Representative Ron Paul, currently running for President as a Libertarian, is a medical doctor and a specialist in Obstetrics.
At Paul's medical practice, he performed no abortions. He also did not participate in either Medicare or Medicaid: patients from those two programs he saw free of charge.
You can say whatever you like about various of his positions on the issues, the man seemingly has his full allotment of integrity.
h/t Radley Balko.
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8 comments:
If you perform abortions, you have no integrity?
@wally: I think the integrity comes into play with the seeing of Medicare and Medicaid patients free, and making sure that they are treated no differently than paying customers.
Only thing I'll say about abortion and doctors is that the practice violates the Hippocratic Oath. Some take oaths seriously, others obviously do not.
Since you led with the mention of abortion, I naturally assumed you meant it to be your primary example.
As for the Hippocratic Oath, if you believe you're removing tissue, you're not violating it; if you believe you're committing murder, you don't do it. You may not agree with the practice of abortion, but integrity is not the issue.
@wally: You're engaging in sophistry. The original version of the Oath makes clear that abortion is forbidden to doctors, unless you argue that, because the modern abortionist uses a scalpel, suction device or poison to kill the unborn baby instead of "giving a woman a pessary," that he isn't engaging in abortion.
And yes, I realize that the Oath has been modified down through the centuries to salve the conscience of abortionists.
In my book, integrity is living up to the oath you took, not to one you didn't take.
@wally: And has Ron Paul, in your humble opinion, lived up to oaths he took?
I have no clue, Bob, not being privy to knowledge of which version of the Hippocratic Oath Ron Paul took, or how he lived up to any non-abortion-related provisions of it, to say nothing of any other oaths he may have taken.
Entirely beside the point in any case, in my humble opinion, since my comment was about the integrity of abortion providers, not Ron Paul.
Just as an aside, for your charge of sophistry to be legitimate, the following would have to be true:
a. I was aware that there was an ancient version of the Hippocratic Oath which proscribed the use of pessaries.
b. I know what a pessary is.
c. I sought to deceive you by feigning ignorance of a and b.
None of these conditions has been met. And while I acknowledge that you had no way of knowing that, I would have hoped that this alone would have led you to be more cautious about making such an accusation.
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