Although the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not explicitly guarantee privacy rights to individuals, such rights are implicit within the documents. The landmark ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut paved the way for Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 Supreme Court decision that extended these same privacy protections — and thus the right to obtain birth control — to unmarried women. It opened the door the following year to the historic ruling in Roe v. Wade, which expanded the privacy doctrine to abortion, granting women and their doctors the legal right not just to prevent, but also to terminate, unwanted early pregnancies.

Before birth control and abortion were legally and readily available, the average woman would become pregnant between 12 and 15 times in her lifetime. Even today in the United States, nearly half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and nearly half of those result in abortion. This is why polls show that the vast majority of Americans reject the extremism of a determined minority and do not want the Supreme Court decisions that protect their private decisions to be overturned. Doctrines of privacy and equality for women are simply not separable: Eroding one imperils the other.

But let’s be clear, there’s a world of difference between those who engage in such civil disobedience, and pay the price, and doctors and pharmacists who insist that the rest of the world reorder itself to protect their consciences -- that others pay the price for their principles.

This isn’t particularly complicated. If your conscience forbids you to carry arms, don’t join the military or become a police officer. If you have qualms about animal experimentation, think hard before choosing to go into medical research. And, if you’re not prepared to provide the full range of reproductive health care (or prescriptions) to any woman who needs it then don’t go into obstetrics and gynecology, or internal or emergency medicine, or pharmacology. Choose another field! We’ll respect your consciences when you begin to take responsibility for them!