Ted Stroll

Election Information:

Party: 
Republican
District: 
25
Office: 
State House or Assembly

Contact Information:

tedstroll.com

Survey Responses:

S = Support
O = Oppose
NR = No Response
Life
S O NR
1.
Prohibiting Abortion: Prohibiting abortion after a baby’s heartbeat is detected, with limited exceptions such as to save the mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest.
X
2.
Taxpayer Funded Abortion: Allowing taxpayer dollars to fund organizations that provide abortion.
X
3.
Physician-Assisted Suicide: Allowing voluntary physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.
X
Candidate's Comments:
Contemplating having an abortion is a serious decision. It entails grave moral implications. A late-term abortion would be appalling except in dire circumstances entailing absolute necessity. My understanding is that few abortions occur after viability unless something is seriously wrong that threatens the woman's health. Ultimately, I believe it is for the woman and her doctor to decide whether or not to proceed. It’s the best of a number of troubling alternatives, because if it isn’t the woman and her doctor, it’s the state along with the woman and her doctor. The law is a blunt instrument and any legislation, no matter how well-intended, can’t foresee all of the medical issues that may arise in thousands of cases. However, I don’t accept the view that this is an antiseptic, dry civil-liberties issue. It has civil-liberties aspects, but moral ones too.
First Amendment
S O NR
4.
Conscience Rights for Professionals: Prohibiting the government from denying required licensure or certification to individuals because of their religious or political beliefs.
X
5.
Conscience Rights for Faith-Based Organizations: Exempting faith-based organizations (e.g. adoption/foster care providers, private schools) from regulations that cause them to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.
X
6.
Transparency in Banking: Allowing consumers to obtain a written explanation when a financial institution shuts down the consumer’s account to protect against ideologically driven cancellations.
X
7.
Privacy in Financial Giving: Protecting confidential donor information so individuals are able to privately support charities and causes of their choice without fear of being doxed.
X
Family
S O NR
8.
Parental Rights in Gender Identity Counseling: Allowing parents to obtain professional counseling for a child struggling with gender confusion to help the child find comfort with his or her biological sex.
X
9(a).
Protected Class for Sexual Orientation: Elevating “sexual orientation” to a protected class alongside race, religion, sex, age, and disability in nondiscrimination law.
X
9(b).
Protected Class for Gender Identity: Elevating “gender identity” to a protected class alongside race, religion, sex, age, and disability in nondiscrimination law.
X
Candidate's Comments:
I'm not sure about the answer to question 9.
Education and Public Safety
S O NR
10.
School Choice: Allowing the use of tax credits, vouchers, and/or education savings accounts to cover the cost of children attending the school of their parents’ choice, including private religious schools.
X
11.
Free Speech at School: Protecting teachers and students from being forced to refer to a person by inaccurate pronouns that do not align with the person’s sex.
X
12.
Parental Rights in School Healthcare Disclosure: Directing schools to inform parents of any mental, physical, or emotional health information and treatment that a child is receiving at school.
X
13.
Transparency in School Curriculum & Activities: Giving parents access to the curriculum, presentations, and activities that their children are learning in school and allowing them to opt their children out of school extra-curricular activities, presentations, or specific lessons to which the parents object.
X
Candidate's Comments:
The answer to question 12 assumes that the student has one or more responsible, nonabusive parents. If a girl tells her teacher that her alcoholic and sometimes physically abusive father is making inappropriate comments about her appearance and she tells her teacher, the school should not be required to report this to the father, if the mother is unavailable for whatever reason. As I said earlier, the law is a blunt instrument. Any legislation in this area would have to be carefully drafted.
Health and Welfare
S O NR
14.
Medical Rights of Conscience: Protecting health care workers from losing their jobs if they decline to participate in a procedure or treatment that violates their personal beliefs and conscience.
X
15.
Women’s Privacy: Preventing males who identify as female from entering sex-separated spaces intended for females, such as showers, locker rooms, bathrooms, dormitories, women’s shelters, prisons, etc.
X
16.
Protecting Pregnancy Centers: Ensuring pregnancy centers that provide life-affirming support to women and their families are not targeted or penalized by government officials.
X
Candidate's Comments:
On question 16, I agree, but if a pregnancy center willfully provides false information to a client, there should be a remedy for that. To be sure, it is quite common that one person's false information is another person's self-evident truth, so any regulation in that area must be limited to information that is objectively false and whose falsity no reasonable person would dispute. If a pregnancy center says, "if you have an abortion, it is sinful and God will punish you," that should be protected by the first amendment. If a pregnancy center says, "if you carry your baby to term the state will pay you $5,000 for the first ten years of the baby's life" and there is no such benefit and the center knows or should know that there is no such benefit, that is unacceptable and should be subject to sanctions.