Posted on 04/23/2014 10:35:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via MFP, an eyebrow-raiser from yesterday’s chat with David Axelrod(!) at the University of Chicago. David Corn and Mother Jones are out with another gotcha piece on Paul this morning citing his (mild) criticism of Reagan in the past for not cutting spending more as president, but this clip is more interesting, I think. Knocking the Gipper for not doing enough to shrink government is Libertarianism 101; even mainstream conservatives who venerate him will grudgingly concede that they wish he’d done better before quickly adding that he did what he could with a liberal Congress. And needless to say, no one’s going to stand onstage next to Paul at the 2015 primary debates and rip him for criticizing deficit spending. It’s okay to criticize Reagan as long as you’re respectful and as long as you’re doing it from the right.
So forget the Mother Jones piece. What about this exchange with Axelrod, though? MFP headlines the clip, “Rand Paul: Relax, I’m not going to ban abortion” — which does seem a fair interpretation of what Paul’s saying. (Maybe it’d be fairer to say, “Rand Paul: Relax, I’m not going to ban abortion anytime soon.”) He notes that he believes that life begins at conception and points out, correctly, that the public takes a middle-ground approach to abortion in most polls. They support giving women a right to terminate in the first trimester, oppose giving them that right in the third trimester, and usually take a skeptical “if necessary” view of the second trimester. If anything, says Paul, current law is far too biased towards the pro-abortion view since it effectively allows for terminations in the third trimester too, which most Americans believe should be illegal. Axelrod, though, keeps pressing: What does that mean we should or could expect from President Paul once in office? Paul’s answer: Not much. Certainly not an all-out ban; there’s still much persuading to be done before most Americans come around to that view. Presumably, if public opinion changes while he’s in office, he’d consider a ban. If it doesn’t, presumably he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d try at least to bring the law in line with opinion by banning terminations in the third trimester, but judge for yourself at the end here whether you think he’d push on that.
You can see what he’s trying to do with this answer. He’s pitching himself as a “different kind of Republican,” someone who can appeal to young voters and minorities in a way that no one else in the party can. One splashy way to do that is to position himself as a pro-life but modest, incrementalist candidate on abortion; not only will it make the left’s “war on women” demagoguery a bit harder but it might also reassure libertarians, not all of whom are as pro-life as the Pauls are, that he hasn’t completely sold out to conservatives in running for the GOP nomination. Meanwhile, though, he’ll be lambasted for this by whoever ends up as the social-conservative champion in the primaries — maybe Huckabee, maybe Santorum, maybe (most dangerously of all for Paul) Ted Cruz. If abortion is morally equivalent to slavery, as many social cons believe, then Paul’s approach is intolerable. He’d have a moral duty to work with the legislature and the courts to ban it, whatever the political consequences. Paul can sustain an attack like that from Huck or Santorum, I think, because they’re niche candidates who aren’t competing with him for the wider grassroots conservative vote. I’m not so sure he can sustain it from Cruz, who is competing. The question for Cruz is, how forcefully does he want to push the “ban at all costs” position? It might give him an opening against Paul in the primaries but it’d also make things easier for Democrats in attacking him in the general. Paul is right about the polling on this. It’s purely a question of how the GOP wants to deal with the reality of it.
Update: Ramesh Ponnuru notes that it’s hard to call Paul wishy-washy on this topic when he’s the lead sponsor of the “Life at Conception Act.” Right, but it’s one thing for a legislator to float a bill and another for a president, with his bully-pulpit power to set agendas, to push for it. The question raised by the clip, I think, is what sort of priority abortion would be for Paul as president. He’s right that it’ll take lots of persuasion to build congressional support to act. Would a “different kind of Republican” be willing to do that? Many of the not-so-different kinds haven’t been in the past.
Update: Matt Lewis responds:
Shorter Rand Paul: First you win the argument, then you win the vote – http://t.co/FskwxLOMOD
— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) April 23, 2014
Yeah, but what if you’ve spent 40 years making the argument against abortion and the public still supports terminations in the first trimester? Should you ban it anyway, assuming you have the votes in Congress, or do you bow to public opinion? That’s what makes the Paul clip interesting. The public opposed ObamaCare in 2010 and that didn’t stop Democrats from passing it anyway. They’ve paid a price for that politically, but Nancy Pelosi herself said recently that it was all worth it. Would the next GOP president agree?
Update: Good point by John McCormack. One reason Paul is respected on the right is because he’s a man of principle. Agree or disagree, but when it comes to libertarian priorities like shrinking government or surveillance, he fights hard for what he thinks is right whether or not the public agrees. Why the difference in abortion?
@allahpundit @mattklewis True: Paul's position on FP/cutting spending is public opinion be damned.
— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) April 23, 2014
Update: Almost forgot — here’s what Paul said not long ago about another hot-button social issue.
[Q:] Right. But it seems what they’re saying is that the Republican Party should stay out of issues like gay marriage.
[A:] I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues. The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues.
Not unlike Mitch Daniels’s “truce” comment on social issues. If Rand’s trying to build the party by pushing his core issues, namely, smaller government and protecting civil liberties, a strong push on abortion or gay marriage might alienate some of the voters he’s trying to reach. Again: How much of a priority would social issues be to his administration?
And, Paul is grossly ignorant if he doesn't know the majority believes that abortion should be banned in all cases except in cases of rape, incest and the mother's life being endanger. That has been true in polls for 40 years.
And, since the states would decide the issue, more than half of them would ban abortion immediately in most cases.
Paul also fails to acknowlege a 15% or so shift in favor of the pro-life position over the past 20 years and that the younger generation is the most pro-life generation.
\ Paul is either completely ignorant of the subject matter or is really pro-life.
Other polls show it means that the majority (55-60%) favor only allowing abortion in the case of rape, incest and the mother's life being endangered.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
What Rand Paul is not pointing out about the so-called right to an abortion is the following. The states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect having an abortion as a right. This so-called right was not only wrongly legislated from the bench by activist justices imo, but the legislative powers that they usurped were 10th Amendment-protected state powers.
That would have been done decades ago in half or more of the states if not for Roe.
The only question on the issue that matters in regard to Paul is, can he be trusted to put judges on SCOTUS that would overturn Roe. I'm not convinced that he would.
President Reagan was a hero and an inspiration to the pro-life movement.
While everyone (except Rand Paul) knows about Reagan’s aggressive Cold War actions of the early 1980s, some forget that he wrote a book on abortion, published in 1983.
https://encrypted.google.com/books/about/Abortion_and_the_Conscience_of_the_Natio.html?id=bNknAAAAYAAJ
Reagan describes his efforts here. “”Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion-efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.””
One success is mentioned here.
“Moreover, Reagan’s putting the Mexico City Policy during his presidency to cut off taxpayer-funding of groups that promoted and performed abortions in other nations has saved literally millions of lives in the decades since.”
Lots, but mostly we want a passionate pro-life president that will do everything he can to sell and promote life to America, a candidate's campaign and positions signals what he will use the world's greatest bully puppet for, and what he won't.
There is abortion at the federal level in regards to foreign policy, military hospitals and other federal health law and hospitals, budget items, all kinds of things, we do not plan to elect people who's politics go against ours, because you want to pretend that a president has no effect on them.
Two thirds of the country are opposed to late term abortions, or abortions as a form of birth control.
Maybe one third of that two thirds is opposed to any abortion for any reason or at any time, including the morning after pill.
Any discussion of what can and can't be done about abortion at the ballot box needs to start with those numbers.
Could a president be much more pro life than GWB was??? How many abortions was he able to stop, other than by the force of personality (which I do not at all demean)?
The Bushies are not Conservatives.
As far as how many thousands, or tens of thousands, or millions of babies Reagan and George W. saved, I don’t know, aside from their governmental efforts as president which someone may be able to guess at some numbers on, we can’t know what their serving as an example in the office means over the long term.
Like Christians proselytizing and converting, the effects carry on for generations.
(CNSNews.com) - Outgoing Republican President George W. Bush has had the most pro-life record of any U.S. president in history, representatives of pro-life groups told CNSNews.com on Friday.
On Thursday, in one of his last acts as president, Bush declared Jan. 18 “National Sanctity of Human Life Day,” stating that the “the most basic duty of government is to protect the life of the innocent.”
Bush’s declaration was the culmination of eight years of pro-life policies that included sustained opposition to embryonic stem cell research; the appointment of two pro-life Supreme Court Justices; an executive order barring federal funds to be used for abortion- related projects abroad; and a rule protecting federally funded health employees from taking part in abortion-related activities or other practices that conflicted with their religious views.
“In the annals of history, George W. Bush will be remembered as a president who believed and fought to protect innocent human life,” Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America (CWA), told CNSNews.com. “While we’ll never know how many lives were saved, and rarely will a person know that his or her life was rescued because of his policies, we do know that he set a standard that others can follow.”
“We have seen in Bush the most pro-life president that we have ever had for this cause of defending the unborn,” Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, told CNSNews.com. “He set up a tremendous groundwork.”
In 2001, President Bush declared that federal funds could not be used for embryonic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of human embryos. Instead, Bush promoted adult stem cell research, which does not destroy embryos.
In the same year, Bush also reinstated a Reagan-era mandate known as the Mexico City Policy that had been removed by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The policy requires all non-governmental organizations that receive federal funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortions in other countries.
In 2002, Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tommy G. Thompson implemented the “unborn child rule.” It requires the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) — a federal program that gives funds to states to provide health insurance to families with children — to define the term “child” to include from conception to birth.
Also in 2002, Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which extends legal protection to infants who survive induced abortions by providing them with identical legal protections as babies who are born prematurely.
In 2003, President Bush signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which prohibits late-term abortions.
In 2004, Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which defines a child “in utero” at any stage of development as human, and accords the child the legal rights of the victim if subject to certain crimes that involve death or injury.
In 2005 and 2006, Bush appointed two pro-life justices, Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, respectively, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2007, both justices voted to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which was challenged in a lawsuit.
In 2007, Bush also sent congressional Democratic leaders a letter threatening to veto any bill that weakened existing pro-life policy.
In 2008, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt issued a regulation to protect the rights of federally funded health care providers to decline to participate in services to which they morally object, including abortion.
“Bush has achieved more than any other pro-life president,” Darla St. Martin, co-executive director of National Right to Life, told CNSNews.com. “Bush was just outstanding. He was very dedicated from the moment he came into office. He was a tremendous pro-life president.
Funny, the other side didn’t care about changing hearts and minds back in the 60s and 70s when they pushed for Roe v Wade. Back then, no one but the activists were pushing for abortion on demand. Of course, we have to be nice-nice. And if we keep waiting for the pro-life activists to change hearts and minds, abortions will continue infinitum.
Notice how Rand Paul tried this on gay marriage.
See if you can make sense of this.
Rand Paul’s Same-Sex Marriage Plan: Continue The Debate ‘For Another Couple Of Decades’
“Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) opposes same-sex marriage, but his tactics for doing so are unique. For example, last month he offered a completely unfeasible suggestion to simply erase any mention of marriage from the laws and establish all its protections through various contracts. But he really isn’t interested in taking any steps to help that along. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network this weekend, he expressed hope that by continuing to allow individual states to decide, the debate on same-sex marriage might continue unresolved for several decades:
PAUL: Where marriage is adjudicated, whether it’s at the federal level or at the state level, we’ve always had marriage certificates and we’ve had them at the state level. If we keep it that way, maybe we can still have the discussion go on without make the decision go all the way one way or all the way the other way.
I think right now if we say we’re only going to have a federally mandated one-man, one-woman marriage, we’re going to lose that battle because the country is going the other way right now. If we were to say each state can decide, I think a good 25, 30 states still do believe in traditional marriage, and maybe we allow that debate to go on for another couple of decades and see if we can still win back the hearts and minds of people.”
What is Rand waiting for?
That's not really all the power is it? If he gets the opportunity to nominate judges, and if the court revisits the issue again, and if his judges vote the way you expect, and if they are enough to make the difference, then yeah he has some power.
If that ever happens, and it's far from likely, it's way off in the future. It makes no sense to pick our presidents based on their personal opinions of an issue that they will not decide.
"And, Paul is grossly ignorant if he doesn't know the majority believes that abortion should be banned in all cases except in cases of rape, incest and the mother's life being endanger. That has been true in polls for 40 years."
Actually the country is roughly evenly split between "pro life" and "pro choice", and a large majority wants abortion legal to varying degrees.
"And, since the states would decide the issue, more than half of them would ban abortion immediately in most cases."
But the states aren't going to decide. The Supreme Court has already had its say.
Again, it makes no sense to base a presidential choice on his personal opinion about abortion when it's one issue he will have no power over. There are other important things he will affect. That's all he was saying.
And for anyone that missed it, he wasn't telling pro-lifers not to worry about it. He was reassuring pro-choicers that might be thinking of voting for him that they shouldn't be concerned about his pro-life views. It's good politics.
Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]
Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]
Again, the President has more power than any other elected official to end Roe and return the power to the people by nominating judges. And, the people in the more than half the states would ban abortion except in rare circumstances.
You make the arguments you do as does Paul because neither one of you are pro-life and/or care about the issue.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.