THE PARADOX OF CHOICE

We are all anti-choice, when some choices mean another has none. This is the basis of legal justice. Since the beginning of society, legal principals have been in place to protect our freedom. The freedom to live, to own, to work and to prosper but these freedoms are maintained by restricting the freedoms of others; that is you cannot simply take someone’s car because you choose to, that will land you in court and to prison swiftly after. And likewise if a neighbour’s autonomy is impinging on yours when he parks his car a bit to close to your own, choice does not dictate that you can do with him as you will. So why, with regard to the life of the unborn, we hear nothing but the deafening monochromatic ideology of a womans right to “choose,” when the freedoms we enjoy in our modernist society are protected only by the absence of choice.

“It is a tragedy for a child to die so you can live as you wish”

All over the world abortion has been legalised because of hard case scenarios, but since the enshrining of the murder of the unborn in law, it is now for the most part, considered a birth control option. “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” a slogan often plastered on the backs of cardboard boxes marched on the arms of angry “pro-choicers.” If we lived in a world that favored choice for frivolous reasons, law and order would disintegrate and there would be a pretty chaotic result. Then why in the area of life before birth should we all of a sudden respect choice, when this choice means the brutal end of another’s life? Society has double standards.

Being free does not simply mean doing as we choose, but living in a world where freedom permits us to live, safely, where our interests and those of our neighbour are equally valued and protected, held in equilibrium on the scales of justice. Championing this notion of “a right to choose, ”when it impinges on the freedoms of others is not conducive to freedom at all. We are all anti choice, when those choices mean others have none.