Ron Paul’s speech at the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday was substantially different than the other speeches I heard that day. Oh, he still spoke about some of the issues he is well known for such as his opposition to the wars we’re currently engaged in. But he spent much of his speech speaking to the issue of abortion, and I have to say I was impressed by it.
Sure, one could argue that doing so was a political necessity, but I don’t really care what his motivation was. I saw a man speaking from his heart and speaking from his experience. If you care about the issue of life, this was a good speech.
He began by pointing out that his campaign was “identified with the cause of liberty”, and went on to say that he was going to emphasize something a little different than the cause of liberty because there is something that precedes liberty: Life.
He said we need to “protect life and I mean all life”.
He said that in the 1950s when he was in medical school, abortion was a non-issue. Everyone was assumed to be pro-life. It was understood in the medical community that abortions weren’t to be performed. He said that changed in the 1960s when doctors began defying the law.
He went on to relate a story from when he was a medical resident in the 1960s and witnessed a hysterotomy in which a live baby was placed in a bucket and put in a corner of the room to die. He said everyone pretended not to notice. He walked out of that room and down the corridor, where there was a baby that was born prematurely. Paul said he saw twenty people on the medical staff there, doctors and nurses, in a mad scramble to save that baby’s life. He concluded that very day, he said, that you “cannot have relative value for life”, and that we “cannot play God and make those decisions. All life is precious”.
He added that rights don’t come from the government, they come from our creator.
He called the forcing of pro-life people to fund abortion via taxation an “atrocious” practice and said it “should be reversed”.
It’s my understanding that Paul thinks the best way to stop abortion is through passage of personhood legislation. If this was done, the unborn would already be under constitutional protection and an amendment banning abortion would be a moot point.
Say what you will about Ron Paul and his view of Federalism and the like. But however one might disagree with him on how best to address this issue, you cannot say he isn’t pro-life. As I wrote earlier, I saw a man speaking from his heart and speaking from his experience. If you care about the issue of life, this was a good speech.
Photo courtesy of Dave Davidson http://prezography.com/
