I have always been SUPER pro-bodily-autonomy/integrity and freedom of choice. My main philosophy in life has always been that you should be able to do whatever you want, whatsoever, as long as it doesn't hurt another body besides your own. This is exactly why I am against abortion. Bodily autonomy/integrity is why most pro-lifers are against abortion. If there wasn't another body that was being threatened or we didn't care about the body being threatened, we wouldn't be pro-life and there wouldn't be a problem. We'd say "Yeah sure violate and kill the unborn's body, it's not like I care what others do to bodies that aren't their own!" Get a hysterectomy, sure, but there is no greater threat to bodily autonomy than abortion. The right to bodily autonomy fits so much better with the pro-life side.
The thing about pro-choicers is that they don't really understand bodily autonomy. They think it's absolute (they seem to forget the "as long as you don't hurt another body" part of it, and there are many situations in which it is not absolute, such as helmet or other safety laws, drugs being illegal, or illegal in certain circumstances such as for those under a certain age, being taken away on a 5150 and forced in a mental hospital and watched to make sure you don't kill yourself, someone can't neglect their child and refuse to feed it because they don't want to use their arms to give it food (Refusing your child nutrients and survival because you don't want your uterus to go to this is basically the same. Children also have the right to not be neglected, and depriving the child of resources it needs to live, even if it wasn't wanted or planned or is an "inconvenience", is still neglect and still wrong) or kill or hurt their child if they wrapped themselves around your leg for instance and you can't get them off without doing so, and various other circumstances (regardless of whether or not you agree with them, they exist legally)), they think right to life can never come before it (right to life comes before at least most things as it is the ultimate threat against someone (and if you're an Atheist like me, you should really believe in it, as life is ALL we have, and without life, all other rights are meaningless as we wouldn't be alive to be able to use them, and this is why they put life first in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", and it's almost like a lot of them don't even think right to life is a thing, because if bodily autonomy always exists in the context of "even if someone dies" as so many of them like to argue, then you can go around killing people an excuse it by saying "Well it was my body doing the killing so you can't do anything about it because bodily autonomy" ), when talking about abortion, they act like the only thing to bodily autonomy is whether or not you allow someone to use your organs (there's much more which I'll explain), and they think forget about the unborn's bodily autonomy because the woman's autonomy is the only thing we should really care about etc.
Now essentially bodily autonomy has a few different things to it (and no not all of them are legal.) It means you can do whatever you want to or with your body (get tattoos or piercings or body mods, take drugs, be a stripper or prostitute, have sex whatever way you want it however much you want it with whomever you want (unless they are underage or someone else non-consenting) refuse to shave or wear makeup etc.), no one can do anything to your body without consent or invade the personal space of your body (think of rape, molestation, inflicting pain or injury, even just touching someone without them wanting you to etc.), and yeah having control over your organs is part of it, but the main thing is that no one can hurt or kill your body without consent (this is actually sort of related to right to life as someone being killed means their body was killed and hurt to the utmost extreme, so they aren't even mutually exclusive in the first place). You get to be in charge of your body, and no one else can ever hurt it (unless you're into that sort of thing and it's completely consensual ).
Of course according to science, the unborn is another individual living human being and different body than the mother. The unborn's bodily autonomy is the one being threatened here as the act in question is abortion and the unborn is the one being aborted, not the woman. Abortion is forcing death (and various things with the various types, such as dismemberment which is also obviously a great threat to bodily autonomy) on it without it consenting and having a choice in the matter. That is the biggest threat to bodily autonomy.
Now trust me, I get that the woman has autonomy too and she might not want to be pregnant and share her body with the unborn. Talking about the unborn's right to bodily autonomy and right to life DOES NOT mean we think little of the woman's right to bodily autonomy (remember I'm a super liberal and radical feminist, super pro-bodily rights type, so don't use that stupid "they all just hate women and want to take away their bodily autonomy" misconception on me). I am female, I live with thinking about what it is like to be pregnant all the time, BUT abortion is still a greater threat to bodily autonomy. Someone hurting or killing someone else's body is obviously a greater threat than someone using someone else's organ to stay alive. Also the unborn has two violations pushed on them (right to life and bodily autonomy) vs. the woman's one.
Abortion being the greater threat to bodily autonomy is true even more so for various reasons. It is completely innocent in the matter, it could not have consented or chosen to be there, and it is already there before a woman can find out she is pregnant or an abortion can take place. It did not "take over the woman's uterus without consent" as it could never have consented to that, and comparisons like that imply intent, but it never could have made a conscious decision to do something like that or even be aware of what it was doing. Just like newborns and toddlers can't be held responsible for certain actions because they couldn't have consented to it or realized what they were doing (from needing to be fed down to more serious things like accidentally hurting someone) the unborn is purely innocent. It can't consent to being killed either, just like infants outside of the womb couldn't consent to being killed so since it's not legal to do that, it doesn't make sense to allow someone to do it to the unborn (other examples of how bodily autonomy still applies to those who aren't aware to be able to consent either way is how women who have passed out can't consent to having sex, so doing that to her is rape, or sleepwalkers can't consent to sleepwalking, yet they also can't consent to being killed). Usually people know that things like circumcision or piercing a baby's ears are against it's bodily autonomy, yet some of them do a 180 when it comes to abortion. Those aborting specifically decide to do so and DID consent and make a conscious decision. The abortion is a direct an conscious action on someone. The unborn being there was there by the actions of the woman and man, or in case of rape man and woman's body. It happens to be using her uterus because that is how science works and the only home it has. Once again, it didn't "force itself into her and take her uterus hostage." Other analogies I've heard are ones like you can't drag an unconscious person into your home and then shoot them because you want them to leave *or something like that*, and extensions of that.
Want of womb empty is definitely not an adequate excuse to literally, purposefully, consciously, and actively kill someone who already happens to be there and by natural circumstances made by other people/bodies, especially those who are the ones wanting to kill them, and without their own consent to be there or a conscious choice made, who is the most innocent out of anyone innocent ever. Anyone for bodily autonomy should be pro-life above all else. No one is saying they should get more rights, we're just saying give them actual equal rights, which pro-choicers don't seem to understand. Someone's rights to their own body stops where another's begins, and we know that that is at conception.
Also I never liked the "kidney transplant" type of analogies. Abortion is different than refusing to give someone an organ or something like that as that hasn't already happened and when someone gives an organ, part of them is gone forever and put into someone else, whereas with the unborn, it is only using the woman's uterus and only for 9 months and she gets to keep it in her, and it is already there and happening by the time she finds out, and she will have it back to herself in months. Also, one might say that if a parent were the one to make their child's organ non-functioning, they should be obligated to give them theirs, or if someone already had an organ transplant, they shouldn't be allowed to take it back (which is actually an actual thing. You can't take it back once they are already using the organ, let alone take tools to dismember and kill them, and the unborn is already using the organ) and anyone can also refuse to take an organ, and if they don't they agree and make a conscious decision to take someone's organ, but the unborn can't refuse to use the uterus, and like I said before didn't make the choice to use it in the first place, and then there is the difference between actively killing and letting die, but even beyond all of that, I'm sure even the most pro-choice people still think very poorly of those who just flat out refuse to give someone an organ if they really need it.
The thing about pro-choicers is that they don't really understand bodily autonomy. They think it's absolute (they seem to forget the "as long as you don't hurt another body" part of it, and there are many situations in which it is not absolute, such as helmet or other safety laws, drugs being illegal, or illegal in certain circumstances such as for those under a certain age, being taken away on a 5150 and forced in a mental hospital and watched to make sure you don't kill yourself, someone can't neglect their child and refuse to feed it because they don't want to use their arms to give it food (Refusing your child nutrients and survival because you don't want your uterus to go to this is basically the same. Children also have the right to not be neglected, and depriving the child of resources it needs to live, even if it wasn't wanted or planned or is an "inconvenience", is still neglect and still wrong) or kill or hurt their child if they wrapped themselves around your leg for instance and you can't get them off without doing so, and various other circumstances (regardless of whether or not you agree with them, they exist legally)), they think right to life can never come before it (right to life comes before at least most things as it is the ultimate threat against someone (and if you're an Atheist like me, you should really believe in it, as life is ALL we have, and without life, all other rights are meaningless as we wouldn't be alive to be able to use them, and this is why they put life first in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", and it's almost like a lot of them don't even think right to life is a thing, because if bodily autonomy always exists in the context of "even if someone dies" as so many of them like to argue, then you can go around killing people an excuse it by saying "Well it was my body doing the killing so you can't do anything about it because bodily autonomy" ), when talking about abortion, they act like the only thing to bodily autonomy is whether or not you allow someone to use your organs (there's much more which I'll explain), and they think forget about the unborn's bodily autonomy because the woman's autonomy is the only thing we should really care about etc.
Now essentially bodily autonomy has a few different things to it (and no not all of them are legal.) It means you can do whatever you want to or with your body (get tattoos or piercings or body mods, take drugs, be a stripper or prostitute, have sex whatever way you want it however much you want it with whomever you want (unless they are underage or someone else non-consenting) refuse to shave or wear makeup etc.), no one can do anything to your body without consent or invade the personal space of your body (think of rape, molestation, inflicting pain or injury, even just touching someone without them wanting you to etc.), and yeah having control over your organs is part of it, but the main thing is that no one can hurt or kill your body without consent (this is actually sort of related to right to life as someone being killed means their body was killed and hurt to the utmost extreme, so they aren't even mutually exclusive in the first place). You get to be in charge of your body, and no one else can ever hurt it (unless you're into that sort of thing and it's completely consensual ).
Of course according to science, the unborn is another individual living human being and different body than the mother. The unborn's bodily autonomy is the one being threatened here as the act in question is abortion and the unborn is the one being aborted, not the woman. Abortion is forcing death (and various things with the various types, such as dismemberment which is also obviously a great threat to bodily autonomy) on it without it consenting and having a choice in the matter. That is the biggest threat to bodily autonomy.
Now trust me, I get that the woman has autonomy too and she might not want to be pregnant and share her body with the unborn. Talking about the unborn's right to bodily autonomy and right to life DOES NOT mean we think little of the woman's right to bodily autonomy (remember I'm a super liberal and radical feminist, super pro-bodily rights type, so don't use that stupid "they all just hate women and want to take away their bodily autonomy" misconception on me). I am female, I live with thinking about what it is like to be pregnant all the time, BUT abortion is still a greater threat to bodily autonomy. Someone hurting or killing someone else's body is obviously a greater threat than someone using someone else's organ to stay alive. Also the unborn has two violations pushed on them (right to life and bodily autonomy) vs. the woman's one.
Abortion being the greater threat to bodily autonomy is true even more so for various reasons. It is completely innocent in the matter, it could not have consented or chosen to be there, and it is already there before a woman can find out she is pregnant or an abortion can take place. It did not "take over the woman's uterus without consent" as it could never have consented to that, and comparisons like that imply intent, but it never could have made a conscious decision to do something like that or even be aware of what it was doing. Just like newborns and toddlers can't be held responsible for certain actions because they couldn't have consented to it or realized what they were doing (from needing to be fed down to more serious things like accidentally hurting someone) the unborn is purely innocent. It can't consent to being killed either, just like infants outside of the womb couldn't consent to being killed so since it's not legal to do that, it doesn't make sense to allow someone to do it to the unborn (other examples of how bodily autonomy still applies to those who aren't aware to be able to consent either way is how women who have passed out can't consent to having sex, so doing that to her is rape, or sleepwalkers can't consent to sleepwalking, yet they also can't consent to being killed). Usually people know that things like circumcision or piercing a baby's ears are against it's bodily autonomy, yet some of them do a 180 when it comes to abortion. Those aborting specifically decide to do so and DID consent and make a conscious decision. The abortion is a direct an conscious action on someone. The unborn being there was there by the actions of the woman and man, or in case of rape man and woman's body. It happens to be using her uterus because that is how science works and the only home it has. Once again, it didn't "force itself into her and take her uterus hostage." Other analogies I've heard are ones like you can't drag an unconscious person into your home and then shoot them because you want them to leave *or something like that*, and extensions of that.
Want of womb empty is definitely not an adequate excuse to literally, purposefully, consciously, and actively kill someone who already happens to be there and by natural circumstances made by other people/bodies, especially those who are the ones wanting to kill them, and without their own consent to be there or a conscious choice made, who is the most innocent out of anyone innocent ever. Anyone for bodily autonomy should be pro-life above all else. No one is saying they should get more rights, we're just saying give them actual equal rights, which pro-choicers don't seem to understand. Someone's rights to their own body stops where another's begins, and we know that that is at conception.
Also I never liked the "kidney transplant" type of analogies. Abortion is different than refusing to give someone an organ or something like that as that hasn't already happened and when someone gives an organ, part of them is gone forever and put into someone else, whereas with the unborn, it is only using the woman's uterus and only for 9 months and she gets to keep it in her, and it is already there and happening by the time she finds out, and she will have it back to herself in months. Also, one might say that if a parent were the one to make their child's organ non-functioning, they should be obligated to give them theirs, or if someone already had an organ transplant, they shouldn't be allowed to take it back (which is actually an actual thing. You can't take it back once they are already using the organ, let alone take tools to dismember and kill them, and the unborn is already using the organ) and anyone can also refuse to take an organ, and if they don't they agree and make a conscious decision to take someone's organ, but the unborn can't refuse to use the uterus, and like I said before didn't make the choice to use it in the first place, and then there is the difference between actively killing and letting die, but even beyond all of that, I'm sure even the most pro-choice people still think very poorly of those who just flat out refuse to give someone an organ if they really need it.
"The thing about pro-choicers is that they don't really understand bodily autonomy. They think it's absolute (they seem to forget the "as long as you don't hurt another body" part of it."
ReplyDeleteThe next time someone mentions "bodily autonomy", I will have to link them to this post. You are right in that they are completely forgetting about the body of the baby.
Just a heads up: this blog post was referenced in comments at SPL
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.secularprolife.org/2020/08/shouting-about-heartbeats.html