By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
November 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ron Paul, a ten-term Congressman from Texas, has been considered a long shot ever since he entered the U.S. presidential race early in 2007. His rigidly principled stands in favor of limited government and against the war in Iraq seemed to make him a sure loser among pro-war Republicans, and Paul’s libertarian ideology places him well outside the mainstream of his own political party.
But Paul defied all expectations on November 5th when he had the biggest fundraising day in Republican Party history, taking in over $4.3 million in the space of twenty-four hours. Suddenly, a dismissive media began to take Paul’s candidacy more seriously, speculating on the possibility of an eventual third party run that could divide conservative voters and ensure a victory for the Democratic Party in the 2008 elections.
The viability of Paul’s candidacy will be in part determined by his stance on human life and family issues. An obstetrician, who says he has delivered more than 4,000 babies during his career, Paul regards himself as pro-life. “In 40 years of medical practice, I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman,” he writes on his website.
Paul cites his authorship and sponsorship of several bills to illustrate his record. “In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, HR 1094,” he writes. “I am also the prime sponsor of HR 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life. This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn.”
Paul also observes that he “authored HR 1095, which prevents federal funds to be used for so-called ‘population control’.”
However, Paul’s record on human life and family issues is not as consistent as it might appear in his position statements. Although he seems to genuinely oppose abortion, his rigidly literalist reading of the U.S. Constitution seems always to take precedence over the interest of the unborn. It also tends to tie his hands in the face of threats to public morality and other issues of interest to pro-family voters.
Paul’s votes, presumably based on the notion that the federal government’s power is restricted only to those explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, have resulted in “no” votes on important pro-life legislation. He has consistently opposed the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which would prohibit the clandestine transport of minors across state lines to procure abortions.
He has also voted consistently against the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act”, which would add criminal penalties to offenses committed against a pregnant woman that harmed her unborn child. He gave his reasoning for his position in a speech in 2000, titled “A Republic If You Can Keep it”. After condemning abortion as murder, he decries attempts to federalize criminal law enforcement in abortion cases.
“Last year the House made a serious error by trying to federalize the crime of killing a fetus occurring in an act of violence,” Paul said. “The stated goal was to emphasize that the fetus deserved legal protection under the law. And indeed it should and does-at the state level. Federalizing any act of violence is unconstitutional; essentially all violent acts should be dealt with by the states.”
Paul summarizes his view on the legislation of sexual morality using standard liberal rhetoric. “The government should be out of our bedrooms. I don’t think they should be regulating any personal behavior if it’s non-violent,” he said in a Houston Public Radio interview this year. “That means we have to tolerate people who do things that sometimes are dumb and sometimes are irritating, but in a free society you tolerate that.”
According to the National Abortion Rights Action League, Paul’s “constitutionalist” position has led to a “pro-choice” score that fluctuated between zero and 35 percent between 1997 and 2003. It then shot up to a consistent 65-75% during the years up to 2006, mostly due to his consistent opposition to bills restricting the interstate transportation of minors to obtain abortions. NARAL, however, sums up his history by saying that “Rep. Paul has an anti-choice record.”
Paul also opposed the bill to establish the national Amber Alert system that helps to locate missing children, and has voted against banning physician-assisted suicide. He has voted against forbidding human cloning for medical research. He is opposed to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, but thinks that the federal government should not prohibit it, and that instead “the market should deal with it, and the states should deal with it” as he stated in the Reagan Library primary debate in May of this year.
However, Paul’s rigid anti-federal consistency with regard to human life and family issues doesn’t seem to apply to other forms of law. Paul has stated clearly that he would maintain the Social Security system as President, despite the fact that Social Security is unmentioned in the Constitution, because of the dependency of the elderly on the system.
Paul has also voted to maintain a travel ban to Cuba, and he supports maintaining benefits for veterans, neither of which involve powers mentioned explicitly in the U.S. Constitution.
Even his pro-life votes don’t always seem to be consistent with his political philosophy. While he has refused to prohibit the clandestine transportation of minors across state lines because it would federalize criminal law enforcement, he voted to ban partial birth abortions at the federal level in October of 2003.
With over seven million dollars raised since the beginning October of this year, Paul seems poised to get his message out to a larger audience of voters in the early primary states. It remains to be seen if he will be able to clarify or explain the seeming contradictions in his positions on life issues for pro-life voters, whose participation was pivotal in the 2004 presidential elections.
Related Links:
Ron Paul for President official campaign website
https://www.ronpaul2008.com/
Summary of Paul’s Votes on Abortion
https://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Ron_Paul_Abortion.htm
NARAL’s Summary of Paul’s Voting Record
https://www.naral.org/elections/statements/paul.html