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“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.
Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.
See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.
Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy.
To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.
You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.
reblogging for commentary
But, assuming the mother wasn’t raped, the choice to HAVE a baby and risk sacrificing their “bodily autonomy” is a choice that the mother made. YOu don’t have to have sex with someone. Cases of rape aside, it isn’t ethical to say abortion is justified. The unborn baby has rights, too.
First point: Bodily autonomy can be preserved, even if another life is dependent on it. See again the example about the blood donation.
And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.
Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.
If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other.
When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.
When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.”
And that is gross.
^ THIS. This is this this THIS THIS THIS. THIS!!!!!
That’s exactly why I don’t use the “consented to pregnancy” argument.
No one can force someone to give blood. However, there’s a few fundamental differences by refraining from giving blood and having an abortion.
1. Passive vs. Active. When you refuse to give blood, you are choosing not to act. Your failure to act may result in another person’s death. However, you are not actively and intentionally taking their life. With an abortion, you take an active step to end another person’s life.
2. Giving something up. In the blood donation case, you are giving up blood. Blood is necessary to survive, and some of it would be taken from your body. While you will generate more to replace it, you’ll never have that blood back. In the case of pregnancy, your uterus is not taken from you. You don’t lose the use of it. You don’t lose anything except your “bodily autonomy,” which in this case becomes little more than the “ability to do whatever I want even if it hurts or kills someone else.”
The child conceived in love is a human being with value. The child conceived in a one-night stand is a human being with value. And the child conceived in rape is a human being with value. Our value is not dependent on the choices of our parents.
There are only two cases where it is potentially justifiable to kill another human being: defense (self-defense or the defense of someone who cannot defend themselves) and the death penalty. Obviously the death penalty does not apply with abortion, because the unborn human has committed no crime and, even if he or she had, could not stand trial.
Self-defense seems to be the justification that those promoting the “bodily autonomy” argument are using.
If you’re being attacked or abducted, you have every right to use force to defend yourself and escape in the moment. You are expected to use force proportionate to the situation (shooting someone in the face for slapping your butt may not be the most defensible course of action). Once you are no longer in direct danger, you can no longer use force.
This doesn’t work with abortion. The unborn human being does not directly threaten your life* and he or she does not limit your freedom of movement (abduction). You are free to walk anywhere you like. Most pregnant women are able to work up until the baby is due. There is no direct threat requiring you to use force to escape.
* When the mother’s health or life is in danger, she should be treated for the illness/complication. An abortion will not directly solve her problem, and may add more issues to her health. An ethical doctor should attempt to preserve both lives. That means attempting to treat the underlying cause of the complication without harming the baby. If this is not possible, the doctor should save at least one life. Usually the mother is the easiest one to save in these cases.
Either way, the doctor’s goal should always be to save as many lives as possible, and never to intentionally end a life that could have been saved.
A human life is a human life.
^^^Bless this response. :3
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