Posted on 11/26/2012 7:42:24 PM PST by VitacoreVision
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) asks for your support of the National Pro-Life Alliance and the Life at Conception Act to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Sign the Petition
http://nationalprolifealliance.com/rlacaa_petition.aspx
background:
Rand Paul Cosponsors Life at Conception Act
Rand Paul - Press Release
24 January 2011
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, Senator Rand Paul will join Senator Roger Wicker as an original sponsor of the Life at Conception Act. This legislation declares that the unborn are persons, as prescribed in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
This legislation does not amend or interpret the Constitution, but simply relies on the 14th Amendment, which specifically authorizes Congress to enforce its provisions.
From Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:
“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.”
By following the powers offered to Congress in the Constitution, passage of the Life at Conception Act would reverse Roe v. Wade without the need for a constitutional amendment.
In a statement today, Sen. Paul shared his thoughts on today’s March for Life and on co-sponsoring this important piece of legislation.
“The right to life is prescribed to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence. Ensuring this is upheld is the Constitutional duty of all Members of Congress. I am doing my part by joining my fellow pro-life colleagues in sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, which will protect the sanctity of human life.
Protecting Americans – whether it’s balancing the budget or ensuring no child will be denied the right to life – is my priority now – as it has always been. As a medical student, I was one of a small group of students who opted out of learning abortion procedures. My regard for the sanctity of life has carried me throughout my career as a physician and I am proud to join my new colleagues to continue this fight for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, born and unborn.”
One thing that is remarkable is the astounding stupidity of the Pro-Life movement in not pursuing incrementalism.
The same approach was used against slavery - first banning the import of slaves, then preventing new slave states - of course, that wasn’t incremental enough for the South, but Lincoln was savaged by Radical Republicans for not moving faster. The Emancipation Proclamation just freed slaves in states in rebellion, not everywhere. It was pursuing politics as the art of the possible.
The correct way to go after abortion is to whittle away a tiny bit at a time at the latest legal time in the term an abortion is allowed, and getting enough Republican Presidents elected to get enough justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.
An important additional strategy is to get EVERYONE in the movement and every associated candidate to STFU about their true feelings about abortion in cases of rape and incest, and simply flat out lie - for now. If you feel that strongly about abortion the ends justify the means, and if shutting up about opposing rape and incest abortions (which are rare) helps you win office and whittle down the total number of abortions, it’s a win.
That strategy, I suspect, still won’t work, but it has a chance.
What DOESN’T have a chance is going for the whole enchilada at once persuing Personhood stuff. Once the full implications of it become known, it has no chance politically.
You’ll never, ever, convince the majority of the population that a fertilized egg they can’t see is a baby.
I like your statement, but it’s not quite accurate - Obama was asked, and his answer was, “that’s above my pay grade.”
Those whose self-image is bolstered by maintaining a position of no incremental change....allowing a million babies to be killed each year until somehow it just all stops instantly, at once....will never admit they are mistaken in even the tiniest degree.
I didn’t see the words of the proposed legislation anywhere in this.
S. 91: Life at Conception ActS 91 IS
112th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 91
To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
January 25 (legislative day, January 5), 2011
Mr. WICKER (for himself, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. ENZI, Mr. BURR, Mr. VITTER, Mr. COBURN, Mr. THUNE, Mr. RISCH, Mr. COATS, Mr. BLUNT, Mr. MORAN, Mr. BOOZMAN, and Mr. PAUL) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘Life at Conception Act’.
SEC. 2. RIGHT TO LIFE.
To implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person, and pursuant to the duty and authority of the Congress, including Congress’ power under article I, section 8, to make necessary and proper laws, and Congress’ power under section 5 of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
For purposes of this Act:
(1) HUMAN PERSON; HUMAN BEING- The terms ‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, and other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.
(2) STATE- The term ‘State’ used in the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States and other applicable provisions of the Constitution includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and each other territory or possession of the United States.
See also...
S. 91: Life at Conception Act
“Pro-life is a libertarian issue too.”
As long as the Libertarian in question acknowledges that an unborn person is a full person.
Most don’t.
It is consistent for them, though, assuming the personhood of the unborn.
“1) Should every miscarriage be investigated as a possible murder?
2) Should there be some sort of monitoring and testing system imposed to detect the millions of fertilized eggs that fail to implant, again as part of potential murder investigations? Do we include all of those in child mortality statistics?”
A miscarriage, by its very definition, is involuntary. So, obviously, no.
A failure to implant also involves no action on the parents’ part, unless you are speaking of “birth control” that actually prevents implantation (the pill, morning after, IUD), which can easily be made illegal.
I think we have pursued incremental change, with court cases, making late term abortions very difficult, defunding, the Hyde Amendment, waiting periods, parental consent, regulating abortuaries to death, giving conscience clauses to health professionals, etc.
Abortions went down 5% last year. There is a reason for that.
!
An abortion-free society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it. But what most of America really wants today is a mostly abortion-free society.
Therefore, we should move as quickly as possible to a mostly abortion-free society and work for as long as it takes to change America's "wants" regarding the remainder of abortions.
Tax the abortionist AND the “patient” for each abortion by dividing the entire cost of breast cancer from the previous years.
>A failure to implant also involves no action on the parents’ part, unless you are speaking of “birth control” that actually prevents implantation (the pill, morning after, IUD), which can easily be made illegal.
Birth control can “easily be made illegal”?
Yeah, there’s a winning ticket to elections. Now just throw in mandatory birthing requirements for rape and incest victims and it’s a cakewalk for any candidate espousing such a plan.
After the landslide win, the new president can appoint akin and mourdock to their rightful positions that were “stolen” from them.
There are four years before 2016 to begin selling this winning strategy.
Au contraire.
The Supreme Court, in the Roe v Wade decision, interpreted the term “person,” as used in the 14th Amendment, to not include a fetus. Whether this interpretation is correct or not is beside the point, they did make that interpretation.
So for Congress to pass a law specifying that the fetus IS a “person” protected by the 14th Amendment, it would necessarily involve Congress overruling the SCOTUS interpretation and substituting its own. Which, as I said, the Constitution does not give them the power to do.
The whole discussion is moot, of course, since Congress will pass no such law, not even the House.
The party has almost nothing to do with the philosophy.
There’s also that unfortunate first sentence in the 14th Amendment.
“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.”
I’m as pro-life as anybody, but it’s tough for me to extract from this that a fetus, which has not yet been either born or naturalized is somehow a citizen of the United States.
It also doesn’t say that the fetus is not a person. It doesn’t address that issue. But it does say only persons “born or naturalized” are citizens.
Other libertarians are more true to it's historical leftist roots.
Libertarians are stupid. Nice discussing this with you.
“Birth control can “easily be made illegal”?
Yeah, there’s a winning ticket to elections.”
IUDs and pills are not birth control. They are abortifacients.
If you think they are just birth control, you are believing a lie. The left repeats things over and over, and eventually, they get accepted. They shouldn’t.
I don’t know how large people have to get until you find their murder unacceptable. Myself, I don’t care how small they are. Once conceived, they are people, and should not be legally killed.
Barrier methods such as condoms and diaphragms actually help prevent conception and as such don’t kill anybody.
I know the majority of America doesn’t care. But the majority of America is not always right.
“Therefore, we should move as quickly as possible to a mostly abortion-free society and work for as long as it takes to change America’s “wants” regarding the remainder of abortions. “
I agree with this sentiment, and will take any help for the unborn we can get.
I use the analogy of slavery. I don’t believe it should be legal to own another person, period.
Still, I’d push for laws that forbid killing someone you ‘own,’ whipping people you ‘own,’ selling off children from parents you ‘own,’ or that required days off and good food and what have you. Of course that is an improvement.
But I would never go along with the idea that it’s ok to have a little bit of slavery. It isn’t ok until it is all totally illegal.
Abortion, similar. I’ll take what progress we can make, but I will never behave or speak as though it’s ok to just kill the handicapped ones, or the ones who haven’t implanted yet, or the ones whose fathers are rapists, or whatever.
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