Posted on 05/20/2015 6:41:13 AM PDT by wagglebee
PHILADELPHIA, PA, May 19, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rand Paul wants to be president – but abortion is less of an issue for him than the national debt, the senator said yesterday.
Paul had completed a campaign stop at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center, where he attacked both Bill and Hillary Clinton with relish, when a local media personality asked him about abortion.
“I will answer the question as honestly as I can,” he said. “I didn’t run for office because of this issue. It wasn’t what got me to leave my practice” to enter politics.
Instead, it was the nation's ballooning debt that made the younger Paul run for the open Senate seat in Kentucky.
“I ran for office mainly because I became concerned that we’re going to destroy the country with debt – that we would borrow much money, that we would just destroy the currency,” he said.
The national debt has exploded from less than $1 trillion in 1980 to a staggering $18 trillion and climbing. President Obama, whose annual deficits have exceeded $1 trillion, has added more to the debt than every president from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined.
Pressed on abortion, Paul told the audience that, under the Constitution's federalist principles, abortion would be handled “best by the states.” Conservative jurists have debated whether the Constitution gives the federal government the right to regulate abortion.
To make national policy, the nation needs to decide “when life begins,” he said, according to The Daily Caller. “I think we go down all kinds of rabbit holes talking about other stuff.”
He referenced his own history as an ophthalmologist who treated premature newborns. “If someone were to hurt that one-pound baby in the neonatal nursery, it’s a problem. That baby has rights,” he said. “But we somewhat inconsistently say that seven-pound baby at birth or just before birth has no rights.”
His remarks echoed his rejoinder to a reporter last month to ask Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, “Is it OK to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus?” Congresswoman Schultz replied that there should be no legal restrictions on late-term abortion. The Democratic Party platform currently calls for taxpayer-funded abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
Deciding when Constitutional protections and the right to life apply is the key goal to advancing pro-life legislation, Paul said yesterday.
“We just have to figure when we agree life begins,” he concluded.
The first-term senator, who will also run for re-election in Kentucky next year, has a strong pro-life voting record – as strong as anyone can in a chamber where pro-life legislation was bottled by former Majority Leader Harry Reid until this year. In 2013, he introduced the Life Begins at Conception Act.
The previous year, he had been stopped by TSA agents while en route to address the annual March for Life. “I don’t think a civilization can long endure that does not have respect for all human life – born and not yet born,” he has said.
He has, however, said he supports the use of Plan B, a potentially abortifacient method of "emergency contraception," as birth control.
His concern over the proper role of the government under an originalist reading of the Constitution has caused Paul, an outspoken personal supporter of life and marriage, to question whether the government should withdraw from marriage contracts and establish alternate legal arrangements.
Framed by Independence Hall, Paul touted his libertarian credentials as someone who could attract unconventional support to the Republican ticket, including minorities who support his opposition to militarizing local police forces. Such opposition exploded in the city during riots in nearby Baltimore.
“I see no reason why a 20-ton mine resistant ambush protection vehicle should ever roll down any city in our country,” he said on Monday. “There is no reason that the police force should be the same as the army.”
Paul also stated he would oppose reauthorization of the Patriot Act, although he conceded the votes did not exist to impeded final passage.
He was particularly incensed over the NSA's broad interception of phone calls without a warrant.
“That's what we fought the Revolution over!” he said. "Our Founding Fathers would be appalled to know that we are writing one single warrant and collecting everyone's phone records all the time.”
Paul isn’t running for state office, he is running for president.
What does your post have to do with the importance of his views on abortion, in regards to the office that he is running for?
You are trying to evade the abortion issue, just like Rand Paul is.
Settled law.
LOL
There is no such thing as “settled law”. The law is always subject to NEW law. If abortion is ruled illegal in the future, will that be settled law ?
NOBODY has a right to murder. That people currently are not prosecuted for it is an evil which can be overturned in the future. As for so-called libertarians ? Go find a perfect world, inhabited by perfect people, and e mail me when you discover it.
The right to life, as Wagglebee has pointed out, is enshrined in the 5th amendment and the 14th amendment. It is the major right mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
Without “Life” all of the other arguments about states, choice, freedom, etc. are just so much jaw-boning.
Arbitrarily taking a life is the ultimate violation of the law of the universe, the law of Nature’s God. It should be evident to any thinking and/or moral creature that life is the penultimate right.
Life is not a right that states can violate if they wish. It cannot be violated at all except in accord with very strict provisions regarding trials, courts, due process, etc.
What crime has the baby committed? What trial have they had? What hearing? What accusers stepped forward?
Why is that baby’s life taken?
Rand Paul sounds more and more like his lunatic dad as each month goes by.
As for so-called libertarians ? Go find a perfect world, inhabited by perfect people, and e mail me when you discover it.
At their core libertarians are Utopian anarchists.
” What crime has the baby committed? What trial have they had? What hearing? What accusers stepped forward?”
NO LAWYERS representing the unborn child..
“Eyes, I just do eyes.”
One of my favorite quotes from “Bladerunner.”
Maybe I should have used the full quote:
“Don’t know such stuff. Eyes, I just do eyes.”
It was the same "crime" that was used as an excuse to sentence Terri Schiavo to death ten years ago.
And libertarians are fine with this. They adore the 10th Amendment based on a faulty reading of it, they don't understand the 5th Amendment and they abhor EVERYTHING about the 14th Amendment.
bump
I don’t understand why pro-life freepers allow the libertarians to drag them into a “states right to abortion” argument, when the discussion is federal politics, presidential candidates, and the importance of the president being a pro-life warrior.
What about on military base hospitals for federal military and in federal hospitals, federal contracts and union negotiations, do people here know about the federal back and forth about abortion on military bases, since the 1960s?
The federal government makes it’s own policy and law in regards to abortion, a state doesn’t tell it what it is.
Here is an example of the president’s role:
The Mexico City Policy requires all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive federal funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services as a method of family planning with non-US government funds in other countries. The policy has not been in effect since January 23, 2009. Since 1973, USAID has followed the Helms Amendment ruling, banning use of US Government funds to provide abortion as a method of family planning anywhere in the world.
The policy was enacted by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1984, rescinded by Democratic President Bill Clinton in January 1993, re-instituted in January 2001 as President George W. Bush took office, and rescinded January 23, 2009, 2 days after Democratic President Barack Obama took office.
I don't recognize a "right" to abortion ANYWHERE. It's not in the Constitution, hell it isn't even in Roe (the opinion itself says that a baby's personhood entitles it to due process protection).
” The “crime” that these children have committed is that they are inconvenient.”
Hitler reached the same conclusion about Jews. Inconvenient.
Terri was inconvenient too.
Yes, and when faced with the same dilemma murdering innocent persons that we see today, Hitler simply declared the Jews to be "subhumans" (e.g. nonpersons) and proceeded to "legally" kill them.
” Hitler simply declared the Jews to be “subhumans” (e.g. nonpersons) and proceeded to “legally” kill them. “
Well stated.
You missed the point of that post, it wasn’t about whether you support abortion anywhere.
Unlike,say, Ted Cruz who wants to actively INCREASE the number of ridiculous H1B scab labor visas.
Don't take my word for it - here's a link from Computerworld Magazine: Ted Cruz Wants to Increase H1-B Visas by 500%
We disagree. The closer power and economic decisions are to people, the more control we have. I’d much rather that DC would stick to the small number of responsibilities given to it in the Constitution, and that’s it. Anything that can be local initiative should be. We’ve lost control, because power and wealth have gravitated upward, away from ordinary US citizens.
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