10/16/2024
Question 1
Constitutional amendment
The proposed amendment confirms an individual’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end the individual’s pregnancy, and provides the State may not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge, the right unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.
VOTE NO!
Why do I urge you to vote NO?
1. If this wording is designed to protect abortion rights, as the proponents suggest, then it is totally unnecessary since that is already solidified in Maryland Law.
2. The amendment is badly worded and will be subject to endless court action and legal interpretation.
3. The State will be forced to create a bureaucracy to control and oversee the ill-defined “rights “ suggested by the wording.
4. The Phrase including but not limited to is open to legal interpretation and will generate unlimited legislation and court action to interpret. This opens the door to various attempts to include any sexual practice.
5. Since this would be in the state constitution, Sate funding would by necessity follow. Your taxes will increase and the already deficit in state funds will increase.
6. The phrase, “ COMPELLING STATE INTEREST” Gives the state bureaucrats control over the “RIGHT” this attempts to establish.
7. This amendment sets up a precedent for socialistic government wherein Individual rights are elevated over Individual responsibility and both rights and responsibility are subjected to the whims of a state bureaucracy.
Please note that the arguments presented here are not subject to religious bias, but rather deal with flaws in the amendment and the facts clearly stated that this amendment does not accomplish the intent of those presenting it but rather creates a legal and technical quagmire that will cost the taxpayer and will restrict the very freedom it intends to establish!
VOTE NO!