The meaning of choice

Today is the second annual “Ask Them What They Mean by ‘Choice’ Day,” a pro-life response to the “Blog for Choice” abortion effort.

As I write, I’m promoting Secular Pro-Life to campus activists at the Students for Life of America conference, so I’ve been thinking about what “choice” means to this age group.  (I myself am 23 years old– plus 9!)  Arguably, American teens and college students have more choices than any generation at any time and place in history.  We choose where to go to school, what to study, whether and who to marry, and what type of career to pursue.  We need to remember how incredibly fortunate we are to have these choices.

We are also incredibly fortunate for another reason: we are alive.  We are not forgotten, rotted away in landfills or burned in incinerators.  We made it out of the womb and took our first breaths.

One third of our generation was not so lucky.  That is the dark side of “choice.”

The power of choice must be exercised responsibly.  Some choices are good, and some neutral, but the “choice” that abortion proponents speak of is harmful.  As the old saying goes: “It’s easy to be pro-choice when you’re not the one being killed.”