Americans love choice.

Yakov Smirnov, the comedian who fled the Cold War-era Soviet Union to a new life in the United States, made a career out of examining the myriad choices of consumer products available in America, exclaiming: “What a country!”

Conservatives are particularly supportive of choice – from the ability to choose the schools our children attend to the ability to choose our doctors and health care plans.

Big-government liberals would deprive Americans of choice in education and health care and a host of other areas, replacing them with governmental mandates.

At least with respect to health care, we have a chance this November to prevent the “Hillary-care” style governmental takeover of our health care system in Arizona by supporting Proposition 101, “The Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act.”

Sadly, conservative support for choice has been obscured by the rhetorical capture of the language of choice by those who profit from abortion on demand. Even though the children whose lives are ended have no choice, and even though the father’s choice has no legal standing, supporters of legalized abortion have successfully obscured the violence of abortion in the fog of “reproductive choice.”

Perhaps as a result, some have expressed concern that Proposition 101 will in some way affect abortion in Arizona. Having read the language of the initiative and consulted with other pro-life attorneys, I am confident that there is nothing in Proposition 101 that will have any effect on abortion, one way or the other.

The only choices affected by Proposition 101 are your decisions about health care – your ability to choose your doctor, your health care plan, your course of treatment, and your payment plan.

As the failures of government make headlines every day, it is hard to believe there are still those who want to put more power into the hands of the state. And yet not only are they still there, their voices are growing louder – in fact, “universal health care” has become a rallying cry for the Democratic Party.

We can’t just sit around and wait for the same people – from both political parties -- who brought us things like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a broken and porous national border, Hurricane Katrina relief, huge budget deficits, etc. – we just can’t sit back and wait for them to take over our personal medical decisions as well.

That’s why I’m supporting Proposition 101 – “The Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act.” And if you love freedom, you’ll join me.
 
Len Munsil is an attorney and public policy expert with 22 years of involvement in promoting conservative policy and governmental reform. He was the Republican nominee for Arizona governor in 2006. He is currently a small business owner, chairman of a political action committee (www.pro-pac.org), an adjunct professor of political science at Southwestern College, and blogs at www.lenmunsil.com.