I am an advocate of life and a proponent of choice, privacy, and individual liberty. I will support proven measures to reduce abortion.
Women's reproductive care is a highly emotional debate connected to a wide range of issues — individual healthcare rights, rights of privacy, freedom of religious expression, and the appropriate distribution of public resources.
Women must have access to high-quality reproductive healthcare, and we should restore federal funding for such. These services are vital and provide much-needed medical care for millions of Americans, especially those in underserved areas.
Promoting life means offering everyone a fighting chance with universal childcare, healthcare, and funding for foster and adoption programs. Promoting choice means respecting a women's constitutional right to privacy and access to safe and legal abortion.
We should all be advocates for life, so I will champion initiatives like:
Supporting children before and after birth
Programs that assist working parents
Increasing access to affordable education from Pre-3 on
Addressing childhood poverty
Improving and promoting adoption services and foster programs
Universal healthcare
I will empower all expecting parents to help their babies succeed in life, and I will work to protect women's reproductive choices and privacy.
This debate has divided America more than any other issue. However, we may be able to agree we need to increase support and options for women faced with the personal and challenging decision of parenthood.
Advocating for choice means:
Codifying Roe V. Wade
Supporting reproductive services
Family planning/contraception
Providing access to safe and legal abortion
Protecting a woman's right to privacy
Proper sex education based on consent
Roe v. Wade, a decision protecting a woman's fundamental right to privacy, ought to again be the law of the land. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated, it is "a woman's right to control her own destiny, to be able to make choices without a Big Brother state telling her what she can and cannot do."
Very often, religious beliefs are the foundation of anti-abortion views, and my or your religious beliefs should not be the basis for the laws of our country.
As a physician, I can confidently say no one anticipates or wants to be in a position to decide to have an abortion. It can be a harrowing decision for everyone involved.
I can personally advocate for life and politically be pro-choice. These two positions are not mutually exclusive. In the end, the government should not serve as the decider on a woman's medical decisions or religious beliefs.
If the goal is abortion prevention, making it illegal is ineffective. It only makes it more dangerous. Comprehensive sex education and affordable and accessible birth control are proven to work.
