Part 1As an OB/GYN who delivered over 4,000 babies, Ron Paul knows firsthand how precious, fragile, and in need of protection life is.
Dr. Paul’s experience in science and medicine only reinforced his belief that life begins at conception, and he believes it would be inconsistent for him to champion personal liberty and a free society if he didn’t also advocate respecting the God-given right to life—for those born and unborn.
After being forced to witness an abortion being performed during his time in medical school, he knew from that moment on that his practice would focus on protecting life. And during his years in medicine, never once did he find an abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
As a physician, Ron Paul consistently put his beliefs into practice and saved lives by helping women seek options other than abortion, including adoption. And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:
* Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”
* Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”
Because he agrees with Thomas Jefferson that it is “sinful and tyrannical” to “compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors,” Ron Paul will also protect the American people’s freedom of conscience by working to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions, Planned Parenthood, or any other so-called “family planning” program.
The strength of love for liberty in our society can be judged by how we treat the most innocent among us. It’s time to elect a President with the courage and conviction to stand up for every American’s right to life.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/abortion/I really don't care if someone poisons a ball of cells with no nervous system, and politicians have no place in "defining life". Is a tumor "life"? Anyway, I see this being circumvented in much the same way cows and chickens are not animals (livestock and poultry, respectively) depending on where they live to avoid animal cruelty laws.
Currently, in our society, having a child at a young age pretty much guarantees you a life of debt, and young people are programmed to like sex so they often act contrary to their own interest. I see more cons in forcing all pregnancies to go to term (rise in black market abortions, increased number of people living in poverty, telling women "what to do with their bodies") than I do pros (makes me feel better about the world).
On the other hand, I don't agree with the courts justification of Roe v Wade (although IANAL). It seems to me that giving the Feds the power to intervene in state law on this matter should have been made in the form of an amendment. If this cannot pass, then it should be left up to each state to decide. This may cause inconvenience for some people but it is the way the system was set up to prevent totalitarianism.
Part 2http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/10/ron-paul-would-erase-billions-in.html?rss=1Has anyone looked into the exact research projects being cut under his budget plan? Do we even need government funded research? I.e., in retrospect was the NASA moonshot a good thing? The human genome project? About $30 billion is spent on health-related research (NIH) per year. That works out to about 100 dollars a year per citizen donated to study of disease and understanding life. How many people here would donate to private funding agencies (such as American Heart Association, etc) to fund health research, and how much?
To keep with the AHA example, In 2010-2011, about 20% of their $620 million budget was needed for administration and fundraising:
http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@fin/documents/downloadable/ucm_433433.pdfSee page 40 of this document for a breakdown of NIH spending. It reports about 5% is spent on administration, but a portion of the 53% that goes to research project grants is also going to be administration. One would need to go through each Institute's numbers to find out total overhead cost, and I need to go to work. Maybe I will do that later.
http://www.nih.gov/about/director/budgetrequest/NIH_BIB_020911.pdf