Worse yet, the Act serves to legitimize and further entrench the Roe v. Wade decision. Like Roe, the Act federalizes law which the Constitution properly leaves to the states. Constitutionally, virtually all crimes are state matters. The only true federal crimes are those listed in Article I (treason, piracy, and counterfeiting); all other crimes are left to the jurisdiction of the states under the 10th Amendment. Yet Congress finds it much easier to federalize every human evil rather than uphold the Constitution and respect states' rights. Impassioned pro-life Americans might want a federal criminal law protecting fetuses, but in truth the federal government is more likely to pass laws favoring abortion rather than outlawing it. Once we allow federal control over abortion, we lose the opportunity for states to enact pro-life legislation. Numerous states already have laws that punish the act of murder against a fetus. Our focus should be on overturning Roe and getting the federal government completely out of the business of regulating state matters. All abortion foes must understand that the real battle should be fought at the state level, where grassroots respect for life can influence state legislatures. (April 30, 2001)
To Ron Paul, and unfortunately to his imitators in this Republican field, such as Thompson, Brownback, Huckabee, McCain, and Romney, states' rights supercede the unalienable right to life.
Their position is identical to that of the defenders of slavery in the 1850s. Well, maybe not identical. It's worse. You can recover from being held as a slave. But you can never recover from being dead.
Over fifty million American children have died. Thousands more die every day. Even under the best case scenario promoted by people like Ron Paul, most of the same children would still be brutally killed. After all, the vast majority of abortions are taking place in liberal-controlled urban territory.
You omitted this part...
“Thirty years later, the pro-life fight goes on. Well-intentioned pro-life advocates supported a bill in Congress last week called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, believing it represented a step toward restoring respect for unborn life. Unfortunately, the bill does not accord any human or legal status to fetuses, but rather creates a new federal penalty for harming the mother of a fetus. The reasoning is deeply flawed: if there is to be a greater penalty for harming a pregnant woman than an ordinary woman, it must be based on the harm to the unborn child. In other words, the enhanced penalty must be for the second offense to the second human life. Yet the legislation evades this fundamental truth by refusing to recognize the fetus as a human person. So the Act is seriously flawed and will not engender new respect for unborn life.”
Can you not follow his line of reasoning here?
The top down approach has not nor will not work.
What is wrong with Ron Pauls idea a creating a pro-life nation, not from the top down, but one community at a time.