Rep. Amash: 'More sensible' to ban abortions after three days and 'certain' birth control

A libertarian-leaning Republican congressman from Michigan who has been billed as the "new Ron Paul" says that he would ban "abortion-causing" birth control and a woman's right to choose abortion more than three days after conception.

In an interview published on Monday, Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) told Reason's Nick Gillespie that he favored as little federal government as possible on issues like same sex marriage.

"I don't think there should be federal definition of marriage," Amash explained. "So I think the federal government should just stay out of this. Really, marriage should be a private contract that has nothing to do with government."

But when it came to abortion, the Michigan Republican said that he wanted to see the government take a major role in forcing women to go through with unwanted pregnancies.

"It's a tricky question, but where we have it now is not correct," Amash insisted. "It should be closer to the point of conception, whether it's instantly or the first three days. I think that's more sensible. That's what I think would be correct."

On the question of contraception, he admitted that "I haven't thought about all the types of birth control, but there are certain types of birth control that I would consider, you know, abortion causing and there are other methods of birth control that I think would be fine."

Amash also said that he was concerned about efforts to pass gun control legislation after the December shootings that killed 20 elementary school children in Newtown, Connecticut.

"The Founders were very clear that they didn't want the government intruding on those rights and you have to think about the Second Amendment and the context in which it was drafted," he opined to Gillespie. "They had just fought an armed revolution against their own government, and a lot of people forget that. And that's where the Second Amendment came from. And they understood that it was important to protect that right so that no government -- no future government -- could ever take away the people's right to defend themselves, and that's what the founders intended."

"And this idea that, well, if you had a corrupt government that tried to attack the people of the United States, they couldn't stand up to it themselves with small arms, I disagree with that," he added. "I think people can protect themselves."

"I'm not suggesting that our current government of any government in the future is going to use any force against United States citizens or people that live here, but the Founders believed it was an important protection to have in place because they did face that situation, they actually did fact the situation where their own government came against them."

Politico's James Hohmann on Monday wrote that Amash saw himself as the "second generation" of leaders implementing former Rep. Ron Paul's (R-TX) vision in the U.S. Congress.

“Justin’s a superstar,” former Paul adviser Jesse Benton told Politico. “The sky is the limit for him.”

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast April 2, 2013.