Hard as it may be to conceive, Ron Paul is wrong here; the 14th Amendment requires the Federal government to define personhood. In Roe v. Wade it did so, wrongly; if that definition were indeed rectified it would indeed require the Federal government, under the equal protection clause, to strike down abortion everywhere.
There is, barring another constitutional amendment, no longer any possibility of a house divided on this issue.
Well, I'm no constitutional scholar, but it seems to me the 14th amendment defined federal citizens, but never removed the definition of state citizen.
14th Amendment. "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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."
How would the federal government circumvent a state giving the rights of citizenship to the unborn?
The 14th Amendment was passed because the federal government desired the ability to define 'personhood', something that it was never given by the Framers.
But a contract of this nature actually existed in a visible form, between the citizens of each state, respectively, in their several constitutions; it might therefore he deemed somewhat extraordinary, that in the establishment of a federal republic, it should have been thought necessary to extend it's operation to the persons of individuals, as well as to the states, composing the confederacy.
It was apprehended by many, that this innovation would be construed to change the nature of the union, from a confederacy, to a consolidation of the states; that as the tenor of the instrument imported it to be the act of the people, the construction might be made accordingly: an interpretation that would tend to the annihilation of the states, and their authority. That this was the more to be apprehended, since all questions between the states, and the United States, would undergo the final decision of the latter.
Volume 1 - Appendix, Note D, Section 1
St. George Tucker's View of the Constitution of the United States
The 14th Amendment is pure, legalistic slight-of-hand in an effort to give the appearance of federal control over the States.
In fact, you can see the hubris yourself in the quote by one of the 14th's co-sponsors:
"Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."
Senator Jacob Howard, 1866
How about that! Congress decided it could re-write the Laws of Nature.
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For those with a penchant for truth, the 'limits of the United States' can be found in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the US Constitution.
Here is an excellent article on the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”.
IMHO, the general government has illegitimately ASSUMED a power that it was never intended to have, and our Republic has suffered greatly for it.