Do you ignore certain parts of platforms?

[nittanyalum]

Interesting, from swtx's signature, I googled and found the Baldwin site -- for all those arguing that who is elected President could ultimately have no direct effect on the abortion issue, this from the Baldwin issues link:

"I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to demand that Congress enact Dr. Ron Paul's Sanctity of Life Act which would set forth that every unborn child is a 'person' under the Constitution, entitled to equal protection of the law and therefore, no unborn child could be killed without due process of law."

In addition to guaranteeing the legal person hood of the unborn, Ron Paul's Sanctity of Life Act, which I wholeheartedly support, would strip the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in all cases of abortion in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 2. This would mean that Roe v. Wade would immediately pass away as any legal authority on this issue. There would be no need to worry about putting a Supreme Court on the bench that might eventually make the right decision on this issue. We can, therefore, end legal abortion immediately upon enactment of the Sanctity of Life Act. ... Under my administration, we could end legal abortion in a matter of days, not decades. And if Congress refuses to pass Dr. Paul's bill, I will use the constitutional power of the Presidency to deny funds to protect abortion clinics. Either way, legalized abortion ends when I take office.

Not saying this would happen (lots of politics would come into play), but it makes the point that it COULD happen.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Interesting, from swtx's signature, I googled and found the Baldwin site -- for all those arguing that who is elected President could ultimately have no direct effect on the abortion issue, this from the Baldwin issues link:


Not saying this would happen (lots of politics would come into play), but it makes the point that it COULD happen.

It could if more than a fraction of one percent of the population were willing to vote for Baldwin and that if elected he could actually make that change.

It would be a losing proposition for any elected official to vote for it unless we had a really clear and somewhat limited definition of what unborn meant.

As much as I'm anti-abortion, I recognize that it's a really small segment of the population who wants to insist on absolutely no abortions for any reason from the moment of conception on. Even many people who personally believe life begins then recognize that it's not a standard that the public at large would be willing to live with. (For instance, I think the number of people who think that IVF or the storage of embryos for IVF is wrong is TINY, and yet if you grant any conceived embryos legal rights IVF gets weird really fast). So is unborn person any implanted embryo? Any month-old, implanted embryo? And unless they could find the terms on which a consensus could form, they'd likely be voted out and the act repealed with the next congress.

Or so I think.

I'm not throwing this accusation at you Nitty, but doomsday scenarios can be powerful motivators, but it doesn't mean that it's a reasonable or rational motivator. A coat hanger and "we won't go back" doesn't seem reasonable to most people. It's almost the intellectual equivalent of the mangled fetus pictures from Pro-Lifers. Even if Baldwin says he wants to go back, we won't.