By Mike Tront
The Supreme Court is making big news in the abortion battle. They just struck down regulations enacted by the State of Texas overseeing abortion clinics. These seemingly common sense regulations ended up reducing people’s access to abortion clinic’s. Since abortion is a constitutionally protected right, regulations affecting them are often ruled unconstitutional.
When you talk to most liberals, and even some conservatives these days, they’ll tell you that it’s the duty of the government to regulate industries to keep us all safe. They claim that without government regulating every aspect of an industry, we as consumers would have no ability to recognize if we’re dealing with a shady business. We’d have no access to quality goods and services.
If you’re on the libertarian side of the ball, you know that the only thing government regulation does is give more power to the legislatures, the regulators, and the people/businesses who lobby them. This lobbying is used to get regulations to favor them and hurt their competitors, usually smaller businesses that can’t afford to lobby. This is known as regulatory capture.
With this Supreme Court decision, liberals are inadvertently celebrating deregulation. They just don’t realize it. They think they’re celebrating the fact that government is giving their rights back. But what’s the difference? When any industry is deregulated by a national government, liberals today are usually against it. However, deregulation means that the people are given back their right to choose. Whether it’s airlines, phone service, or abortions. People now have more access to these goods and services. They now have the right to choose between a plethora of competitive choices, instead of the previous government mandated “choice.”
Of course abortion isn’t simply about regulation. It’s a very difficult topic that involves the potential life of a child versus the self-ownership a woman has over her body and uterus. But government force and regulation don’t care. It is non-biased and nonpartisan. Government regulation of anything means less access, less competition, and higher costs to the consumer.
So if you’re a liberal today and you’re celebrating this decision, why stop there? If less government regulation will allow more access, more competition, and more affordable abortion choices, why don’t we reduce regulations on everything else?
I’d start with the FDA. Over-regulation from the FDA causes life saving drugs to stay off the market for years and raises the costs of drugs when they are approved. This means people die from lack of access to these drugs, and poorer people can’t afford them when they are approved. Can we get liberals on board to deregulating the FDA?
Or how about getting rid of the Department of Education? More choices in education will allow people access to better education at a much lower price. Especially for people living in poorer neighborhoods. Often they’re stuck in terrible, government schools with no hope of a quality or safe education.
Of course we’ll never see the day where liberals will support less regulation in any other industry. But I don’t understand why. If abortion is a right that shouldn’t be messed with by government, shouldn’t healthcare and education be a right that shouldn’t be messed with by government? Shouldn’t our right to choose be universal across all industries? Or does it simply begin and end with abortion?
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