Choice?

I work for a water treatment company, and one of the most common questions we receive is, "Do you perform free testing?" to which I invariably reply, "What kind of testing?"  We perform multiple kinds of testing, some of which are free and some of which are not.  The term testing is itself too ambiguous to be helpful. 

So it is with the term choice.

Liberals love to identify themselves as champions of choice, but they don't really believe in unfettered choice for individuals.  Nobody does, really.  In fact, Liberals, advocates as they normally are for big government, generally believe in limiting the choices of individual citizens far more often than Conservatives do.  

Undefined choice is a meaningless concept.  One is always choosing between one or more options, and some choices are immoral and/or illegal.  We all, even the most Libertarian amongst us, accept this fact.  If my choice impinges on the rights of my neighbor, then I am not free to make that choice.

We as a society do not believe in the inherent right to choose for the thief or the rapist, do we?  You don't see rioting or picketing on behalf of the arsonist or the murderer, do you?  Have you ever heard an advocacy group or celebrity demanding that we protect the choice of the child molester or the domestic abuser? 

So it is not choice that is being debated, but the morality and legality of a specific choice.  Is it morally acceptable to choose to end a human life in the womb?  Should it be legal to dismember a developing child in utero?  Should a woman, along with her romantic and medical accomplices, be allowed to commit homicide, literally speaking, against the unborn?

Is a woman free to make that choice?  

So the next time you hear someone say something like, "I just don't think old, white men should be allowed to take away a woman's right to choose," don't let them get away with it.  Falling back on the right to choose is not a valid argument, legally, morally, or logically speaking.  We are debating the morality of a specific choice, a specific act, and that act, unspeakably heinous, is not protected by some ambiguous concept of choice.