Further, it’s low-income women who get most of the abortions these days, since women with higher incomes are able to avail themselves of reliable, long-lasting (and expensive) contraception. Readers interested in facts and figures about abortion should look at the statistical picture from the authoritative Guttmacher Institute.

Catracho, Maine: A legitimate religious objection to my tax dollars going to fund warfare, bombing of children and other life-destroying military activities, putting children in cages after separating them from their parents or denying health care protections to children and others should be given the same weight as an equally legitimate religious objection to abortion or even abortion counseling. The courts should affirm this moral equivalence and as a country we can act accordingly.

L.G.: Yes, agreed. And to make your comment more specific to the issue at hand, there are more and more “conscience” based opt-outs being created by the federal and state governments. Employers that don’t like birth control don’t have to include it in the employee health plan (under a newly issued Trump administration regulation that’s being challenged in court) and some states allow pharmacists not to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception if they disapprove of the product. But what about those of us whose conscience would require such products and procedures to be available for the good of society? Our voices are not part of this conversation.

Mark Stave, Baltimore: As a public-interest attorney representing abused and neglected children, I have no difficulty in understanding Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati. I have watched as our Maryland circuit court judges trim their rulings to more clearly align themselves with the tendencies of the state’s Court of Appeals. When the higher court leaned toward the rights of children to be free of abuse, they ruled that way more often. When they shifted away from children, toward parents’ rights to raise children however they saw fit, the judges leaned that way. Judge Sutton sees the way the circuits and the Supreme Court are headed, and he changes accordingly.

L.G.: I have enough regard for Judge Sutton to assume that he called this issue the way he saw it — that because doctors have no “right” to provide abortions, they can’t be heard to complain when the state tries to force them to give up their ability to provide abortions in order to continue receiving an unrelated benefit. There is some internal logic to this argument but it flies in the face of 40-plus years of common-sense precedent that holds that doctors stand in the shoes of their patients, who would not otherwise be able to get into court to assert the rights that they indisputably have.

Gerard, Pennsylvania: The real question is whether the government should enforce the consequence of one opinion. There are strong convictions on both sides of this issue, and it is appropriate to debate whether abortion is morally right or wrong. But it goes against the principles of freedom and liberty to enact laws to enforce one view on every individual. We should defend an individual’s choice, lest one day our choices on other matters may be reduced by the convictions of others.

L.G.: Personal choice, absolutely. The best bumper sticker I’ve ever seen read: “Opposed to abortion? Don’t have one.” But if you mean that we should be able to exercise personal choice not to obey laws of general applicability — anti-discrimination laws, for example — you lose me there, so I’m assuming that’s not what you mean.