Local control - abortion

For many of the powers Paul supports removing from the federal government, he supports increased power at the state and local level. Education, for example, has traditionally been both funded by locally leveled taxes, and controlled by local boards elected largely by people involved with children who go to school in the area. The federal Department of Education has increasingly offered more federal money to schools - while imposing more bureaucracy on them. Such as the couterproductive No Child Left Behind Act. While federal money somewhat helps poor states at the expense of rich states (that kinda sounds good), I believe the value lost by reducing local control is too much. I support the Paul's position that the federal Department of Education should be dismantled, which would require increased educational activity at the state and local levels of governments.

A hot-button issue to which Paul applies this principle of local control is abortion. The famous court case Roe v. Wade first involved the federal government in abortion - prior to that, only states had passed laws on the procedure (or not - in a few states, abortion has never been addressed by state law (making it by default legal) for the entire history of the United States). The current position of most groups that support the continuing legality of abortion (such as Planned Parenthood) is to attempt to maintain a Supreme Court that will uphold the Roe v. Wade and related decisions. The current position of most groups that oppose the legality of abortion is to amend the United States Constitution to allow the federal government to ban all abortions (or with very limited exceptions such as life of the woman and rapes that were reported to the police within a certain time of the rape), throughout the country.

But most Americans do not entirely subscribe to either of these. Most Americans (as far as I can tell reading the polls) believe early abortions are undesirable but should be available, while late abortions should be prevented in all but the most extreme cases. Exactly where the dividing line between early and late abortions falls, and in what cases late abortion should be allowed are highly controversial. But almost never debated, because the Supreme Court has hamstrung state's ability to act on these issues:

• Only the vague characteristic 'viability' can be used to determine when abortion can be severely restricted or banned, and the physician performing the abortion has to be the one determining whether the fetus is viable or not.
• Cut-off dates are not allowed - not 20 weeks, not 27 weeks, not 35 weeks. Only the physician's (the one performing the abortion) personal judgment of viability.
• Requiring the opinion of a second physician on viability has been forbidden by the Supreme Court. This despite the fact that all abortions done for serious health reasons of the mother or fetus invariably have involved multiple doctors to confirm the diagnosis. Only elective abortions involve only one physician.

Abortion has become one of the most divisive issues in America. I believe this is largely because the federal government becoming involved in the issue has made it an all-or-nothing proposition. Ron Paul supports overturning Roe v. Wade - and then preventing the federal government from any further involvement in the issue (he is the only candidate from either party who holds this position.) Let the state legislatures act out the will of their constituents. Let the discussion of the middle ground on the abortion issue displace the pro-elective-abortion-for-nine-months vs. pro-life-from-fertilization screaming match that has raged in our country for so long. A strong showing of Ron Paul's campaign would, I believe, help start our country on a healing path on this and so many other issues - healing our country desperately needs.

Note, this is my personal take on the effect of Paul's policies. Paul's personal beliefs are staunchly pro-life, and he feels strongly enough about the issue to have written two books on the subject: Challenge to Liberty: Coming to Grips with the Abortion Issue and Abortion and Liberty.