Pand(er)with Rand
by digby
This is one of the fundamental reasons I cannot take all this talk about individual liberty and personal freedom among the libertarian set seriously. The only people on the planet who aren’t entitled to them are women — otherwise known as half the population on the planet:
[I]n an interview with the American Liberty Association, the potential 2016 presidential candidate said he believes human fetuses deserve personhood rights — a move that would completely outlaw abortion.
“It is a big issue for me. I tell people that really it is all about when life begins,” Paul remarked. “You know, I’m a physician. One of the things I would do in my job is to go into the pediatric nursery and I would examine babies that are one-pound babies, looking in their eyes to try to make sure they didn’t suffer from blindness from being born prematurely.”
“And the interesting thing is when you’re in the neonatal nursery and you’ve got a one-pound baby, everybody acknowledges that that baby has rights, the Bill of Rights applies to that baby and nobody can hurt that baby,” he continued. “It’s a one-pound baby. But a week before, even a full-term seven-pound baby has no rights, according to the way people are looking at it, and I think that is a big mistake.”
Paul noted that he had introduced legislation to Congress last year known as the Life at Conception Act. The bill would declare that human life begins at the moment of conception and extend constitutional protections to human fetuses.
So-called “fetal personhood” legislation would outlaw abortion, and could lead to prohibitions on many forms of birth control, stem-cell research, and in-vitro fertilization, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.
“I think, and I often say in my speeches, that I don’t think a civilization can long endure that doesn’t respect the rights of the unborn,” Paul concluded.
And if the incubators don’t like it they can always just give their children away after they’ve done their duty and birthed them — like the brood mares they are. What’s the big deal? They either close their legs or they go through childbirth and deal with the ramifications of their sin — by carrying a pregnancy to term and making a lifetime commitment or give the child away and deal with that. Their “feelings” about all this are totally irrelevant. After all, they’re just bundles of flesh designed by God to procreate and goddamn it, they’re going to do it come hell or high water. As George W. Bush said with such wisdom: “who cares what they think?” The person inside the vessel must be respected. The vessel, not so much.
* BTW: Paul invokes the stupendously nonsensical lie that “seven pound babies” have no rights. That’s the kind of propaganda that theocrats spread around to enact their agenda. But then the line between theocrats and libertarian Republicans is very, very faint. Why do you think they’ve bastardized the concept of “Religious Liberty” to mean the right to inflict your religion on others? It appeals to people who fashion themselves as libertarians but really only care about their taxes, guns and weed. Those are the non-negotiable items. Everything else is on offer.
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