The Right to Choose

Our three greatest rights are the rights to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. Each of these progresses from the one before it, and the right to life is our greatest and most sacred right. The right to liberty – the right to choose – is, just as the right to life, given to us by our creator. Choice is essential to our human nature, as God has given us free will. As such, our right to choose can never be legitimately abridged by any government. However, as all men are created equal, our own right to choose can never infringe on the rights of any other individual, and just as God holds us ultimately responsible for the choices we make in life, so must a government hold its citizens responsible for their choices. For every action, there is a consequence, and the government must not be in the business of absolving its citizens from the consequences of their actions.

We can make several assertions based on these basic rights about what we can or cannot do without government interference. Among these, we may assert that a woman has the right to make choices concerning her own body. We may assert that a woman has the right to choose when she wishes to reproduce. However, to make the assertion that a woman has the right to an abortion does not logically follow from these conclusions. First, though a woman has the right to choose concerning her own body, a child, no matter the stage of its development, is a life distinct from its mother’s with all of the characteristics thereof. Therefore, the mother may make no decision that infringes on the child’s right to life. Second, a woman absolutely has the right to choose when she wishes to reproduce, and she makes that decision the minute she decides to have sexual intercourse. It is absolutely fallacious to claim or even to imply that rational human beings are incapable of making the choice to refrain from sexual intercourse merely because it is common in our society to engage in intercourse. Having made the decision to have sex, a woman has made a decision that may result, no matter the precautions taken, in the formation of a life distinct from her own, and she and the man involved in the act both bear the responsibility of that decision should it result in a pregnancy.

There are situations, however, in which a woman may be put into a situation in which she is made pregnant against her will. In situations of rape, a man has made a decision that infringes on a woman’s liberty, and therefore, the woman is not responsible if a life is formed. However, it remains true that the child itself is innocent and has the right to life. In this situation, a State may allow the woman to choose to terminate the pregnancy; however, it is still a heavy choice to make with dire moral implications. Though no one can have the right to mandate in this situation, the woman should be encouraged to bear the child to term, and then, if she is not capable of raising the child for whatever reason, to give it up for adoption.

There is one situation in which an abortion is completely absolved from moral question. If the mother of the child absolutely will die if she bears the child to term and gives birth, she absolutely has the right – but not the obligation – to terminate the pregnancy. No one life is any more precious than any other. Though the child is innocent and has the right to life, so does the mother have the right to life, and she may make the decision to continue to live.

To be pro-life does not imply that one is anti-choice. Quite to the contrary, to be pro-life is to also be both pro-choice and pro-responsibility.