Choices about reproduction and health care based on moral, ethical, or religious grounds are private choices, not within the proper scope of government action.
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Reproductive Rights
What we do about having, or not having, children, and what we do in the bedroom, is simply private, and outside the appropriate scope of our use of government.
I am whole-heartedly and unequivocally in support of a woman’s right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, within the bounds set out in Roe vs. Wade. Contraception is a private matter entirely between a woman and her physician, and others close to her that she may choose to consult, as are all other treatment decisions.
The right to privacy in such decisions extends to all aspects of the physician-patient relationship.
We believe in a marketplace of ideas; you may advocate for yours, I may advocate for mine, and each individual is free to choose between them, or create another path. Beliefs that reflect moral, ethical, or religious choices must not be imposed on others through government.
Counseling or other medical procedures intended to advocate for a particular moral, ethical, or religious stance, mandated through government, violate fundamental boundaries of government action, and are wrong. Those who advocate for such tread a dangerous path: if it is appropriate to use government to prohibit or attempt to dissuade the individual from a given action on such grounds, it is equally appropriate to persuade or to require that action on such grounds. Both are wrong.
Of course, individual choice may be constrained if such actions impose on the rights of another person. This line can be difficult to determine. Roe draws a reasonable line: in essence, before a potential person can survive on their own, they have no rights, after they can potentially survive on their own, they acquire the rights of a person.
As the father of four, I know that the choice of whether to have a child or not has enormous implications. Each woman I have known who has faced the choice of whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy has made that decision carefully and deliberately, never casually, regardless of the decision made.
Do we want to tell each other what that decision should be, using government, or should that decision be left to each individual? I believe the individual should choose, and will work to prevent any restriction on that individual right to decide.