Why I am pro-choice

It is, I believe, a fundamental tenet of liberty that people have the right to set their own course in life, to make their own decisions as to whom to love, and whether or not to have a family. The legislation of personal choice is contrary to the very meaning of liberty. We do not allow our government to say who can and cannot have children. We certainly don't allow government to force people to reproduce, any more than we would allow government to force people not to have children.

Those who say that the framers of the Constitution would not have wanted women to determine the course of their own lives overlook the word that embraces self-determination, a word that is in the very preamble to that document: liberty. The Constitution does not allow the government to tell us who to love, or when to have children. It does not allow the government to tell us how many children we can have, and it does not allow the government to force us to have children we don't want to have. It doesn't matter if its morally right or wrong, the very concept of liberty forbids the government from making those choices for us.

People have the right to pursue their own destiny: women as much as men. Forced reproduction would consign women to a second class, it would say that, in the eyes of the government, their sole function is to produce more children, and if that function is triggered, all other considerations of a woman's liberty are cast aside. That is not what liberty is all about.

On another track, the world cannot support an infinite amount of people. We all know the dangers that overpopulation poses. It makes no sense to force American women to bring unwanted children into the world. It doesn't make for a better world, it doesn't make for a safer world, it doesn't make for a happier world.

That's why the choice must be left to the woman. It is her body, it is her life that must be given over to any pregnancy. The decision ultimately does rest with her, and nothing is served by having the law pretend that isn't so. They are the ones that must live with the consequences of that choice, and it must be theirs to make, lest the word "liberty"be stripped of its meaning. We're all in this together, and the lives of each woman matters.