Foetus' right to life vs women's bodily autonomy

[AmberTheCat]

I've just been reading a paper written by a friend of a friend, arguing that a foetus should be seen as having the same right to life as a postpartum human, because there are no lines that can be drawn between a foetus and someone post-birth that couldn't also be drawn between two postpartum humans. He added a note to say that clearly there is a question of how this right to life relates to women's autonomy, but that this wasn't something he was addressing in this paper.

Given that this is surely THE question, can you help me refine my arguments for the primacy of bodily autonomy? My instinctive view is that I can't see any way of denying that a foetus is a human being, or at least has the potential to become a human being, depending on how developed it is, but that the decision of whether or not to allow that (potential) human to grow inside her must still always remain the woman's. I'm quite out of touch with the thinking around this, though, so would welcome pointers.

Thanks!

What a fantastic post Solid.

also I agree with SGB's fantastic post and anyone who would place limits on abortion but make an exception for rape is giving themselves away - that their true motivation is to punish and control women.

Thank you SGB, you articulated what I have been trying to say all along.

I must stop being sidetracked by people who have no place in the debate!

As others have Said before "as early as possible, as late as necessary".

I agree with abortion up to term as I believe women know what's the right choice for them. I also think the current law is wrong in that it allows disabled babies to be aborted past 24 wks but not healthy ones which is disabilist imo.

It's ironic that certain posters are claiming others are being disabilist yet they think the current law re abortion when the foetus has a disability is ok..

By allowing abortions in certain circumstances but not others you are making a value judgement. I believe the person beat able to make any decision is the woman who is pregnant, it her decision and her decision alone to make.

You cannot start giving a foetus rights or you lead down a very slippery path as we are already seeing in America and we see the effects of it in Labour and delivery practise where women are subjected to procedures they didn't consent to or they are coerced into unnecessary procedures in the name of it 'being best for baby's. Drs already 'play the dead baby card'to threaten women, can you imagine if the foetus had rights...

Fuzurelli gets even more to the heart of it - it's not about when, or why, but about who gets to decide. The answer is and should always be the individual woman who is pregnant and wants to end that pregnancy.

"I believe most on this thread are parents. It would have been fascinating being a fly on the wall as you discussed your 'foetuses'. I assume they were referred to as 'it' up until the moment of birth. I assume midwives were corrected if they spoke of listening to 'baby's' heart with a stern reprimand that it was not a human being but merely a parasite to which you were granting the right to life. And I am sure none of you used the term 'unborn baby'....ever."

When I was pregnant, and waiting to have my abortion I called 'it' a baby. When I was 'pregnant' and waiting to take the pills to miscarry the baby who's heart had stopped I called 'it' a baby, when I was pregnant with a baby through IVF I called it a baby but still had tests to see if 'it' had chromosomal abnormalities and would have aborted had it been the case.

Why is it difficult for you to understand that I would call the foetus a baby or 'it' in all of those situations? I can't speak for all women but I know that I felt differently about all of those situations as I went through them. Until you are able to get pregnant by accident, not want to be pregnant, desperately wish you were pregnant... Well, until then you really have no idea and no choice to make or be given.

I think where your argument heads Romeyroo is vary scary indeed. I think that sort of thinking leads to forced ceareans, forced AROM(ARM), forced forceps, epitomizes, forced epidurals, forced hospital deliveries, forced scans, forced SVCs, forced GTTs, you name it what ever potential intervention that is possible during pregnancy and birth suddenly becomes enforceable because a women once consented to PIV.

If the pregnant woman considers it a baby, it's a baby to her and should be treated as one by any medical professionals she has to deal with. Because it's up to her what happens - at least, insofar as there are choices available.

Forced abortion and a refusal on grounds of economy/the woman's circumstances/ethnicity/economic standing/general behaviour to perform medical procedures which would save the foetus when the woman wants it to be saved are as unethical as forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy or to submit to dangerous, invasive medical procedures which risk her health/life/wellbeing on the grounds of saving the foetus.

The decisive factor should always be the wishes of the woman in question. No other way of looking at it is ethically or logically justifiable. Well, not unless you consider women a resource, a facility, a breeding mechanism rather than autonymous human beings.

So just come across this case today which is everything I fear when we stop saying a women's right to bodily autonomy is primary to the fetus.
Baby delivered as woman refused abortion under law

There is a thread on that case.

Awful as I said, on there it's barbaric and it's not about the baby or the foetus if it was they wouldn't have delivered the baby at 25 wks. So not only did they condemns the woman to suffer (she was kept in hospital and at one point force fed as she went on hunger strike) as well as the mental anguish she was suffering but by delivering the baby at 25 wks they have effectively condemned it as well. The chances of the baby not having life long consequences from being that premature are very slim.

In a way, I'm pro life, I guess. I am against the death penalty and war and to be perfectly frank, really, really dislike abortion. It makes me extremely sad and always has done. I especially find abortion after 24 weeks abhorrent. I don't hate women, and I would gladly adopt a child who was unwanted by its parents.

I cannot forsee any situation in which I would have an abortion. When I was raped as a teen, I thought I was pregnant (late period die to stress etc). Never considered abortion. When I got accidentally pregnant at a most inconvenient time in my 20s, never considered abortion. When I was pinned to the ground with nausea for seven months during my pregnancy with my second child, never considered abortion. I have never been told that I am carrying a fetus with a disability, but I plan to adopt a child with one, so I wouldn't consider abortion in that case either.

For me, it is hard to see the difference between a fetus who is 8 months old and an infant delivered prematurely at 8 months...just, one you are allowed to kill and one you aren't. One is wanted and one isn't. It worries me that the idea of person hood in this case is defined by whether or not someone is wanted or not. There are thousands and thousands of children in my country right now who are in care, whose parents do not want them, but they are people with rights all the same. There are all sorts of people who are not wanted by anyone. People do not exist because someone wants them, because they can be useful in some way to others.

I have had many people tell me that I can't be a feminist and have pro-life leanings, but to me it is a feminist issue. How many women would not have the abortion if they felt the father would step up? I personally know a few who didn't want the abortion but didn't feel they could raise the child alone, and knew the father would offer no practical or financial assistance. I also know women who were bullied into their abortions by men. And I know women who have had one because if they didn't they wouldn't be able to continue school, or their career...why is there nothing in place to help them?

So, all of that. But.

I read a sentence some time ago that said "No woman wants an abortion like she wants a vacation or a new car. A woman wants an abortion like an animal wants to chew its leg off to get out of a trap."

And I believe that. I truly do. I don't want women to get abortions, but not allowing it under law isn't going to work. It never has, and there is no compassion in it. What I would rather spend my time doing is looking at the reasons why. Do we need better sex ed? Easier access to contraceptives? Stricter laws against deadbeat dads? Programs to help women raise children and go to school? Better help for women living in domestic violence? Education for men on what women actually go through during pregnancy? Free sterilization for people who truly do not want children, and no turning them away because they're young and "might change their minds"? Better schools and opportunities in general for girls everywhere? Better social programs?

Because I'll tell you, I'll help with any of that, any way I can. I'd die before picketing an abortion center and I'd die before aligning myself with the pro lifers in my country, who are oh-so-concerned that women carry to term, but at the same time are trying to slash programs left and right that might help those women after the children are born.

So, anyway. It's 2a.m. here and I'm typing on a rather temperamental phone, so you'll have to excuse this rambling, typo strewn mess. I know my views aren't popular.

So yank - in summary you have never been in the position of having an unwanted pregnancy then? To not have considered abortion during any inconvenient pregnancies means that you always wanted the baby I guess.

Cheerfulyank all that is fine when it comes to making decisions about your own body. It's when you want to start dictating what another woman does with her pregnancy that it is problematic and the only viewpoint that is important is hers.

You can't compare the rights of born children with those of a foetus.

Of course access to abortion should go alongside education, contraception, support etc, no disagreement there

I don't know, Pomme. After the rape I certainly didn't want to have a baby. When I was unexpectedly pregnant in my 20s I remember walking to get the pregnancy test and whispering "please no, please no" all through the aisles of the store.

But on both those cases I wanted an abortion less than I wanted a baby, I guess.

CheerfulYank pro life movement is not and never has been about whether you would choose or even consider abortion it is about removing that choice altogether. Your post comes across as you not wanting that choice removed so although it would not be your choice, you believe in the choice being available. I used to think of myself as pro life and then I grew up and realised my choice should never ever be forced upon another person. Because that sort of trumping makes a person subhuman. Give a foetus rights and you will get someone championing those rights reducing the mother from subhuman to host status. We have that situation in my country.

Petula I understand that. I just mean that the termination of a fetus that could survive on its own horrifies me, as does the idea that a person is a person because someone wants it.

Yes, Rex.

I don't really classify myself as fully pro life. Do I wish no one had abortions? Yes. Do I think that is possible or compassionate in the world we live in? No.

Also your name is making me smile, BTW, which is nice because it's really late (or early rather) and I've had a shitty day. But now I'm humming "say no more, mon amour" to myself. :o

Oh, and I didn't state my story to say "I wouldn't choose abortion so you shouldn't either" but rather because every time I have these discussions with anyone they assume I haven't been in the position of an unplanned pregnancy.

Ah ok. From my POV it's not that the foetus has personhood if the mother wants them, it's that I would take guidance from how the woman behaves and describes it in terms of my own actions. So if a pregnant woman is saying "my child", "my baby" etc then I would use the same language - it wouldn't be a normal response for me to insist on saying "the embryo", "the foetus" given that I'm not a HCP

Personhood is something that birth provides IMO, so comparison with a child in care is not relevant

Also the death penalty and war are very different to abortion and not comparative at all. I am against the death penalty. That does not make me pro life it makes me pro whole life incarceration.

Cheerfulyank I'm so sorry you were raped.

For your unplanned pregnancy I'm so pleased that you were able to make your own choice in terms of outcome and I hope you didn't receive negative pressure about that both before and after birth

It will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day CheerfulYank. You are going to end up watching it because it is such a superb piece of cinematic genius.

No, I know. (The comparison between children in care and a fetus, I mean.) But there are people (and not just random people, actual published philosophers) who argue that a baby should be able to be legally killed until a certain time period, if its parents don't want it, because the baby doesn't really understand life or what dying would mean. But I know plenty of disabled people who also don't understand this. So to me, putting the decision of whether or not someone "counts" or should be allowed to live on the feelings of another person feels like a slippery slope.

It may be disingenuous to say "philosophers" as I can only think of one by name off the top of my head actually. :o

Rex I wasn't trying to make that comparison exactly. I only meant that, again, this is another reason I can't throw myself in with pro-lifers because most of them I know are pro death penalty, anti healthcare and welfare, etc etc. So I'm not sure why they call themselves that.

Thanks Petula. :) It's...not okay, obviously, but okay as it will ever be. In the years since I've worked with a lot of teenage boys in various jobs, and heard a lot of jokes about drunk girls asking for it, etc. It's been really healing for me to be able to use my experience to stop them and explain what happened to me and how it changed my life. Why it is not funny. So in that way I've gotten a lot of peace.

Rex I used to have Empire Records recorded on VHS with the prom episode of Friends right after. Best. Tape. EVER.

As far as my unplanned pregnancy, it was easier than most because I'd been married to the father of the baby for a grand total of about...oh, about sixteen days when I took the test. So I didn't mean to compare it to an unexpected pregnancy with no support. Still, though, we were skint and it was not in the plan for at least three years, and it changed pretty much every single thing about our lives and plans for the future. So I do appreciate the upheaval it brings.

I want that vhs .

I think pro life is the wrong name for them, perhaps morality police or the unenlightened.