When Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) induced an abortion-related gaffe from Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, pro-life activists hailed him as one of their most effective messengers in presidential politics — but he doesn’t intend to build his 2016 campaign around such fights.
“I didn’t run for office because of the social issues,” Paul said Monday during a question-and-answer session with conservative-radio host Dom Giordano at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “It wasn’t what got me to leave my practice. I ran for office mainly because I became concerned that we were going to destroy the country with debt. That we would borrow so much money that we would just destroy the currency . . . There’s also a chance that we get so far overdrawn that we have a calamity. In 2008, we were very close to a calamity.”
The exchange began when Giordano asked if, in light of the House passage of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, abortion should be “handled” at the state level or at the federal level under the Fourteenth Amendment.
“I think best by the states,” Paul replied. “I think the question that still divides us, and it’s a difficult question, is when does life begin . . . I’m an ophthalmologist and I see one and two-pound babies in the neonatal nursery. I look into their eyes and I try to prevent a form of blindness that is now preventable. And everybody agrees that that one-pound baby has rights. If someone were to try to hurt that one-pound baby in the neonatal nursery, it’s a problem, that baby has rights. But we — I think somewhat inconsistently — say that a seven-pound baby, at birth or just before birth, has no rights.”
Similar displays of passion and sincerity have won Paul plaudits from social conservatives in the past, which made the “didn’t run for office” remark all the more puzzling. Any signal that the senator intends to de-emphasize social issues in his presidential campaign could cause him to face the same difficulty in attracting pro-life voters that plagued his father, Ron Paul, in 2008 and 2012.
“I believe [Rand Paul] is very much pro-life and is very much in favor of traditional marriage,” a conservative source close to Paul’s camp said last year. “However, most people assume that he is truly like his father, even further libertarian, and most libertarians are pro-gay marriage and are pro-abortion. And so any comments that he makes that confirm those preconceived notions become very hard to move away from at a later time or to fix.”
Editor’s Note: This post has been amended since its initial publication.