Where do I begin?
First, Crazy Ron- of all people!- has no business telling other candidates that they're unelectable.
Secondly, if anybody can make logical sense out of the statement that we should pass a human life amendment declaring fetuses to be persons as of the moment of conception, but that at the same time abortion laws should be left to the states, that person should immediately be awarded the Paul Begala Award for Conspicuous Excellence in Sophistry.
And finally, anyone with any illusions that Ron Paul is compatible with mainstream conservative or Republican thought should have those illusions dispelled by the interview linked to above.
HT: Drudge
Comments
Republicans had majorities in congress yet the bill still went nowhere. If it had passed, we would have been a lot farther along in protecting the unborn than we are now. Abortion would be illegal in some states, where now it is illegal in zero states.
Criminal law is a states issue. Murder is a state crime, robbery is a state crime, rape is a state crime, abortion should be a state crime. Repealing Roe v Wade is the first step to get there. Republicans (including Santorum) didn't take that step when they could have.
The Sanctity of Life Act would have done no such thing. Roe v. Wade declared laws against abortion in the first trimester unconstitutional. Reversing it would require a constitutional amendment. Neither the Sanctity of Life act or any other mere legislative enactment by Congress would have done a bit of good; by the logic of Roe, it, too, would have been unconstitutional.
And no amount of rationalization will change the fact that constitutional amendments are Federal measures. It is perfectly true that a constitutional amendment might theoretically overturn Roe by saying something like "Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed as granting a right to abortion, or as denying the states the right to regulate or prohibit it at any stage." That might even be the best way to go about it.
But an amendment declaring fetuses to be persons as of the moment of conception would, by definition make abortion itself unconstitutional. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments provide that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" an amendment declaring a fetus to be a person would effectively prevent any state from allowing abortion under any circumstances.
I'm afraid there's no avoiding the point: nobody who favors a constitutional amendment declaring a fetus to be a person can then turn around and claim to be in favor of allowing the states to settle the issue.
Incorrect. The act would have removed abortion issues completely from the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. The court would have no power to strike down any abortion laws.
This is a power Congress has in Article III, Section 2
"The Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."
The Sanctity of Life Act was a gimmick that wouldn't have worked. It will take a constitutional amendment.
Besides, if you were right, why wouldn't Paul espouse the same approach now? Why is he talking constitutional amendment- a much more difficult, lengthy and improbably route to the same result?
Incorrect. The issue would not have been appellate juristiction, since the alleged right to abortion is already a matter of settled law. No abortion laws would need to be struck down; they've already been (wrongly) ruled unconstitutional. Article III could have been invoked before the Court ruled in Roe but now it's too late. So was Paul.
That's not how courts work. The Supreme Court only ever rules on the specific case in front of it. That's it. Supreme Court precedent works because the lower courts assume that if they rule contrary to the way the Supreme Court ruled, they would just be swiftly overturned and probably reprimanded somehow, so they better not.
If the Supreme Court reversed itself, that signals a different precedent to the lower courts. If the Supreme Court and US district courts were to lose jurisdiction on abortion cases, state courts would not fear their rulings would be overturned.
My state still has abortion laws on the books, which would immediately go back into effect.
Supreme Court precidents work because of the well-established principle of stare decisis- "it stands decided." It's a basic principle of law that precident governs decisions simply because it's precident. In fact, common law is nothing more or less than the sum total of past precidents.
The Supreme Court wouldn't have to rule again; stare decisis means that any lower court would have to rule in agreement with precident or be in violation of the law as already established by precident. Your statement that lower courts only sustain past decisions by the Supreme Court for fear of being overturned reveals an absolute ignorance about the role of precident in law and the very thing you accuse me of not understanding: the way the courts work.
If any court vacated Roe, the next higher court would reverse it- not out of fear that the Supremes would intervene, but because that's what the principle of stare decisis and the entire concept of legal precident would require.
I'm afraid there's a reason why better-informed congressmen didn't support Paul's bill. It's just another absurd Ron Paul scheme which would have accomplished nothing even if passed.
A pro-life prosecutor or Attorney General somewhere would prosecute an abortion. They might just find a state court willing to simply uphold their own state laws. At most it could be appealed to the state supreme court, which might also then choose to uphold state law. And that's as far as it can go. An abortion is prosecuted.
At any rate, after the Sanctity of Life Act is passed states continue to have legal abortion it would be the states' fault.
Stare decisis is a settled principle of American law. There is no question of its "not still being in effect." And precident is the law from the judicial point of view. Our entire legal system is based on that fact.
If the totally ineffectual Sanctity of Life Act had been passed by Congress, an appeal to even a state court on behalf of any state law regulating abortion would have instantly succeeded. Certainly an appeal to a Federal court would have reversed the conviction even if the state judges had violated their oaths of office by sustaining it. Both state and Federal courst would remain bound by the precident of Roe.
The Constitution forbids ex post facto laws, and the Sanctity of Life Act could not have done diddly with regard to Roe v. Wade. It would continue to be precident, and judges- state as well as Federal- would have been bound by their oaths of office to abide by it.
The pro-life Republicans who made up the majority in Congress didn't pass this crackpot scheme because, unlike Paul, most of them are lawyers, and knew that it would be an exercise in futility. No lawyer would ever have written such an absurd piece of legislation, which ignores every essential fact of the appellate process and several essential principles of well-established American law- including stare decisis, which isn't going anywhere..
And you, Jeff, need to learn something about your subject matter instead of simply repeating the arguments of a crackpot like Paul, who simply doesn't know what he's talking about on this or most other issues.
This is the part you don't understand. The Sanctity of Life Act would remove abortion cases from the jurisdiction of Federal courts. There could be no appeal to any Federal court.
First, Roe would remain binding precident even in state courts. The matter would never get to a Federal court.
Secondly, the Congress has no authority under the Constitution to remove any matter from the juristiction of any Federal court other than the Supreme Court.
Third, even if the first two weren't true, the Constitution itself wouldn't allow the Sanctity of Life Act to even apply to Roe, since Roe became law before it was even introduced. The Constitution, as I presume you know, forbids ex post facto laws, and that's exactly what an act of Congress after Roe had become law would have been..
Roe might have been averted if the Act had been passed before it was handed down. But now it's too late. At this point, the only thing that can reverse Roe other than a reversal by the Supreme Court itself (presumably on the basis of new circumstances or evidence) would be a constitutional amendment.
Which, as we've seen, is exactly what Paul is advocating now.
And which, as I observed in the original post, is inconsistent with his view that abortion can only properly be addressed by the states.
I'm sorry, Jeff, but the Act is a crackpot measure introduced by a crackpot, and properly disregarded by those who knew better.