{"id":64136,"date":"2015-05-26T16:04:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T20:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=64136"},"modified":"2015-07-19T16:52:18","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T20:52:18","slug":"say-rand-paul-calls-life-begins-difficult-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/say-rand-paul-calls-life-begins-difficult-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Say what? Rand Paul: When life begins is a ‘difficult question’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Senator

Senator Rand Paul (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Pro-lifers are used to seeing the public pronouncements of Republican politicians vary wildly from awesome<\/a> to abysmal<\/a>, but it\u2019s rare to see a single figure embody both ends of the spectrum as dramatically as Rand Paul. One minute the Kentucky senator and libertarian presidential candidate is endorsing abortifacient birth-control drugs<\/a> and suggesting there could be \u201cthousands of exceptions<\/a>\u201d for which abortion would be allowed\u00a0\u2014the next, he\u2019s pushing excellent pro-life legislation<\/a> and brutally calling out<\/a> the Democrat Party\u2019s pro-abortion extremism.<\/p>\n

With his challenge to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz over whether she\u2019s down with killing 7-pound babies being so fantastic, the pendulum was due for a swing back to nonsense territory. This past week, Paul told<\/a> talk-radio host Dom Giordano, \u201cI didn\u2019t run for office because of the social issues,\u201d elaborating with a discussion alarmingly confused on the facts:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [abortion should be handled] best by the states,\u201d Paul replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the question that still divides us, and it\u2019s a difficult question, is when does life begin,\u201d Paul, an eye doctor, added. \u201cI think we go down all kinds of rabbit holes talking about other stuff, but I\u2019m an ophthalmologist, and I see one, two-pound babies in the neonatal nursery. I look into their eyes to try to prevent a form of blindness that is now preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd everybody agrees that that one-pound baby has rights,\u201d he said. \u201cIf someone were to hurt that one-pound baby in the neonatal nursery, it\u2019s a problem. That baby has rights. But we somewhat inconsistently say that seven-pound baby at birth or just before birth has no rights. And so I think these are questions we have to sort out. We just have to figure when we agree life begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are two problems here. First, Paul comes from a branch of libertarianism so suspicious of government power it often prefers federal inaction even when the feds do have a constitutional role<\/a>. Thus we see him failing to appreciate that the Fourteenth Amendment makes abortion a national concern<\/a>, as a matter of Americans being denied equal protection of the laws\u2014even while making the Constitution a major theme of his campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Annoying as it is to misplace abortion on the federalism scale, that\u2019s a matter of political mechanics that in practice won\u2019t matter anyway until Congress is finally ready to act on a federal abortion ban. A far more pressing concern is Paul\u2019s nonsensical assertion that \u201cwhen does life begin\u201d is \u201ca difficult question,\u201d which we still need \u201cto sort out\u201d and \u201cfigure when we agree\u201d on.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Paul\u2019s fumbled here, either. In an April 2014 event at the University of Chicago, he told ex-Obama aide David Axelrod<\/a> that it was only his \u201creligious and personal belief\u201d that \u201clife begins at the very beginning,\u201d and that when all was said and done, the law would end up somewhere in between the \u201cextremes\u201d of pro-lifers and abort\u00a0supporters.<\/p>\n

Good grief, man, you went to medical school<\/a>. Your father was an OB\/GYN<\/a>. Shouldn\u2019t you be among the best qualified in Congress to knock this one out of the park? The fact that the science of embryology is so overwhelmingly, inarguably settled<\/a> is one of the first things drilled into any pro-lifer after\u2026oh, five minutes or so in the movement.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not \u201cdifficult\u201d to know what embryology books say<\/a>. It\u2019s not \u201cdifficult\u201d to know how modern biology defines an organism<\/a>. And it\u2019s not \u201cdifficult\u201d to know whether an organism is human or not.<\/p>\n

So enlighten us, Senator: what is the difficult part? Which factual aspect of embryology is so murky that you can\u2019t just say it? You talk about the public needing to sort it out; wouldn\u2019t the best thing toward that end be to have a high-profile public figure with a medical background simply explain it to them? And why on earth would you play into pro-aborts\u2019 hands by suggesting the question is ultimately religious and personal rather than scientific and objective?<\/p>\n

Consider this a public service announcement to all politicians still struggling with how to talk about abortion in a way that\u2019s pleasing to pro-lifers and undecided voters alike: it doesn\u2019t take focus groups or overpaid strategists or hack consultants. Just read us. Whether it\u2019s Live Action, Abort73<\/a>, Josh Brahm<\/a>, or Scott Klusendorf<\/a>, those of us who spend every day talking to people about abortion in the real world have this figured out much better than the Beltway crowd. It\u2019s not that hard. Trust me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pro-lifers are used to seeing the public pronouncements of Republican politicians vary wildly from awesome to abysmal, but it\u2019s rare to see a single figure embody both ends of the spectrum as dramatically as Rand Paul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":50949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[1255,3581,19,622,253,546,728,131,295,132,2514,3740,1254,337,3741],"yoast_head":"\nSay what? 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