Women’s health, bodily autonomy, and privacy

My position on women’s health begins with humility, respect, and a clear understanding of the limits of government power. Decisions about pregnancy, reproduction, and medical care are deeply personal, medically complex, and often made under circumstances no legislator, religious institution, or political majority has the right to second-guess.

Abortion is healthcare. It is part of comprehensive women’s healthcare and should be treated with the same seriousness, privacy, and medical judgment as any other form of care.

At its core, this is about bodily autonomy and privacy. The decision to continue or end a pregnancy belongs to the person who is pregnant, in consultation with their doctor. Not politicians. Not bureaucrats. Not courts. And not the moral opinions of a religious majority. A free society does not force people to surrender control over their own bodies to satisfy someone else’s ideology.

Pregnancy is not a theoretical debate. It is a real medical condition with real risks, real complications, and real consequences. Even wanted pregnancies can become dangerous. Health conditions can change quickly, and decisions sometimes have to be made under heartbreaking circumstances.

Rigid laws cannot account for every possible diagnosis, complication, or medical emergency. There is no statute precise enough, and no legislature informed enough, to safely manage every pregnancy. When politicians substitute their judgment for clinical expertise, they do not make healthcare safer. They create confusion, delay care, and put lives at risk.

That is why these decisions belong in exam rooms, not committee hearings.

And in Utah, this is not a hypothetical concern. Abortion currently remains legal before 18 weeks of pregnancy, while Utah’s near-total trigger ban remains blocked by the courts. That ban was passed in 2020, briefly took effect after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, and has remained tied up in litigation ever since because it would prohibit abortion at nearly every stage of pregnancy, with only extremely limited exceptions.

Instead of allowing that constitutional challenge to proceed through the ordinary judicial process, the Legislature created a new mechanism in 2026 allowing certain constitutional cases to be transferred from a single district court judge to a specially convened three-judge panel. The state then moved to use that new process in the ongoing abortion case.

That maneuver is now facing its own constitutional challenge, along with challenges arising from other major cases involving redistricting and Utah’s school-voucher program. The Utah Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments over the three-judge-panel system in September 2026.

So when I say these decisions do not belong in committee hearings, I am not describing some distant possibility. I am describing the actual behavior of the body I am running to join: a Legislature that spent years trying to impose a near-total abortion ban and, after failing to get the result it wanted through the ordinary judicial process, changed the structure of that process while the case was still underway. That is not judicial restraint. It is legislative overreach.

My broader governing philosophy applies here, just as it does to every other issue. Before I sponsor or vote for legislation, I intend to ask four basic questions.

First: Is this actually the state’s responsibility?

Government should default to the smallest and most appropriate level capable of handling a matter well, and it should move upward only when necessary. On a question like pregnancy, the most local decision-making body is not city hall, a county commission, or the Legislature. It is the patient and the physician sitting together in a medical office, reviewing the facts of that individual case.

Nobody else examined the patient. Nobody else has read the complete chart. Nobody else has to live with the medical, emotional, and financial consequences of the decision.

Second: Who does this help, and who benefits from it?

Public policy should solve real problems and improve people’s lives. It should not exist merely to satisfy an ideological constituency, manufacture a campaign talking point, or demonstrate that one political group has the power to impose its beliefs on another.

Third: Who does this hurt?

Does the legislation target, punish, or antagonize a person or group instead of serving a legitimate public purpose? Does it make people less safe, less free, or less able to participate fully in society? If the honest answer is yes, that is an automatic no from me. I do not need to read the rest of the bill.

Fourth: Does this move Utah toward the future we are trying to build, or does it keep us tethered to the same political fights of the past?

On women’s health, that test is not close.

Private medical decisions are not the Legislature’s responsibility. Inserting politicians into the exam room does not help patients or physicians. These restrictions cause direct and predictable harm, and that harm falls hardest on people with the fewest resources to escape it. And a state that spends its energy policing pregnancy instead of building the future it claims to want is not moving forward. It is relitigating the same ideological fight while the real needs of Utah families go unanswered.

I reject the idea that the state should act as a moral gatekeeper over reproduction. Religious freedom means every person is free to live according to their own beliefs. It does not mean those beliefs may be enforced through law against people who do not share them. Respecting faith requires respecting conscience and choice. In a pluralistic society, government must remain neutral— protecting individual liberty rather than imposing religious doctrine.

People may believe abortion is morally wrong. They are free to make decisions for themselves consistent with that belief. They are free to teach that belief within their families and religious communities. But they are not entitled to use the power of the state to make that decision for everyone else.

That boundary protects all of us. The same principle that prevents one religious majority from controlling another person’s medical care also protects every person’s right to practice their own faith without government interference.

If we are serious about reducing unintended pregnancies and abortions, the evidence points toward prevention, education, and access— not punishment.

That means comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education grounded in science rather than shame. It means broad and affordable access to contraception. It means preventive reproductive healthcare, prenatal care, maternal healthcare, and support for people who choose to carry pregnancies to term. It means making it economically possible to raise a family through affordable housing, childcare, healthcare, nutrition assistance, and paid leave.

You cannot claim to be “pro-family” while refusing to build a society in which families can survive.

Restrictions on reproductive healthcare also deepen inequality. Wealthier people will almost always find a way around legal and financial barriers. They can travel, take time away from work, pay for lodging, arrange childcare, and obtain private medical care.

Working-class women, poor women, rural patients, disabled people, young people, and people facing abusive or unstable circumstances bear the greatest burden. They are the ones forced to navigate delays, travel hundreds of miles, lose wages, find childcare, and endure increased medical risk because politicians decided their private circumstances were public property.

A just society does not use state power to trap people in circumstances they did not choose. My position on women’s healthcare can ultimately be reduced to one sentence: It is none of my damn business— and neither should it be yours.

My responsibility as a legislator is not to insert myself into private medical decisions. It is to defend privacy, protect bodily autonomy, ensure access to comprehensive healthcare, support evidence-based public health, preserve the independence of our courts, and trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and their own lives.

That is bodily autonomy.

That is privacy.

And that is freedom.