(The following is part of our weeklong Roe v. Wade Blog-a-thon)

It's easy to get emotional about Roe v. Wade. For some, this issue is about abortion or morality.

For me Roe v. Wade is about privacy. Regardless of your personal opinions about whether or not you would have an abortion, each person deserves to have made their decision and act on that decision with in the privacy of their own space.

The right of privacy, I believe, is inherent in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and outlines that we as citizens of these United States are allotted a personal liberty. This means we have rights that are individual in nature, that pertain to our own lives, and are private.

Our Constitution spends a lot of time outlining individual rights alloted for example many argue you have a right to own a gun - that is an individual right. You have the right to assemble - to join up with a group of people and collectively say "hang on a minute." Or the presumption of innocence and the right to due process, privacy against an over-intrusive government (4th Amendment).

These individual rights, I believe, are there to protect us from our democracy and our government being too involved. They essentially protect us FROM our government, if our government were to become more like England was when we broke away, our Constitution would back up the rights of all of us to still maintain our own personal freedoms.

We have a government structure that says it isn't going to be like China and involved in running our lives for us. Our government will instead focus on the larger role of running the country, which in these difficult times we could really use.

Roe v. Wade is not merely about abortion - it really is about the rights of individuals, personal freedoms, and the ability for an individual to make a private decision that the government isn't involved in. To unmake a law like that creates a very slippery slope to further developing a government who now has the legal right to regulate your personal decisions.

For example: to die with dignity or be put on a machine forever? Choose whether you use birth control or not, choose if you carry a child if you become pregnant after being raped. These are all very personal decisions - and I believe government has no role in making those decisions.

In Kansas we had an Attorney General that demanded to see hospital records of women who had gone into have procedures done. This was unacceptable, because someone in the office of the Attorney General leaked the women's names and personal information to Bill O'Reilly. He was voted out of office. He then was appointed to serve as an interim County Prosecutor and continued his quest to obtain private hospital records.

I would much rather my government be fighting crime. We have a lot of problems with meth in Kansas, it would be great of the Attorney General or the Country Prosecutors could be out there fighting against that.


I celebrate this landmark decision by the Supreme Court in the interest of private individual citizens across the country, and their right to keep those decisions to themselves.


Sarah Burris is a blogger at FutureMajority and covers the youth movement and youth policy.  Read her updates at FutureMajority.com.