With all due respect to Rand Paul supporters, and I may end up being one of them, the article explaining Paul's proposed Life at Conception Act has the overtones of a publicicy stunt for 2016 imho.
More specifically, the first paragraph in the article subtly sidesteps the constitutonal reality that Congress has no constitutional authority to ratify proposed amendments to the Constitution.
"According to Senator Paul, S 583 “does not amend or interpret the Constitution, but simply relies on the 14th Amendment, which specifically authorizes Congress to enforce its provisions."
Article V of the Constitution clearly indicates that only the states have the power to ratify proposed amendments.
The problem with the statement above from the article is this. Since the states have never amended the Constitution to define life as beginning at conception, there is no enumerated right which defines when life begins that Congress can enforce via 14A imo.
In fact, although John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A, had worded 14A to indicate that it applied only constitutionally enumerated privileges and immunities to the states, he had more clearly stressed this point about enumerated rights in the congressional record imo.
"Mr. Speaker, this House may safely follow the example of the makers of the Constitution and the builders of the Republic, by passing laws for enforcing all the privileges and immunities of the United States as guaranteed by the amended Constitution and expressly enumerated in the Constitution (emphasis added)." --John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1871. (See bottom half of third column.)
(Note that activist justices ignored this clarification, imo, when they not only hid behind the 9th Amendment to apply nonenumerated abortion rights to the states in Roe v. Wade, but wrongly legislated state legislative powers from the bench in order to do so.)
Next, patriots who have read Section 1 of 14A can tell you that the excerpt from Section 1 in the referenced article left out the first sentence of Section 1. The problem with the first sentence is that it contains wording which arguably weakens Paul's proposed Life at Conception Act.
14th Amendment, Section 1 begins as follows.
All persons born (emphasis added) or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. ...
So all that justices have to argue is that unborn children aren't regarded as citizens, and therefore have no constitutionally protected rights.
So although I'd probably support Paul for 2016, I'm disappointed in Paul for what may be a publicity stunt by proposing the Life at Conception Act. But hey, since constitutionally indefensible DOMA undoubtedly won some votes from Constitution-ignorant voters for incubment lamakers, the Life at Conception Act may win some votes for Paul whether Congress passes it or not.
That was prescient of him. He's been pushing this hard for several years now.
...there is no enumerated right which defines when life begins that Congress can enforce via 14A imo...
LOL The enumerated right is the right to life. All his bill does is define when life begins. There is no new right being defined here. Nice red herring.
The unborn are not citizens, they are persons. Persons who are not citizens do have constitutional rights. Otherwise we could just gun down illegal aliens in the streets because they have no rights.
Our Declaration of Independence --- in the light of which our Constitution is to be interpreted --- acknowledges that basic human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are given by God, innate, and neither awarded nor rescinded by Kings, Constitutions, Congresses, or Courts.