Bodily Autonomy - why everyone should be pro-choice

[AnnieLobeseder]

I read this on the Feminists United page today, though they shared it from this page. I couldn't tell where the original came from.

But I think it's the best and most succinct pro-choice argument I've ever read.

"There's a concept called bodily autonomy. It's generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over who or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It's why you can't be forced to donate blood, tissue or organs. Even when you're dead. Even if you'd save or improve 20 lives. It's why someone can't touch you, have sex with you or use your body in any way without your continuous consent.

A fetus is using someone's body parts. Therefore under bodily autonomy, it is there by permission, not by right. It needs a person's continuous consent. If they deny or withdraw consent, the pregnant person has a right to remove them from that moment. A fetus is equal in this regard because if I need someone else's body parts to live, they can also legally deny me their use.

By saying a fetus has a right to use someone's body parts until it's born, despite the pregnant person's wishes, you're doing two things.

1. Granting a fetus more rights to other people's bodies than any born person.
2. Awarding a pregnant person less right's [sic] to their body than a corpse."

SusuwateriToes - that's absolutely right.

SBG - we've had this conversation before, and you said you thought a women should have the right to demand the death of the foetus because otherwise doctors would try to persuade her to postpone the abortion so the foetus would stand a better chance when "born". I disagreed, and I remember you were quite rude to me. Disappointing, since I usually have a lot of respect for what you say.

I maintain that while the medical logistics are problematic, a woman reserves the right to have the foetus removed at will - nothing more, nothing less.

Look, the problem with all this whinyarse twattery about how awful and icky it is for a woman to have a late abortion just because she doesn't want the baby is that it is witless, woman-hating bullshit.

It. Doesn't. Happen. The percentage of abortions which take place after 20 weeks is tiny anyway. The vast majority of that already tiny percentage is due to medical reasons (late-detected malformations incompatible with life etc) and the non-medical reasons are either seriously traumatic (discovering that father of baby is a child abuser) or circumstances beyond the woman's control (not aware of pregnancy, desperate to terminate but forced to wait for economic reasons).

Yet there are plenty of documented cases of women dying (and their foetuses with them) because they were forbidden to have an abortion even though their lives were clearly at risk.

That's why I utterly fucking despise people who whine and wring their hands about how there needs to be some sort of legislation to prevent late abortion. These people hate women. They think women are evil, so evil that absolutely loads of them will just terminate full-term pregnancies on an idle whim unless they are controlled by men and the state. So because of this prejudice, they are happy for women to die during unviable pregnancies.

Ok, I get where you are coming from, SBG, and I made the point about infrequency of late-term abortions earlier in the thread.

But I don't accept that this means it's not ok to feel shit about late term abortions.

I had an abortion early on. Medically it was very simple. I still feel absolutely awful about it. That doesn't mean I'm not pro choice, or I'm less good at supporting women's rights that anyone else - it just means I felt really sad that I didn't get to have that baby.

IMHO there needs to be room for us to acknowledge that point of view too. People are going to be upset, and shocked, and hurt, and all of those other things, at the idea and the reality of abortion. It is wrong that we don't acknowledge that.

I don't want legislation to stop late-term abortions, but calling it 'whinyarse' to respond at all doesn't sit well with me.

But SGB, no-one on this thread has said anything about wanting to stop late-stage abortions, and and LRD said, we have already covered the fact that these make up such a small percentage of abortions as to be practically irrelevant. I think you're preaching to the choir here.

Hmm, ok. I agree with you in theory I think. But, as others have said, I'm not sure if it could ever be practically implemented. How would you decide when the cut off for abortions vs inducing birth or performing c-section?

Well, I didn't start this thread with an eye to discussing late-stage abortion so haven't entirely got my thinking lined up.

But the thing is, there is no medical difference between an induction/c-section and a late-stage abortion. So as I see it, the only difference is whether the woman is planning to keep the baby afterwards or not. Especially as I don't agree that she has any right to demand the death of the baby.

Again, I'd like to point out that this is mostly a moot argument as "impulse" late stage abortions just don't happen.

But it's interesting as an intellectual exercise.

Another thing I can see happening is people fretting about women choosing to have early inductions for convenience or to avoid the difficult late stages if pregnancy. There's enough of that on American pregnancy forums already.

Late abortions aren't nice. Boo hoo. Lots of things aren't nice: war, famine, benefit sanctions, FGM, men wearing socks with sandals.

However, given that a woman's right to choose to end her pregnancy is something that's under pretty much constant threat from people who hate women and want to see them brought under control, I just CBA to spend time reassuring people who want to go on and fucking on about the possibility that some slutty lower-class women will have lots of late abortions if they are not prevented from doing so.

What makes you think you have to?

Where I come from on this is: late abortions aren't nice. In fact all abortion has the potential to be pretty unpleasant. The attitude 'oh, it will be fine, toughen up, lots of things aren't nice' is unnecessary. It's another way of making women feel bad. Why can't we acknowledge that this is a horrible situation to be in?

Nobody, but nobody, brought up 'slutty lower-class women', btw, and while I have no data I would bet you that there's absolutely no class element in who gets late-term abortions (unless it's that some women struggle to access abortion because they're not wealthy enough/informed enough, and that's the reverse of what you're saying).

SGB, have you even read this thread? You're ranting away against an argument no one has made in the first place!