One of the reasons I'm so excited about being involved with First Freedom First is because it's a campaign that supports reproductive justice. First Freedom First believes that all Americans must be free to make choices concerning their reproductive health in keeping with their personal beliefs.
Opponents of reproductive freedom often seek legislation based on their own religious doctrines. Creating laws that are grounded in religious belief, however, conflicts with the separation of church and state and compromises our religious liberty. We must be allowed to live our lives according to our own beliefs.
I’ve been a feminist all my life, and a feminist activist for more than two decades now. I’ve been on the front line at clinics defending a woman’s right to make this personal decision, and I can assure you that at no time have I ever witnessed an anti-abortion advocate waving a medical journal telling the women entering the clinics, or the doctors inside, that they are practicing bad medicine. They wave Bibles. They read scripture. They tell the women they are committing a sin against God. Opponents often, and regularly, couch their objections to abortion in religious language.
At the center of the abortion debate are important questions of ethics and beliefs. Such questions are sometimes difficult, and ultimately will be resolved by individuals in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience. In many cases, the dictates of a person’s conscience will be influenced by their religious beliefs. Religious liberty is a basic right guaranteed to all Americans by the First Amendment. To take away a woman’s right to make personal decisions about her body is to deny her basic right to religious freedom.
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