal government the power to determine when life is viable is an overreach. What happens when a Dem majority is in and they decide that old people do NOT deserve life saving medical care? If they have the power to determine who lives and who dies, what is to say something like this couldn't be expanded to include people whose "useful life" is over. Nyet, nay, no.

Yes it is pandering. And I do not understand why he is having to do it at this time. The timing is very curious.

 

[CMoore]

I'd like to know why that makes any difference.

It does not make any difference at all. I am simply curious.