To clarify
Government shouldn’t legislate personal decisions*, particularly in a blanket way and particularly not based on religious preferences. Someone gave the example of China’s one-child law, wherein people are only allowed one child and abortion of (female) children is, if not mandated, encouraged, to make a point of what can happen when government legislates moral (or immoral) choices.
I’m unsure of this as a legitimate argument, but it does offer a look at the opposite side. I will definitely have to research this further.
A thought experiment: The government screens everyone who potentially will have a child for genetic defects that could possibly prevent complications with birthing and child development. To take it further, why not screen for good genes, to eliminate the propagation of children with family histories of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, mental illness, and addiction? Or even more extreme, let’s require people to pass government-issued tests to determine their capability as parents before they are allowed to reproduce. If the fail they test three times, they are sterilized.
These are extremes, obviously, but are they unrealistic eventualities if the government starts — continues, even — to legislate personal choices? Because in the end, the argument to make abortion illegal based on the idea that some people make the decision to abort a child for selfish, personal reasons is not too many steps away from the idea that we’d be better off not letting those people breed in the first place.
*In this case, abortion. This is not to say I am pro-abortion. I am pro-choice, or abortion rights, or any number of ways that say the government shouldn’t make that extremely personal decision for individuals.
Update: Just because some people make bad decisions does not mean the government should legislate against those decisions for the entirety of the population. If that were the case, cars would be illegal because some people drive them while drunk or are reckless in them.
