Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?
I fully support the pro-life position, however, I don't believe that abortion
is something for the federal government to regulate in the first place. Just
as the federal government shouldn't be in the business of telling your doctor
what drugs are legal or illegal, the federal government shouldn't be in the
business of telling your doctor what procedures can or can't be performed. This
does not mean I am pro-choice, I am not skirting the issue, I am stating that
I will always vote for, and support the pro-life position, until such time
as enough other congressmen concede that this is not an issue for the federal
government to regulate.
So you're not all about freedom and choices
If you want to spin my position that way then you probably aren't a voter I
was going to reach anyhow, thank you for coming this far, however, consider
that I will always support and vote for laws that make murder illegal. It
would be unacceptable to our society if you could randomly murder someone
walking down the street; murder is illegal. However, if I were to break into
your home, and you murder me in self-defense, then call the police and report the
event responsibly, you still murdered me, but you won't be sent off to prison,
and you probably won't even have charges brought against you. Additionally,
suppose you are in extraordinary pain due to some disease you have. It is illegal
for your doctor to murder you (assisted suicide) because we as a society place
such a high value on life. In fact, most all of us carry some form of life
insurance which somehow represents the value we think our lives are worth. Your
doctor can't murder you (legally) by lethal injection or drugs, and
similarly, if your doctor doesn't prescribe the medicine recommended by some panel to
treat you, your doctor can still be sued or otherwise blamed for your death,
which is basically murder. We, as a society, place a high value on life
and abortion terminates life.
But about this freedom means choice thing, you're taking away a choice
As I said, we as a society make many exceptions to our own rules. You can be
involved in a horrific car accident and end up on life support. Your next
of kin can decide to "pull the plug", which kills you, and they aren't charged
with murder. You might have signed a "do not resuscitate" and a certified doctor
might watch you die while doing nothing, the doctor is not an accomplice to murder.
As I've said before, if I break into your home and you murder me
in self-defense, you are not charged with murder. If you commit a capital
crime and the state government orders the death penalty, the court is not
responsible for your murder. There are certainly many exceptions that we as a
society make to many rules we've made, abortion is certainly a medical
procedure which may have warranted exceptions, for example physical well-being
and health of a mother, and it is up to we the people, society to define any
exceptions that are acceptable. Just as we as society generally find murder
unacceptable with some exceptions, I believe that reasonable people in society
will also find abortion unacceptable, with some exceptions.
In any case, again, I don't believe that our federal tax money should be spent
on regulating medical procedures and this is an issue that a state board that
grants medical licenses should be responsible for determining. Again, with one
known exception (Dr. Ron Paul of TX), no one in the federal government
is a licensed medical doctor and the federal government is certainly not
qualified, by it's own laws, to make decisions regarding medical procedures.
On a state level, I personally recommend a ballot question with the simple
question, "Should the medical procedure known as abortion be made illegal?"
which provides a simple yes or no response. If an abortion is performed,
certainly the doctor and patient can plead their case, with their reasoning,
to a court with a jury of their peers, and in short time, we as a society
will have a clear view of what "reasons" are acceptable, or unacceptable.