To say that government should let people make all of their own choices is neither practical nor desirable. We cannot let people make their own choices to rape, rob or drive drunk. We cannot let them make the choices to embezzle, defraud, write hot checks, drive their cars over the speed limit, slander other people, etc. By definition, the goal of every law is to deny someone the legal ability to choose a particular activity, and many prohibited choices could even be considered “personal.” For example, it is illegal to have sexual relations with a sibling, or a child, or an animal, or a dead body.

As for abortion, it is not the government’s role to protect one individual’s choice to kill his fellow human beings. Given the biological fact that the unborn are living human beings, the question is not whether the government has the right to prohibit abortion, but whether it has the right not to.