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Doesn't gay marriage legislate morality; it's just a different kind of morality? The government still remains in the business of sanctioning sexual unions. I think the gov't just ought to get out of the marriage game all together. Civil union benefits could exist for couples with children and everything else could be set up with separate contracts. I don't know for sure this is really necessary, but it seems flawed to view expansion of marriage as somehow a value neutral proposition which respects individual rights.
I agree with Shinerbock that I think abortion is a more complicated issue than just a political right for the woman because at some point in the pregnancy you have a second person there. I don't think most people really believe that this happens at conception (look at what we're into as far as fertility treatments) in regards to protecting that new "life", but I don't think that some of the reforms particularly that addressed procedures in the third trimester really can be classified neatly as wrongly restricting the mother's individual freedoms. Sure, banning them may restrict what she wants to do, but we'd recognize and accept that after birth she faces similar restrictions. I don't think the average American really believes that legally protected life begins at birth anymore than I really believe this average American believes legally protected life starts at conception.
I think that because we may rightly need to view the being in the womb as a legal person sometime before birth, there's no clean case to be made about deferring to the legal rights of the mother simply as a matter of principle or again as a clear matter of respecting individual rights.
And I think anyone who is presently insured will lose personal freedom with many of the potential solutions to the health care issue. Sure it will address the issue of who shoulders the cost of the uninsured, but it's going to come at a price to someone else. If you contrast systems of health care internationally, the cost of universal coverage is often choice and control over treatment.
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