Paul's Pro-Life Commitment Questioned
Personhood USA, a prolife advocacy group, is openly questioning Texas congressman and GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul’s commitment when it comes to protecting the unborn.
Paul became the fifth GOP candidate to sign a pledge that states candidates must “stand…with the Republican Party platform” in affirming that [they] “support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th Amendment protections apply to unborn children.””
However Paul, a self-proclaimed libertarian and pro-life supporter, added in a clarification to his signature on the petition:
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“A Human Life Amendment should do two things. First, it should define life as beginning at conception and give the unborn the same protection all other human life enjoys. Second, it must deal with the enforcement of the ruling much as any law against violence does -- through state laws."
“The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to cancel out the Tenth Amendment. This means that I can’t agree that the Fourteenth Amendment has a role to play here, or otherwise we would end up with a ‘Federal Department of Abortion.’”
“We agree with Rep. Ron Paul that the 10th amendment police powers are the proper vehicle for state criminalization of murder (born and unborn),” Keith Ashley, spokesperson for Personhood USA said in a released statement.
“But we strenuously disagree that the 10th amendment could possibly allow for the decriminalization of murder. If this were the case, it would truly seem that we would be throwing out the whole purpose of the constitution, which is to ‘secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.’“
Personhood USA requests to know what exactly Paul thinks the federal government should be permitted to do about the killing of unborn children. Paul’s campaign did not respond to requests for comments by The Christian Post.
Paul argues in his addendum that the 10th amendment may trump the 14th amendment in the case of the unborn. It states that: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
“We should allow our republican system of government to function as our Founders designed it to: protect rights at the federal level, enforce laws against violence at the state level,” Paul continued in the addendum.
“The United States suffered through a terrible civil war precisely because the federal government left it to the states to decide whether an entire class of people were to be considered persons or property,” explained Personhood USA Legal Analyst Gualberto Garcia Jones, J.D. to PRweb.com.
“If Rep. Ron Paul believes that the preborn are persons under the law, why wouldn't they be protected under the 14th amendment?” Garcia Jones said.
“Rep. Paul's vague statement on the duty of the federal government to ‘protect rights’ is without effect if there is no mechanism for guaranteeing those protections.”
Paul’s signature comes after that of Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Personhood USA is making an effort to force GOP candidates to lay out strong pro-life views before the Iowa caucus. On Tuesday evening Personhood is co-hosting a presidential pro-life forum. As of publication time, Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, and Perry are the only candidates to have confirmed their participation in the forum. Callers have the opportunity to phone into the forum and ask questions regarding the candidates’ views on abortions.
