This issue is about the use of free will to make decisions, and misunderstandings about our power, right, and responsibilty to do that.
Misuse of choice is one of the greatest underlying threats to all life, but it has not been recognized as such, because of misunderstandings surrounding choice.
We are given free will to choose by our Creator (or, if you don't believe that, then whatever force created us).
Protecting the right to choose is a foundational principle of moral law.
Choice is both an ability and a responsibility.
Defending Freedom to Choose without Attaching Responsibility to All Choices:
Horrifically, our society has come to tout the ability (or 'right') to choose, while simultaneously ignoring much or any responsibility for those same choices. Examples include:
The argument for access to elective abortion services, which are based on the popular 'My body, my choice' slogan, implying that anything which is a choice to do must be given access to do, while ignoring any responsibility in a decision to terminate innocent human life. It's as though only the ability to choose exists, and responsibility does not.
This slogal would better depict the reality on this important issue: 'My body - My Choice - My Responsibility'.
In many cases government or private insurance plans will also bear the cost of the procedure, so that even that they are not responsible for.
The argument for smoking. It's considered that person's right to choose, even if it's destroying their health, and even if that creates a burden on others around them and society eventually (which it almost always does in practice). In fact, society pays for ongoing medical care for people with smoking-related conditions who actualy refuse to stop smoking, rather than allow them to bear the burden of those expenses.
The argument for not voting. This argument is that if someone has the right to vote then they have the right to not vote. There is no sense of civic duty (responsiblity) involved.
Wilfully Ignorant Choice
A consequence of choice being seen as an ability but not a responsiblity is an erosion of any insistence to thoroughly understand issues before rendering a decision on them, which tendency seems stronger the more distant an issue seems from the daily life of that person, even if the issue means life or death for someone else. For example, most people have a strong-enough opinion on the abortion issue that they are ready to vote on it: implicitly in every election, and explicitly if a referendum were to come up. Unfortunately it's not many who understand how these procedures are actually performed: there are many examples of people who changed their strong pro-abortion opinions after being shown what the procedure actually entailed (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) which means they didn't care to understand the issue before forming an outspoken opinion on it.
Similarly, citizen voters typically seem ready to vote a decision on what we should do concerning any other country or external war (not asking for more time or more information to decide), but few seem interested to do their own research to understand the geopolitical issues from both sides the way they usually would, for example, if mediating any dispute between friends.
How many people in Canada bothered to understand the government-published COVID-19 vaccine adverse effects before voting approval for the Liberal party's COVID-19 vaccine mandate platform in late 2021? It's not easy to know, but there didn't seem to be many people asking for this key information and it wasn't a mainstream news item.
In fact, each time there's an election, the Public is strongly encouraged to get out and vote, but not encouraged to research any of the issues themselves or refrain from voting on what they know they don't understand.
It's so bad that when there is any social issue in the world, no matter how important (even government-threatened intercontinental nuclear war) if you try to approach friends or family with evidence, they typically react like you're bothering them. The unspoken reason why is that our society doesn't put any importance on understanding an issue before you vote on it.
If the folly of the ignorant choice is exposed, no one seems to take responsility for it, especially when they voted by secret ballot. Although it occassionaly happens that someone will express regret for voting for someone, it's very rare that they express voting express or implied support for any policy. For example, President George W. Bush was reelected president after invading Iraq in 2003: a country which never threatened the United States and for which no evidence for weapons of mass destruction was found (not even by American occupying forces). Millions of people died (mostly Iraqis). Did you see anyone beating their breasts or wailing in the streets that they had supported an unjust war? Nope.
The result is many ignorant choices guiding our society with no one accepting responsiblity for them.
Inistence to Punish Others for Wrongful Choice but Not Ourselves
One of the biggest problems in the issue of choice is being able to see and being willing to blame the fault in others' choices while ignoring or even defending similar faults in our own choices. For example:
We always hold foreign peoples responsible for what their government does, because they either directly supported it in a referendum, or implied it in voting for candidates, or at least could have refused to follow it. Examples include:
Germans following Adolf Hitler into persecution of Jews and invasion of other nations (eg. Poland). Apparently for this reasons both the Russian and Western sides were reportedly very severe with German civilians after the war, with no one to defend them, beause they were presumed to deserve harsh treatment.
Firebombing of Japanese civilians in World War II on the premise that they are responsible for what their government does, even if not democratic.
Americans initially angry with Canadians for not following them into the Iraq invasion of 2003. Canadians were told that they were responsible for what their government does.
Eagerness to nuke entire nations whose leaders have ideas or a direction we disagree with. Again, the premise of this is the idea that the people of a nation are absolutely responsible for what its government does.
But then aren't we responisble for authorizing or following our own Western governments into such atrocities as:
Vietnam War, since the 4 August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, for which the USA authorized entry into the war, is now admitted to never have happened.
Cruel Detainment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay under a dubious new legal definition presumably crafted to avoid the usual compassionate requirements of the Geneva convention.
Air Striking Foreign Individuals by drone, without trial, and with killing many that number of by-standers.
USA Invasion of Iraq in 2003, based on allegations that they were making weapons of mass destruction, for which claim the USA produced no evidence, not even after they occupied Iraq. The result was millions of Iraqi's and thousands of Americans killed.
COVID-19 Crisis Persecution of the Unvaccinated, stripping them of basic human rights, for refusing to accept a dangerous and ineffective vaccination which reprograms their humanity on a genetic level. Human rights must be inalienable, not suspendable if you are scared, and the right to refuse medical treatments (under bodily security) is the second most important human right after the right to life.
COVID-19 Vaccine Harms from something officials insisted was 'safe' (meaning without risk of harm), and even mandated, yet actually had many proven short-term harms, including disabilty and lethality, and long-term harms could not yet be known.
Of course, it's not just Government actions this applies to. Refusing to hesitate to kill babies or animals, based on a supposed right to choose, are examples of other parts of this type of problem.
Perhaps it is to maintain a false sense of superiority that we've tended to point out others' mistakes, and demand their punishment, while defending our own freedom to choose, even to choose harm for others, with impunity.
Void of Moral Guidance
Unfortunately for religions based exclusively on ancient texts, they tend to lack moral teachings for many modern moral questions, especially those related to systems and technologies which exist now but did not or were rare in ancient times. One example is moral guidance on how to vote in elections: the right to vote was uncommon in the ancient world, and typically ancient religious texts don't teach moral guidance on this critical issue. A duty to vote for the best policies for the long-term life of the nation is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments.
This doesn't mean that there is no moral responsibility, or that God won't hold you accountable, but only that there are limitations to a single book, specifically the front and the back covers.
Since religion is a foundation on which to judge morality, when the religion doesn't teach some types of choice as a moral issue, people are therefore lead to see no moral issue in those choices (such as voting), and choose irresponsibly and frivolously.
Resistance to Moral Guidance
Another consequence of claiming a right to choose but not responsibility for choices, and wilful ignorance, is not even wanting moral guidance as though it's an unnecessary bother.
A Circle of Irresponsibility
Once voters are in a culture of voting in ignorance, it creates a circle of irresponsibility where literally no one in society takes responsibiltiy for even the most drastic decisions so long as they are put to voters. The voters don't take responsibiltiy becaue they see choice as a right not a personal resonsibiltiy, and their religion doesn't teach on that. The governors don't take responsibiltiy because they're only doing what the voters chose. No one thinks they are responsible no matter what happens.
Emotional Decision-Making
Decisions must be based on something, and where the person deciding won't be bothered to research and understand facts, the other basis to decide on tends to be emotion, such as: trust, fear, or hate, and this tends to go badly with complex issues. For example, in the COVID-19 crisis, the Public in North America, based on unquestioning trust in political leaders and medical industry, feared the virus enough to hate whoever refused the vaccine, and hate them enough to endorse cruel and unusual punishments for them (such as making them not able to feed their families unless they accepted the vaccine).
Failure of Contrast between Options
The right to choose assumes that the options you have to choose between are different and that somewhere in them is something suitable for you.
In the real world, sometimes all of the options presented to you to choose between are evil. It might be design, to try to trap you into choosing something evil, or it might be by accident, but it's a major problem.
Beware that it is morally wrong for you to vote for any option which you recognize as evil, even if no better option is presented.
Choice as Leverage
The COVID-19 crisis taught us that, amazingly, many of the same people who most demand their freedom of choice, even if it hurts others, when you are in power, are the first ones to demand your choice be mandated away, when they are in power, even if it hurts you. Specifically, the 'My Body My Choice' pro-abortion lobby had no objection to everyone being mandated to take dangerous vaccines and bear that risk alone while the manufacturers were protected with legal immunity for harms. Similarly, many of the same people who demanded their right to choose to wear masks, when they were optional, didn't stand up for the right of others to choose not to wear masks when they were mandated.
Clearly some people don't care about choice but only demand it when they need a legal argument and trample it when they have legal power.