Ron Paul and Rand Paul Are Not Pro-Choice, in Contrast to Their Libertarian Views

Impact

In a recent campaign stump Kentucky Senator Rand Paul openly stated that both he and his father Ron Paul are against abortion and inferred they may be against gay marriage. Sen. Paul also openly stated that he would, “do whatever it takes” to protect the republic. For some, these issues are pivotal issues in their decision process of which candidate to support. 

Sen. Paul opened his speech with a joke framed as a parable of a little girl writing a letter to God for $100 that eventually wound up in the president’s hands who sent her $5. The little girl then wrote another letter to God asking him not to send the next letter to Washington because they stole 95% of the funds.

Sen. Paul then gave his gratitude’s to the chair, the Governor, etc. and subtly reminded the crowd that the constant political campaigning  is bringing in millions of dollars of new "revenue" to the various venues the politicians choose to attend. From there, he gave his statement of faith, an overview of his medical career that carried “the burden” of seeing tragedy, hardship, death and how this shaped his faith. 

Sen. Paul transitioned to the topic of war and gave an account of how the true story of the unofficial Christmas Eve armistice during WWI shaped his views on war. Sen. Paul stated, “Now I’m not naive enough to think we can never have war. But, I am consciousness of the fact of the horrors of war. I’m conscious of that fact that I think our country needs leaders who understand this and not leaders who think that war is a sports game…” 

He spoke of his dedication to his faith and his family and tied it back to leaving the burden of debt to future generations and personal liberties and one primal right, “the one thing we get from our creator – the right to life....” He summed up his views by stating, “From conception to the very last breath, we have to respect life.” He also spoke of his own refusal to participate in an abortion as a medical professional, his admiration of his father, and how his father’s book, Abortion and liberty shaped and mirrors his views on the right to life. 

“You have to have a right to life in order to have a right to choose,” Sen. Paul emphasized then elaborated on his father’s experience where Candidate Paul walked into an operating room where a baby was born alive then left to die. Two rooms down, another baby was born and, “teams of doctors were struggling to keep him alive.” He then acknowledged that, as a teenager, he publicly questioned his father for not taking a position on abortion and asked, “If we’re not going to do it in our church, then whose going to do it?”

From there, he highlighted the numerous pieces of pro-life pieces of legislation the Senator and his father/Representative/presidential candidate have introduced and/or co-sponsored, including defunding of Planned Parenthood. He included a solution of redistributing federal dollars to a variety of like services that do not provide abortions.   

Sen. Paul’s speech then highlighted the Paul family views on gay marriage and war as it pertains to protecting the ‘republic’. This will be covered in Part 2 of this 2 part series.