Are Rand Paul's Two 14th Amendment Bills In Conflict - No Rights For the "Illegal" Unborn?

Let me say I am not questioning Senator Rand Paul's pro-life attitudes or his pro-life bona fides. However I do wonder if the pro-life community is watching what people in the anti immigration movement are doing. Including Senator Paul!!

Now the reason I bring this up is well a lot of Pro-life legal reasoning is based on the 14th amendment. No matter what you think about how Citizenship is (or should be) granted this is a issue.

Catholic Vote has a good piece on a piece of legislation that Rand Paul has introduced . See Newsflash to liberal writers: Libertarians can be pro-life .

Now I actually agree with a lot of what Mercer is saying there. However I am not quite so sure there is not a real potential conflict coming up as to this and Rand Paul's resolution to deny Citzenship to children of illegal aliens.

One reason I say this is because of what Mike Huckabee went through as Governor. Mike Huckabee came under a ton of vocal criticism because he said that illegal alien mothers had the RIGHT to pre natal care. Well let me let Mike explain himself in one of the early posts I did on Mike Huckabee:



Amendment 65 of the Arkansas state constitution states that that Arkansas considers life to begin at conception. Life period. It means that life in the womb no matter who you are or where you are from is going to be to be defended under the Consitution of the State of Arkansas. That is because it is at its most vunerable. Governor Huckabee found himself under tremendous political fire for sticking to that. He had a consistent ethic that shows him to be truly pro-life.

One can get a glimpse of that in this article Huckabee, callers go toe-to-toe on immigration.

"He also criticized Senate Bill 206 by Sen. Jim Holt, R-Springdale, that would impose new restrictions on illegal immigrants in Arkansas. The governor's comments were in response to a caller who expressed concern about the bill's effect on plans for a Mexican consulate's office in Little Rock"

As for allowing immigrants to receive free prenatal care, Huckabee said that's part of his pro-life sentiment as well as that of Amendment 65 of the state constitution, which says that Arkansas considers life to begin at conception. "I believe that because it's a human life, then by our law and by our constitution even that unborn child is an Arkansas citizen because he or she is going to be born in this state," Huckabee said. "The prenatal care for the entire pregnancy costs less than one-third of what one day in the neonatal unit at Children's Hospital would cost if the child has complications at birth."

As you can see this was not a popular position. I expect some supporters of Governor Huckabee's right now don't like it. But when the rubber hit the road he stood on the side of LIFE. He knew that it to deny these benefits for the unborn child would be to adopt the logic of the forces of evil that state personhood and dignity of the human person can be eliminated by legislative fiat. Life was Life the Governor said and if it was in Arkansas it shall be protected.

Now this is not about about whether you like Huckabee or not. But I think he is right. Also how this was used against him was not something that was just a minor thing.

In other words even in pro-life Arkansas we had this conflict of values. That is life versus the controversial issue of illegal immigration.

The fact that illegal alien mothers perhaps might be the most vulnerable to the scourge of abortion is something we need to thing about. In other words when we fiddle around on the 14th on one issue we need to think how that affects pro life concerns too.