Re: The Right to Choose What?

As you know,  I don't have a lot of respect for Richman,  but he hits the nail on the head in this article.

 

 

On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 3:27 PM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

The Right to Choose What?
by Sheldon Richman, August 2000

Regardless of one's position on abortion, believers in freedom and individual rights should be offended by the pro-abortion advocates' opportunistic shrinking of "a woman's right to choose" down to a single choice. The use of that euphemism hints at a certain squeamishness on its users' part. Can't they say the word "abortion"?

If a woman has a "right to choose" an abortion--if this is a matter of her very dignity--then it is perplexing why, according to these folks, she doesn't also have the right to choose to:

Keep a handgun in her purse and nightstand drawer without having to get permission from the government.

Send her kids to private schools without having also to pay taxes for the government's schools, which are playgrounds for unionized teachers.

Decide how to plan and save for her own retirement and to opt out of the government's dependency-inducing Social Security system.

Decide how to plan and save for her own medical care in retirement and to opt out of the government's dependency-inducing Medicare program.

Purchase medical insurance free of government mandates requiring coverage she does not want.

Ingest whatever substances she wishes without checking to see whether they are on the government's controlled-substances list.

Gamble however she pleases.

Trade sexual favors for money.

Keep all her income without fearing a visit from armed agents of the Internal Revenue Service.

Buy imports from anywhere in the world, such as clothing for her children, free of tariffs and quotas designed to protect domestic products she finds inferior or too expensive.

Buy milk for her children without paying artificially high prices created by government programs to subsidize the dairy industry.

Take a job that pays less than the legislated minimum wage.

Abstain from paying dues to a labor union she wishes not to join.

Select an automobile from an array not tilted toward more dangerous lighter models by the government's superfluous fuel-efficiency standards.

Buy gasoline for her car that is not made artificially expensive by taxes and irrational environmental regulations.

Earn a higher salary instead of seeing some of her income diverted to satisfying the government's OSHA regulations, which have had no bearing on workplace safety anyway.

Use life-saving medicines and medical devices currently kept off the market by irrational and onerous FDA procedures.

Patronize doctors, lawyers, and other professionals whose credentials are vouched for by someone other than government licensing boards, which exist simply to keep the licensees' incomes artificially high.

Smoke tobacco free from government regulations.

Throw trash away without wasting time recycling.

Give more than $1,000 to a political candidate.

Leave her entire estate to her children and not a penny to the government.

Go to college without having to pay a tuition artificially inflated by government loans and grants.

Start a business without undergoing a gauntlet of licenses, taxes, and regulations.

Surf the Web without fearing that the government is monitoring her journey through cyberspace.

Send e-mail without fearing that the government is reading it.

Put an NRA or pro-tax-cut bumper sticker on her car without wondering whether the police will think she's an "extremist."

Join an off-beat religious group without fearing that the government will decide to launch a SWAT invasion and gas her and her children.

Develop her land even if the Army Corps of Engineers insists it's a wetland.

Develop her land even if the Environmental Protection Agency believes that some insect, rodent, or bird is "endangered."

Buy something to make her life more pleasant rather than see that portion of her income spent to bomb people in other countries or to starve them with economic sanctions.

Go about her business without fearing that the government is compiling dossiers on her.

Associate in any way with people born in other countries regardless of whether the INS thinks they should be here.

Purchase a toilet that flushes properly, rather than one conforming to idiotic environmental regulations.

Not pay for someone else's "right to choose" to have an abortion if it violates her convictions or if she simply doesn't want to.

By the way, why shouldn't men have these same rights to choose?

http://www.fff.org/comment/ed0800a.asp

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