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MSNBC‘s O’Donnell Rips ‘Fake Libertarian Ron Paul’ Over Contraception & Abortion

During a Thursday night segment on MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell,” the host claimed Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was a “fake libertarian” because of the Congressman’s position on sexual ethics and birth control.

“It’s time to rewrite who was the fake in last night’s debate,” O’Donnell said, referring to a moment when Rep. Paul accused former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum of being a “fake” conservative. “Now, we all know Ron Paul supporters love him. Just love him! And I don’t have to tell ‘ya: love is blind.”

MSNBCs ODonnell Rips Fake Libertarian Ron Paul Over Contraception & AbortionFor O’Donnell’s sake, we hope it is.

“It is also deaf,” O’Donnell continued, “Especially when Ron Paul is talking. When Ron Paul talks about legalizing drugs, the beneficiaries of that idea get so high on Ron Paul love, that they don’t hear anything else he says. When Ron Paul offends most of the people in his Republican debate audiences with his consistent, principled, defiant stance against American war-making, anti-war voters like me are thrilled.”

So where’s the “fake?”

“When Ron Paul talks about his unyielding opposition to a woman’s right to choose, when Ron Paul says the government should prevent all abortions – the standard Republican Party line – the libertarian lovers of Ron Paul simply do not hear him!” O’Donnell said.

O‘Donnell’s newfound libertarian purism may strike some as shortsighted, and others as disingenuous, especially given some of his past stances. As well as videos like this:

“They don’t seem to notice that fake libertarian Ron Paul takes the most anti-libertarian position on women’s reproductive rights. The fake libertarian does not dare say a word that violates the Republican Party line on abortion. Not one word,” he added, putting special emphasis on his last sentence, as though speaking to a child.

See O’Donnell rip Rep. Paul via MSNBC:

The MSNBC host went on to explain that “real” libertarians have a no holds barred view of sexual ethics. In fact, according to O’Donnell, libertarians are more like anarchists when it comes to sex; there are no rules and no one is allowed to suggest that there might be “right” and “wrong” way of doing things.

MSNBCs ODonnell Rips Fake Libertarian Ron Paul Over Contraception & AbortionPictured Above: O’Donnell’s understanding of libertarian sexual ethics

And because Rep. Paul uses words like “moral” and “immoral” when discussing contraception, abortion, and sexual ethics, he is not strictly “free love” and therefore not a libertarian.

Really?

This raises an interesting question: Is it possible to be both libertarian and pro-life? O‘Donnell obviously doesn’t think so. He argues that by opposing the “right to choose” and “reproductive rights,” Rep. Paul tramples on individual freedoms.

But before we go any further talking about “rights” that have only existed since the ’60s, we must address the “life issue” (i.e. “Are the unborn human beings?”). Pro-abortion advocates will usually attack their opponents for being “anti-choice“ or ”anti-reproductive rights,” but they rarely (if ever) address this issue. Why is this?

As noted earlier on The Blaze:

…like many proponents of a “woman’s right to choose” (or as the columnist Ann Coulter likes to say, a woman’s “right to have sex with men they don’t want to have children with”), [abortion advocates] opt to avoid the “life issue” because the possible answer to that question — that it is indeed a human life — would render [their] position on “choice” indefensible. That is to say, should the debate over life ever conclude that the unborn child is a human being, but advocates of “choice” still want legalized abortion, they may find it awfully difficult to defend the Orwellian idea that all humans have a “right to choose,” but some have more “choice” than others.

“Those who are helpless are, it is all but universally held in America, to be protected,” the conservative author William F. Buckley Jr. once wrote. “The one-day-old child is protected with the full force of the law. The proposition that he is without rights when he is minus one day old is nothing more than a social convention conflating various concerns.”

Perhaps because people like O’Donnell recognize the apparent absurdity of the “minus one day” argument, they have chosen to avoid the “life issue” and instead focus entirely on a poorly defined notion of “choice.” So when Buckley asks if abortion involves the termination of a human life, his question is ignored and the response is something along the lines of “one can‘t infringe on a woman’s ‘constitutionally protected reproductive rights.’”

But is it a human life?

Rep. Paul thinks so: “People ask an expectant mother how her baby is doing. They do not ask how her fetus is doing, or her blob of tissue, or her parasite.”

Furthermore, he argues that a very dangerous precedent is set once people get into the business of deciding whether an unborn child should live or die:

In the 1960s when abortion was still illegal, I witnessed, as an OB/GYN resident, the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately 2 pounds. It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice.

Soon the crying stopped.

This harrowing event forced me to think more seriously about this important issue. That same day in the OB suite, an early delivery occurred and the infant boy was only slightly larger than the one that was just aborted. But in this room everybody did everything conceivable to save this child’s life. My conclusion that day was that we were overstepping the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die.

There was no consistent moral basis to the value of life under these circumstances. Some people believe that being pro-choice is being on the side of freedom. I’ve never understood how killing a human being, albeit a small one in a special place, is portrayed as a precious right.

And this brings us to why O’Donnell may be wrong is his assessment of Rep. Paul’s libertarian credentials. Because the Congressman believes an unborn child is a human being, and not just a “blob of tissue,” his opposition to abortion has nothing to do with legislating morality (as the MSNBC segment suggests) but everything to do with the defense of individual liberty.

“On the right-to-life issue, I believe, I’m a real stickler for civil liberties,” Rep. Paul said at the 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference, “It’s academic to talk about civil liberties if you don’t talk about the true protection of all life. [But] if you are going to protect liberty, you have to protect the life of the unborn just as well.”

(H/T: Mediaite)

Comments (152)

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  • Matt
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 1:41am

    Libertarians that believe in abortion are hypocrites. Libertarianism is based on the idea that property rights are paramount to all. Abortion violates the baby’s property rights. Done right there, the argument is over as long as you prove its a human being in there, and, as Pat and Stu were so good to point out the other day, since no woman has ever given birth to a Cessna 172 Skyhawk (every single human female pregnancy in the entirety of recorded human history has ended in a human baby, pretty conclusive evidence that!) I think we can be pretty confident that after the moment a woman becomes pregnant, terminating that baby, even with a morning after pill, is murder. Anyone arguing otherwise is just trying to justify murder. Keep your dick in your pants. Period.

    Report Post »  
    • Callie369
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 2:11am

      I do not normally watch PMSNBC! However, a couple of times while flipping thru channels, I have caught O’Donnell actually saying something I agree with!

      Report Post »  
    • SgtB
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 8:43am

      I’m a Libertarian and Ron Paul supporter and I tend to agree with you. However, I will further define my stance on this. I personally believe that a human has the reasonable right to life upon their implantation into their mother’s uterus roughly 12-24 hours after fertilization. This is because it is natural for some humans to never implant and they wither and die. It isn’t a beautiful picture, but it is reality and natural. That said, I think abortion is murder. However, the use of birth control is not.

      Also, this understanding allows me to do something that your argument does not. It allows me to let a raped woman receive immediate care to prevent the implantation of any human that was created from said rape. I do not think that all women should be given access to this treatment, just those who were unable to make the decision for themselves and were raped. Of course, if it were up to me, in order for her to be able to receive such care, she should have to file a police report stating that she got raped with a description of the male and her consent to allow prosecutors to go after the individual who raped her. This would dissuade individuals from just using the service as birth control.

      Also, if anyone takes anything from what I ever say on this subject, it should be that women do have the right to choose and that right is exercised when they decide to have sex. Whether they are using contraception or not, they know there is still a risk and they accept that ris

      Report Post » SgtB  
  • SaveUSnow10
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 1:30am

    Ok, I‘m sorry but if you’re libertarian you are still allowed to have convictions, and if you were an OBGYN for years and years like Paul was you would def be against abortion, if you weren‘t you wouldn’t be human….that doesn’t necessarily believe you would force others into your belief…But you know what I shouldn’t be surprised coming from PMSBC…

    Report Post »  
    • SgtB
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 9:26am

      Being anti-abortion is definitely a Libertarian stance. However, it all depends upon how you define human life. That is the contentious subject here. On one side, you have people that say that a human is not human until it is born and they support a “woman’s right to choose” and on the other side you have people who recognize the successful joining of a sperm and egg cell to create a distinct human genome as the fist moment of a human life. This creates the differing opinion. Obviously, if you think that an 8 month old “fetus” is not a human, they you are for the “right” of a mother to do whatever she wants. However, so many people know in their hearts and minds that the killing of a child who is old enough to be born into this world is wrong that late-term and partial birth abortions are illegal.

      This leaves the pro-choice group grasping for straws trying to define when a human life really begins and they will continue to grasp at those straws as science and medicine continue to be able to save younger and younger children from what would have been certain death only a decade or two ago. Indeed, in the future, it is conceivable that a human may be able to be extracted from a mother soon after conception and brought to term in a machine which would entirely negate the idea that a fetus cannot survive without the mother and is therefore not a human but a parasite.

      Myself, I find that following nature is best and I prescribe that human life begins upon implantatio

      Report Post » SgtB  
  • Go-rin-no-sho
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 1:14am

    What O’Donnell is describing is closer to libertine… minus the socialist part.

    Report Post » Go-rin-no-sho  
  • young conservative
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:58am

    Who is paying this man to be on the air? He is such an unbelievable blithering idiot. I cannot wrap my mind around it. This makes me more mad than the NDAA, Patriot Act and all the other things wrong with the world. He is so wrong i wouldn’t know where to start in shutting him up.

    Report Post » young conservative  
  • Collbuzz
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:37am

    If it’s not a HUMAN CHILD a woman is aborting, what the hell is it? A kitchen sink? Oh, oh, I know she might be pregnant with a rhinocerous. Yea, that’s it. Women having an abortion are killing a human child, that is it. Murder.

    Report Post »  
    • SgtB
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 9:28am

      If she were killing a rhinoceros the liberals would never let that stand. Rhino’s are endangered and to kill an endangered animal would just be the most horrible thing ever. No, if women were giving birth to rhino’s these idiots would be anti-abortion.

      Report Post » SgtB  
  • Charles
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:28am

    The abject insanity of post modern liberalism is bent on two main issues. Supposedly free birth control for all and killing babies after conception, but before or during birth. Karma is real. He is in a position I would never want to find myself in.

    Report Post »  
  • Shane74
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:19am

    Republicorp: Please, by all means read that out loud to the American people, so they can see what the media, and people like yourself, have conflated out of that. Please, do it.

    I fail to see how that is RACIAL.

    I wonder what you make of all of those teen flash mobs popping up last summer, robbing the **** out of people, or just hurting groups of people for being in public.

    But hey, that’s not a group of Hip Hop fans…is it? ;)

    Oh, wait…your racist ass is saying that they’re BLACK. Ah, crazy. ‘Cause this letter you just posted says Hip Hop teen culture.

    Yet, you jump to they must be black, and only black. Wow.

    So now, let’s stop with the racist ****, because the most racist point of view has been spoken by YOU.

    Report Post » Shane74  
    • SaveUSnow10
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 2:02am

      A to the MEN…I honestly have never read the newsletter that people are using to say he is racist,I didn’t have to I have listened to him enough to know there is no way Paul is racist…can a libertarian even be?And if that is it………WOW…really? That’s it? UnFknbelievable….I know TONS of white/latinos/etc that listen to hip hop and yeah assuming that people that listen to hiphop are black is…..guess what???? Wait for it Wait for it…..Racist…

      Report Post »  
    • SaveUSnow10
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 2:06am

      *have listened to

      Report Post »  
    • circleDwagons
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 9:20am

      Neither Christians nor Libertarians can be racists. God loves All, we are all sinners and none can buy their way into salvation. God loves the nonjew as much as he loves the jew. Fathers love their children even if they do not listen and misbehave. Libertarians believe in individual rights and responsibility

      Report Post » circleDwagons  
    • christos
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 5:47pm

      @CIRCLEDWAGONS— Love that +JESUS+GOD+ have for +HIS+ creation/people is not in Question,what is in Question is if +HIS+ creation/people love +HIM+JESUS+GOD+HE+ said if you love me you will obey me…

      Report Post » christos  
  • destrecht
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:14am

    As a former member of the LP executive committee in Kansas, abortion is one of the few areas that the LP philosophy can’t just define. It says ‘nothing should be illegal unless it harms another person or their property without their permission.” the problem with this and abortion goes back to the original debate- ‘is the baby a person?’. I and others believe it is- in which case the LP philosophy would fit nicely in the prolife stance. Other believe it isn’t a person, so they use the idea to justify the pro-choice argument. Both arguments can be justified in the minds of the arguers by this philosophy. So, in other words- O‘Donnell doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

    Report Post »  
    • JustinHale
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:57am

      Right on sir!

      Report Post »  
    • SgtB
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 9:37am

      Agreed, however the pro-life Libertarians will always be forced to keep saying that a fetus is human sooner and sooner as medicine continually works to find ways to save younger and younger children. One day, they will be able to save embryos only a month old that implanted ectopically in the fallopian tubes and then raise the child in an artificial womb or re-implant the child in the mother’s womb through surgery. The natural progression of medicine will continue to blow holes in their argument and they will be exposed for the evil jerks that they are. The human life has a reasonable expectation to develop and grow upon implantation in the mother’s womb. Not all fertilized eggs are implanted and nature does not expect that they will all make it. What is natural is what is right. Once implanted, if a mother or anyone commits an act that is not natural which ends the life of the human inside, it should be considered murder. It already is if a husband pushes his wife down a flight of stairs or a third party murders the woman. So the legal system already acknowledges that a embryonic human is indeed human.

      My point being that the “pro-choice” Libertarians are just wrong. Even Steve Gillespie.

      Report Post » SgtB  
  • Lone Ranger
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:14am

    Let’s not forget why the left championed birth control and abortion in the first place. According to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger:

    “Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.”

    “Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need … We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock [people of color].”

    “Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.”

    “The unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit,’ [is] the greatest present menace to civilization… the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”

    “Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying… a dead weight of human waste… an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”

    “Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.”

    “The Aryan stock today is the most given to birth control and it must see that it does not suffer internationally by the relative ignorance of inferior stocks.”

    There is a lot more, but this spells it out. The democrats have always been and always will be the party of racism and murder.

    Report Post » Lone Ranger  
  • Shane74
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:09am

    It’s hard to get riled up when an admitted socialist starts telling people about how to be libertarian. Honestly, it’s just hilarious!

    One day dingos are going to storm the MSNBC set, and run off with this mental toddler.

    Report Post » Shane74  
  • Look4DBigPicture
    Posted on February 25, 2012 at 12:06am

    I sympathize with your frustration Lawrence. Perhaps you now understand how most of us feel. The media continues to be so in love with Obama that they are blind and deaf to everything he does and says.

    Report Post »  
  • RepubliCorp
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:52pm

    I sent this To Rick Santorum. I hope he reads it to Dr Ron on live TV
    http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/PoliticalReportOctober1992.pdf

    Report Post » RepubliCorp  
    • KAdams
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 10:59pm

      And do what with it? I don’t see anything incriminating. Please point out the point to me?

      Report Post »  
  • Cymry
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:44pm

    larry is pretty superficial. msnbc tends to hire these egotistical and pseudo-intellectual types that they try to pass off as acute observers of society. well, like most of msnbc’s body of work, it fails horribly. it’s fairly easy to follow the simple daisy chain of (loose reference) logic they use to attack anything of a perceived conservative bent. they don’t feel that they have to substantiate any of their arguments because you should already know how they came to their respective conclusions (circular arguments are king). their vanity is a consequence of believing their own lies which, if they became somewhat aware of what they’re doing, would be devastatingly embarassing.

    the short answer is: they are FOS. pray for them.

    Report Post » Cymry  
  • Doctor Nordo
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:37pm

    CHris O’Donnell is a moron. If he really thinks that Paul’s stance on drugs is his main draw then he is absolutely delusional.

    Regarding abortion: abortion is a unique issue among us libertarians depending on when a person believes that life begins. If you believe that life begins at conception, then an anti-abortion mentality is ABSOLUTELY consistent with the spirit of libertarianism. However, if you believe that life begins much later, then anti-abortion is INconsistent with libertarianism.

    That O’Donnell believes that there is one type of libertarian that all other libertarians must mold themselves after speaks volumes as to his understanding of the subject.

    Report Post » Doctor Nordo  
  • Patrick Henry II
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:37pm

    Libertarian does not have to mean without morality. Libertarian does not have to mean that you do not recognize personhood.
    Many peopl feel that the founders were Libertarian. They had morals. They even had laws against murder. Duh.
    As long as it does not break the arm or pick the pocket who cares. Sucking the brains out is within the meaning of “breaking the arm”.

    Report Post » Patrick Henry II  
    • Komponist-ZAH
      Posted on February 25, 2012 at 1:19am

      “Libertarian does not have to mean that you do not recognize personhood.”

      In fact, it means the opposite.

      Report Post »  
  • ShyLow
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:32pm

    Thank you THEBLAZE and you to Laurance O’donnel

    Report Post » ShyLow  
  • mayihelpyou
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:32pm

    The pro-abortion crowd never wishes to waste a second on the thought that it is a human life being cancelled. What I wonder is why their silly and false arguments are even considered.
    I don’t really wonder. I know why.

    Report Post »  
  • A Hoosier Says
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:31pm

    There is nothing more libertarian than supporting the 10th amendment for issues not dealt with in the constitution.

    Report Post » A Hoosier Says  
  • EndTheFedNOW
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:30pm

    lol LAWRENCE did you think you needed to pump up your 35,000 viewers. You Presstitutes over at msnbc have the lowest ratings in interent and cable. Im not even angry over your little rant. Why you pick and jab we are defeating you at your own game. the main stream media is a joke. little more than social climbers sucking at the tit of the nwo

    Report Post » EndTheFedNOW  
  • NoNannyState4me
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:29pm

    I wonder if the normal Paul haters around Blaze will come hate on him for this. C’mon guys, you‘re progressives like O’Donnell, don’t kid yourselves.

    Report Post » NoNannyState4me  
  • NoNannyState4me
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:27pm

    What? These Paulbots are terrible people for being against abortion! And what in the hell are they thinking by have the States form and enforce their own social laws?

    Awful Paulistinians!

    Ron Paul 2012 for Liberty!

    Report Post » NoNannyState4me  
  • TruthHurtsBad
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:23pm

    The mere fact that O’Donnell is an admitted follower and propagandist of democratic socialism is why one can ignore anything that he says. The Euro-Zone is the furthest extent of the socialistic ideal, and it is literally destroying the countries and peoples of Europe.

    I wonder if he would still believe in banning guns if he was living in London during the riots last summer…

    Report Post » TruthHurtsBad  
    • its_time_to_arrest_our_government
      Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:28pm

      someone show me where in the constitution women have a right to birth control. they don’t! birth control is not a health issue. getting preggo is not an illness. its called cause and affect. dont have sex you dont get preggo. ITS TIME TO STAND UP AND SEND THESE COMMIES PACKING!

      Report Post »  
  • Taldren
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:22pm

    Don’t care what fake American O’Donnell has to say on any matter. Personally I agree with Barry Goldwater on what we should do with socialists.
    As for Ron Paul, he is correct that it is a morality issue but says over and over again that the federal government should have no part in it. That it should be returned to the states to deal with.
    That is what O’Donnell edited out and why he is a fake journalist on top of being a fake american.

    Report Post » Taldren  
  • silentwatcher
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:20pm

    How would O‘Donnell know about ANYTHING that’s real??? O’Donnell is a fake man,,,and everything about him is a lie. Mudpacker.

    Report Post »  
  • circleDwagons
    Posted on February 24, 2012 at 11:13pm

    i’m shocked! what is the Blaze up to?

    Report Post » circleDwagons  
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