This was my response to someone on their journal essentially making the claim that Ron Paul is a religious wingnut who would plunge our nation into a theocracy
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Great commentary/analysis--just one minor pointlisa_janineFebruary 2 2008, 18:54:44 UTC
"Furthermore, I think his apparent claim that an abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother or another child to be somewhat specious. While I cannot bring to mind any cases where an abortion was medically necessary, I can certainly imagine circumstances where it could be necessary. Imagination, however, does not a convincing argument make."
Congressman Paul's statement, to me at least, was meant simply to illustrate how rare such cases are since he, as an a obstetrician, has delivered over 4000 babies. Now in some places that might mean that he showed up in the delivery room and did the actual delivery, but had little contact with the mother; in Dr. Paul's case for a long time he was the only ob/gyn in Brazoria County, Texas, so he was also the only pre-natal care.
He's been pretty clear and consise on other subjects, so I think if he meant to say that abortion is never medically necessary he would have said exactly that. I believe he simply wanted to make clear that his position isn't simply based on how he feels about the subject or out of some sense of religious zealotry, but also based on his intimate and extensive experience with pregnancies with the obvious exception of actually having been pregnant himself.
That's not to say I agree completely with him. I tend to agree with you that there's a window of time in a pregnancy that is a gray area as to whether an embryo can truly be considered a person with those certain inalienable rights.
Congressman Paul's statement, to me at least, was meant simply to illustrate how rare such cases are since he, as an a obstetrician, has delivered over 4000 babies. Now in some places that might mean that he showed up in the delivery room and did the actual delivery, but had little contact with the mother; in Dr. Paul's case for a long time he was the only ob/gyn in Brazoria County, Texas, so he was also the only pre-natal care.
He's been pretty clear and consise on other subjects, so I think if he meant to say that abortion is never medically necessary he would have said exactly that. I believe he simply wanted to make clear that his position isn't simply based on how he feels about the subject or out of some sense of religious zealotry, but also based on his intimate and extensive experience with pregnancies with the obvious exception of actually having been pregnant himself.
That's not to say I agree completely with him. I tend to agree with you that there's a window of time in a pregnancy that is a gray area as to whether an embryo can truly be considered a person with those certain inalienable rights.
Again, great analysis. Thanks for posting it.
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