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INTRODUCTION

This is a book about choice. It is about the choices we can make and the choices we would like to make, but which are forbidden to us. The choices are not only personal, but societal, as well. This book takes the position that freedom to choose is important. It is essential to ultimate happiness and to a truly free and just society. True freedom means CHOICE.

It is also a book full of personal opinions. They are the opinions of two people, Barbara and Paul, who have spent most of their lives together, loving, caring, bitching, moaning, questioning, discussing, and trying to find the answers to some of the vexing problems we face in our society. We have not attempted to footnote references, but refer to some sources within the text. Most of the factual information to which we refer is common knowledge or readily accessible on the internet. Again, these are personal

opinions which voice our frustrations and concerns and are expressed in the hope that they will generate more thought and discussions on the various topics we have chosen to tackle. Perhaps, by expressing our personal observations and opinions on these subjects, we will be a catalyst for change and a wider recognition that freedom means choice and, therefore, CHOICE MATTERS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Personal Reflections

Elements Of Choice

Women’s Reproductive Issues

Definition Of Human Life Or Personhood

“Conceptionist” Conceptions

End Of Life Choices

Theocracy Versus Democracy

Choice In Jobs

Sex Education And Choice

Health Care Choices…

Choose Your Poison - Illegal Drugs

Choose Your Poison - Tobacco

Choose Your Poison - Alcohol

Choose Your Poison - Gambling

Choose Your Poison - Marijuana

A Choice Of Behavior

Chose Your Words Carefully

Annie Get Your Gun

An Emotional Choice Issue

To Sue Or Not To Sue

Choices In Education

Labels Of Choice

Is There A Statesman In The House?

War v. Peace

Population

CHOICE MATTERS

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

Looking in the mirror, what do we see? We see an image of our bodily self. Good or bad, it is what we have to walk around in and what we present for the world to see. There are things which we do to try to project a better image, but the thing which costs the least and does the most is a smile, and “putting one on” actually will affect our moods in a positive way. There are many things we can do to improve our “looks” beyond putting on a smile, but they can be costly and time-consuming. If we have been diligent in brushing and flossing our teeth, we may still have them, but are they crooked or white enough? We can get them straightened, whitened, or capped if that will make us feel better, but that is our choice - if we can afford it.

Barbara:

At seventy plus, the face I see looking back at me could use lots of help, especially when I peruse any of the many glamour magazines which tempt me when I stand in line at the grocery store, but I have not yet decided to have it lifted, tucked, or filled. I may, but not yet. That is my choice. Some twenty years ago, I perceived a very mean, frowning face peering at me and since I didn’t feel mean and even a smile didn’t seem to overcome the mean, saggy, baggy eyelid look, I did make the choice to have my upper eyelids “lifted”. My plastic surgeon took pictures of the skin, fat, and muscle he removed from my upper lids and remarked that he had never seen such baggy eyelids on a fifty year old, but that my Scandinavian heritage was probably a contributing factor. Maybe it’s the awful weather in those areas which makes folks frown and develop baggy eyelids. Who knows, but I felt and looked so much happier after the surgery. It was a good choice for me.

Physical appearance and health also have a definite effect on mental attitude and are, in part, affected by hereditary and environmental influences. How we all love to be a “victim” when something bad happens to us. No one likes to say, “It’s my fault that I developed lung cancer”. How much more satisfying to say, “ Cigarettes caused my lung cancer” or, “All of those bad, fast-food restaurants caused my obesity”. Each of us has choices every day which affect our health and appearance. We have become a nation of victims and our victim mentality has pushed the demand for government help and entitlements for people who could, by making better choices, be healthier, stronger, and work to support themselves and others. The old J.F. Kennedy slogan, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” has been reversed and has changed us from a nation of “can do” people to “poor me” people.

Barbara:

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had to make choices regarding what treatment to accept. I was advised by my doctors, but ultimately had the last say, which is how it should be. Pathology reports turned out to back up the decision I made to go with a mastectomy, although that was not what the doctor was suggesting. When I was asked for advice regarding an unwanted pregnancy, I had choices about what to say. At the time abortion was illegal and unsafe. I was begged to help in ending a life of pain from an incurable disease, and I had a choice to make. Such help is still illegal in most states. How would you chose? Would you choose to obey the laws set up by the government or break the law?

ELEMENTS OF CHOICE

When you think about all of the elements affecting choice, you realize how many there are and how different they may be in any varying situation. Choice, first and foremost, must be determined by common good, or at least be lawful and not cause harm to another person or society in general. Choice, also, is swayed by personal opinions and beliefs. Clearly, my personal right to swing my arm around is limited by the proximity of your nose. The biggest limiter of free choice is the government and its influence should be only in areas which are deemed to be common good concerns, not personal choice areas. The difference is not always easy to determine. The government has the right to tax us. Without taxation, we would not have roads, free public schools, social security, military and police protection, medical research, the FBI, the CIA, unemployment compensation, jails, or social welfare programs. Unfortunately, the power to tax and spend our money is directed by human beings, who are fallible, corruptible and, in some cases, downright dishonest, a fact which in turn mandates more costly controls.

The other major institutions which limit choice, through both institutional rules, as well as beliefs which are internalized by the members, are the religious institutions. These are our churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious groups which are supported by voluntary members. The limitations on choice, which these religious institutions espouse, are accepted by each member on a voluntary basis. In most cases, people are not forced to join a religious group. Our constitution says that our government will not establish a religion or have any religious requirement for office. It seems our founding fathers did not establish a theocracy, but did not forbid the free practice of religion within the constraints of the law.

Some tenents of various faiths restrict choice for their members who accept these restrictions. It is their right to set up rules for the conduct of their members if they are not against governmental laws. Early Jewish laws were very restrictive. These laws applied to purity, food preparation and consumption, sacrifices, circumcision, unclean animals, leprosy, and sexual relationships. Their laws regarding childbirth were also definitely gender-biased. “ When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days….and remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days, but if she bears a female child, she shall be unclean for two weeks and the days of her purification would be sixty-six days“. The laws served to reflect the holiness of God, to keep Israel distinct from the “idolatrous” nations around them, and to help maintain physical health. Foods which were ruled unclean and were to be avoided included eels, shellfish, lobsters, crabs, oysters, rabbits, pigs, eagles, vultures, ravens, storks, herons, pelicans, cats, dogs, mice, etc, etc. Today some Jews still observe very restrictive food rules, but some do not, depending on the type or category of synagogue which they attend.

Catholics have fewer restrictions placed upon them, and Protestants even fewer. Restrictions are established by the church hierarchy. Both Catholic and Protestant groups espouse the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai, as well as strive to understand and follow the teachings of Jesus. All sorts of litigation has been initiated regarding the displaying of the Ten Commandments on government property or in government buildings and there are valid reasons to restrict such display to religious property.

The Catholic church has had specific restrictions instituted by male church leaders concerning sexuality, including bans on using contraceptives, which have had far-reaching consequences, and will be discussed later. These bans, if adhered to, greatly restrict the element of choice and mostly affect women.

WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE ISSUES

The most talked about and argued about reproductive issue is that of a woman’s right of access to the medical procedure known as abortion. From Wikipedia the following gives insight into the much discussed Roe v. Wade decision. “Roe v. Wade, decided on January 22, 1973, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion is determined by the stage of pregnancy, and that the state cannot prohibit abortion before viability. After viability, the state cannot prohibit abortion if abortion “is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother” as defined in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton. The Court said that “viability” means potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks), but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.” The Court rested these conclusions on a constitutional right to privacy emanating from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as substantive due process. In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States, Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today about issues including whether and to what extent abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the nation into pro-choice and pro-life camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides.

In section IX, The Court added that there were no legal grounds for factoring into this balancing test any right to life of the unborn fetus. The fetus would have such a right if it were defined as a legal person for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the original intent of the Constitution (up to the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868), did not include protection of the unborn, according to the Court. The Court emphasized that its determination of whether a fetus can enjoy constitutional protection neither meant to reference, nor intervene in, the question of when life begins saying, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

In section X, the Court explained that the trimester of pregnancy is relevant to the weight of the factors in this balancing test. Thus, during the first and second trimesters, the state may only regulate the abortion procedure “in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health”; during the third trimester, the state can choose to restrict or proscribe abortion, as it sees fit when the fetus is viable (“except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother”).

Since the Roe v. Wade decision, the right to have a safe legal abortion has been attacked, with pro-lifers attempting to gut Roe v. Wade a few procedures at a time. “Partial-birth abortion” laws, parental notification laws, and attempting to pass laws requiring a woman to pay for an unnecessary ultra-sound procedure before having an abortion are all calculated to keep women with unwanted pregnancies from a real choice in the matter. They are designed to stall 1st and 2nd trimester abortions until there is no chance for choice and the woman is stuck in a “forced pregnancy”, with greater chance of death or complications of birth during the delivery than from an abortion, especially among the young. Ninety-nine percent of all abortions in 1997 occurred in the first twenty weeks. Most delays beyond that are now due to lack of providers nearby, poverty, teens in denial, fear of violence at provider clinics, the trauma of parental notification laws (especially if the parent is also the father), slow court proceedings, or learning from testing about severe fetal abnormalities. The partial-birth abortion ban would not stamp out infanticide, which is already illegal, but would cripple a woman and her doctor’s rights to make a choice in a late stage of pregnancy, when they felt it necessary.

Abortion was well known and widely practiced in ancient times. No verse in the Bible supports or forbids abortion, however in Numbers, 5:12-28, it is prescribed in the case of a married woman who was impregnated by a man other than her husband and many non-scriptural writings explain how herbal abortifacients were used. The Puritans used abortion prior to the fetus being felt moving in the womb and it was a common practice until the mid- 1800’s when the churches began to make rules regarding its morality. The Bible says nothing regarding abortion to let us know whether or not it is right or wrong and there were legions of opportunities for the writers of the Bible to include a statement about it - whether to condone or forbid the known practice. The Bible is, therefore, a “pro-choice” book, leaving the decision up to the person or persons involved. If any of the commandments written regarding murder considered abortion murder, the writers did not include mention of this. Some women will feel that it is not the right thing for them, especially if internalized morality for them would not allow the procedure. Their choice has been made for them due to their belief. And that is fine. Some women will weigh the issues carefully before deciding. Choice will be based on feelings, perceptions, goals, and needs. Other women will make the choice to chose abortion easily based apparently on shallower reasons, but that should be their choice and a woman should not have to justify her decision to anyone. It is very important that one’s opinion about the morality of abortion can and should be separate from his desire to make it illegal. The legal status of abortion has never affected the extent of its use, only its safety.

Paul:

The following account tells of a choice made seventy-five years ago.

Abortion saved my life. A strange statement, isn’t it? Let me explain. My father, who was born in 1899, was one of six children. My mother, who was born in 1905 was one of eleven. Neither came from wealthy families. One grandfather worked on the railroad and the other was a shoe salesman. So, the question arises: why did my grandparents have such large families when they were relatively poor? No, they weren’t Catholic or Mormon. No, they were not wildly sexual - at least not as I remember them. Of course, they were in their seventies by then , so maybe they were at one time wildly sexual and just outgrew it by the time I met them. Most likely, the large families were the result of a lack of contraceptive knowledge and no TV to pass time in the evenings.

In any event, my mother was a single, divorced, working woman with a little daughter when my parents met, fell in love, and decided to get married. The year was 1932 - during the Great Depression. According to what my mother told me in later years, she became pregnant prior to the marriage. In those days, it was considered a very shameful situation. According to my mother, as much as they loved the large families they grew up in, my mother and father had definitely decided to have only two children. They made the choice to terminate the pregnancy for economic and social reasons, and their reasons were so compelling to them personally, that they chose an illegal abortion. Three years later, they had the additional child they planned on - ME. And, sticking to their original plan, they had no more children after me.

When I look back on this time in my family life, I don’t see my parents as evil, baby-killing monsters. I see two people who were honest, hard-working, church-going Christians. They were two people who had lived in tough economic times, had plans for their life together, and who believed that life started at birth, not at the moment an egg was fertilized. They believed the choice they made was best for them and their choice to make. Perhaps this decision was made easier by the social and economic conditions, and it was apparently not too hard to do, even though it was illegal. My mother did not elaborate on the details. She merely told me that she had gone to a doctor and had it done. I guess that there were no organized protests about the procedure in 1932 and it had not become the all-consuming religious and political issue that it is today. One can call me selfish, but I am glad my mother had an abortion, legal or not, in 1932. Without it, I would not have been here, and I am a pretty important person - at least to me and to those who love me.

It has been said that we are a pill-popping culture. It’s true that we consume a goodly number of the little devils. We take pills to heal disease, control disease, and to prevent disease. We bolster our intake of valuable vitamins with pills. We lower our blood pressure and cholesterol with pills. We vanquish our aches and pains with pills. Everybody seems to take some pills and those precious pills are made available to everyone, young and old, healthy and sick, in an over-the-counter form or as a prescription from your doctor. There is no double standard when it comes to the availability of our precious pills, or is there? There is a double standard, or gender bias, when it comes to pills having to do with sex. The birth-control pill just celebrated its 50th birthday, theoretically being available for use for all of those fifty years. It was the first major breakthrough in contraception for women. However, the availability of the pill varied from state to state in the early days.

Paul:

When we lived in Massachusetts in 1958, the year we married, there were three options available for birth control: abstinence or the Catholic System of using timing, or “rhythm“, which was not very successful and not suited to us newly-weds at the time, condoms, which were not completely safe and were also advertised “for the prevention of sexually transmitted disease only”, and the diaphragm which, with spermicidal jelly, provided the best available protection against unwanted pregnancy. We chose the latter, but, when the diaphragm, which was prescribed by a doctor in Illinois, got a hole in it, we could not get another in Massachusetts as it was against their law. We had to travel to another state to get the prescription refilled. This gender-based archaic law of Massachusetts prohibited a woman from obtaining a diaphragm, but did not prevent a man from obtaining a gross of condoms “for the prevention of sexually transmitted disease only”.

Thanks to modern science, there are far more “magical” pills available when it comes to sexual function. Besides the “birth control” pill, there is now a pill known as “plan B”, also known as “the morning after pill”, RU486, and a plethora of erectile dysfunction drugs

The first major family planning breakthrough in the early l960’s, the birth control pill, has made contraception an easier issue. Although the birth control pill was approved by the FDA in 1960, its availability to women was not assured simply because of that approval. The birth control pill was not originally available in all states. It was not available until 1965 for married women (Griswold v. Connecticut), and not until 1972 for unmarried women (Eisenstaedt v. Baird). Talk about a double standard. In its early days, the birth control pill was roundly condemned by Right-to-Lifers. This was prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and, incidentally, prior to the modern “Pro-Life” movement. States opponents of the birth control pill argued that the birth control pill would increase sexual activity between unmarried couples and reduce the number of pregnancies. Both of these arguments were, perhaps, correct. The birth control pill may have encouraged a more active sex life by those without moral or religious compunction regarding pre-marital sex. It would also have reduced the number of unplanned or unwanted pregnancies affecting married and unmarried women. In both cases, so what? If I have moral or religious reservations regarding two consenting adults having a sexual relationship purely for pleasure and not procreation, should I be allowed individually or through my government, to prevent their action or make it more distressing for them by increasing the woman’s chance of an unwanted pregnancy? Fortunately, the Supreme Court decided that contraception through the use of the birth control pill was in the realm of a woman’s right to privacy in connection with her sexual conduct and her reproductive plans. In effect, it divorced sexual activity from reproduction by giving women control over their fertility. Looking at the big picture, it greatly affected our society by freeing women and allowing them to increase their numbers in our workforce.

The next sexual pill to appear on the scene was RU486. RU486 is a steroid compound called mifepristone. It is an abortifacient and in smaller doses acts as an emergency contraceptive. It was developed in France and first licensed there in 1988. Bowing to Pro-Life / Anti-Choice groups, the U.S. banned its use and availability in 1989. It was finally approved for abortion use in the U.S. in 2000 and is widely available. “” ’