Posted on 10/19/2007 12:23:35 PM PDT by uxbridge
Ron Paul, the feisty physician from Texas who has twice served in Congress and amassed a loyal following in his campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has gained widespread recognition as his party’s only anti Iraq-war candidate.
But Paul’s essential social conservatism may have been overlooked in his Libertarian view of government. Paul wants to abolish the federal income tax – that’s part of his governmental philosophy. But Paul also wants to ban abortion, proposing to overturn the landmark Roe versus Wade court ruling by legally removing jurisdiction over the issue from the federal courts.
“That should be our goal… to repeal Roe versus Wade,’’ Paul told an assembly of religious right voters in Washington today. “There is a couple ways that can be done…
“We can wait until we have our Supreme Court justices appointed... That’s taking a long time,’’ Paul said. “My approach is a little bit more direct… accepting the principle that we can as a legislative body and the president… remove the jurisdiction of this issue from the federal courts.’’
Paul told the Values Voter Summit today that he is “very pleased with the reception we are getting from young people… We have found that a lot of people are coming to join for the message we have been delivering. The message is not complex. It is rather simple… Freedom is much better than bureaucracy and government socialism… Freedom really works.
“I talk a lot about the lesson of life and liberty… It comes from our creator,’’ he said. “The pursuit of happiness means to lead our life as we choose… We should have the incentives to work hard and take care of our family….
(Excerpt) Read more at weblogs.baltimoresun.com ...
..and we aren’t pinning Paul as pro-abortion, we are just demonstrating that it isn’t a priority issue for him.
Similar type of people that put a devotion to the Republican Party over principles..
murder is not a state crime in the sense that a state can choose to legalize murder.
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
What is left to the states is enforcement. A federal ban on abortion does not mean federal police bringing abortionists to federal courts and sending them to federal prisons.
And isn't that exactly the same logic the liberals are using when calling for federal hate crimes laws? In fact, isn't that exactly the same logic liberals use for everything from national health care to national gun control?
Ban abortion, but do it correctly. Bring it back to the states. Don't take the liberal way out.
Some time in the future, the practice of abortion will be seen to be as backward and cruel as we, in 2007, now view slavery, leeching, or witch-burning. People of 2075 or 2100 will wonder how our society could ever have been so barbaric.
How many elected Republicans have EVER voted for such a thing?
I know that. I also know that the federal government was never intended to be a vehicle to erase state laws that other states disagree with, even if it’s something evil like abortion.
So I take it if a state passed a law banning any form of hate crimes statute, you’d have no problem with the federal government stepping in and stopping them? Conservatives have yet to learn that their love of federal power cuts both ways.
Abortion is evil, but so is the loss of states rights.
You know.. let’s just save everyone some time and provide links to the talking points...
http://www.ronpaulforums.net/showthread.php?t=22789&page=2
http://www.ronpaulforums.net/showthread.php?t=13837
Here, everyone can see how the Paul camp can spin his record both ways... If you are talking to a pro-life crowd, you can discuss how he delivered babies and he is always pro-life..
If, however, you are talking to a pro-abortion crowd, you can say how he is ‘no threat’ to abortion..
...all things to all people...
In 2003, in a speech before the House (where he indicated support for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, he said
As an obstetrician who has delivered over 4000 children, I have long been concerned with the rights of unborn people. I believe this is the greatest moral issue of our time. The very best of the western intellectual tradition has understood the critical link between moral and political action. Each of these disciplines should strongly inform and support the other.
I have become increasingly concerned over the years that the pro-life movement I so strongly support is getting further off track, both politically and morally. I sponsored the original pro-life amendment, which used a constitutional approach to solve the crisis of federalization of abortion law by the courts. The pro-life movement was with me and had my full support and admiration.
Those who cherish unborn life have become frustrated by our inability to overturn or significantly curtail Roe v. Wade. Because of this, attempts were made to fight against abortion using political convenience rather than principle. There is nothing wrong per se with fighting winnable battles, but a danger exists when political pragmatism requires the pro-life movement to surrender important moral and political principles.
When we surrender constitutional principles, we do untold damage to the moral underpinnings on which our Constitution and entire system of government rest. Those underpinnings are the inalienable right to life, liberty, and property. Commenting upon the link between our most important rights, Thomas Jefferson said “The God which gave us life gave us at the same time liberty. The hands of force may destroy but can never divide these.”
M. Stanton Evans further explained the link between our form of government and the rights it protects when he wrote, “The genius of the Constitution is its division of powers-summed up in that clause reserving to the several states, or the people, all powers not expressly granted to the federal government."
Pro-lifers should be fiercely loyal to this system of federalism, because the very same Constitution that created the federal system also asserts the inalienable right to life. In this way, our constitutional system closely links federalism to the fundamental moral rights to life, liberty, and property. For our Founders it was no exaggeration to say federalism is the means by which life, as well as liberty and property, are protected in this nation. This is why the recent direction of the pro-life cause is so disturbing.
Pro-life forces have worked for the passage of bills that disregard the federal system, such as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the federal cloning ban, and the Child Custody Protection Act. Each of these bills rested on specious constitutional grounds and undermined the federalism our Founders recognized and intended as the greatest protection of our most precious rights.
Each of these bills transfers to the federal government powers constitutionally retained by the states, thus upsetting the separation and balance of powers that federalism was designed to guarantee. To undermine federalism is to indirectly surrender the very principle upon which the protection of our inalienable right to life depends.
The worst offender of federalism is the so-called Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which not only indirectly surrenders the pro-life principle but actually directly undercuts the right to life by granting a specific exemption to abortionists! This exemption essentially allows some to take life with the sanction of federal law. By supporting this legislation, pro-lifers are expressly condoning a legal exemption for abortionists- showing just how far astray some in the pro-life community have gone.
Even the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, which is an integral part of the current pro-life agenda, presents a dilemma. While I have always supported this Act and plan to do so in the future, I realize that it raises questions of federalism because authority over criminal law is constitutionally retained by the states. The only reason a federal law has any legitimacy in this area is that the Supreme Court took it upon itself to federalize abortion via Roe v. Wade. Accordingly, wrestling the abortion issue from the federal courts and putting it back in the hands of the elected legislature comports with the Founder's view of the separation of powers that protects our rights to life, liberty, and property.
Given these dilemmas, what should those of us in the pro-life community do? First, we must return to constitutional principles and proclaim them proudly. We must take a principled approach that recognizes both moral and political principles, and accepts the close relationship between them. Legislatively, we should focus our efforts on building support to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ideally this would be done in a fashion that allows states to again ban or regulate abortion. State legislatures have always had proper jurisdiction over issues like abortion and cloning; the pro-life movement should recognize that jurisdiction and not encroach upon it. The alternative is an outright federal ban on abortion, done properly via a constitutional amendment that does no violence to our way of government.
If the next version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban act reads like past versions in the House, I will likely support it despite the dilemmas outlined here. I cannot support, however, a bill like the proposed Senate version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban that reaffirms Roe v. Wade.
For the pro-life cause to truly succeed without undermining the very freedoms that protect life, it must return to principle and uphold our Founder's vision of federalism as an essential component of the American system. Undermining federalism ultimately can only undermine the very mechanism that protects the right to life.
Why couldn't it? I don't think that you're correct here--the 14th Amendment prevents a state from depriving a person of due process. I don't see why if a state chose to repeal its laws against murder how it would be denying anyone due process. Do you care to elaborate?
Who cares how the Paul camp is spinning anything...Paul himself has been clear and consistent on abortion...unlike, Thompson, Romney and Giuliani.
You may be Constitutionally correct. If California were to suddenly declare murder to be legal, I don’t see where in the Constitution my sense of moral outrage entitles me to use Congress to make decisions for them.
You know.. I bet if you erased the names and rhetoric, and just presented the voting record to the average Joe out there, he would throw the RINO label all over FraudPaul.
I suppose that you could make an argument that because the state "sanctions" abortionists because they are licensed by the state and are medical doctors that the state is denying an aborted baby's right to due process, but I think that is sort of a lame argument, frankly. Moreover, who would sue on behalf of the child?
Abortion is evil, but so is the loss of states rights.
-
sounds like moral equivalence. I’m not an anarchist but there is nothing ‘moral’ about a state.
WOW!
And there's even less morality to be found in federal control. Are you peachy-keen with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid telling Texas, Montana, Utah, etc. what their state laws should be?
Not any more than I am on people who believe the federal government was created to be used as a vehicle to crush states that have opinions different from theirs.
Kind of interesting that you would use an example where someone powerful targets those less powerful to make them do as they say.
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