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!

[larrygrylls]

Capt,

Your last post is a false dichotomy. No one is attempting to place a foetus's right to life over the mother's. the comparison is a foetus's right to life versus the mother's right of having her body ex foetus for 16 weeks. That is clearly different.

As I said above, no one enjoys bodily autonomy with regard to requesting medical operations. That is not what bodily autonomy means. Bodily autonomy is the right to be physically unmolested. You are twisting the definition in pursuit of an extreme minority view.

[CoteDAzur]

"You cannot place a not born person's rights above those of a born person."

There is no such thing as a "not born person".

[hoobypickypicky]

" 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."

HE shouldn't have any say in it. He needs to realise that the thinking, feeling, breathing, living woman's choice and rights comes first, the unborn, unthinking foetus' rights come second and that he doesn't have any.

[Booboostoo]

Well cote I do! And that is that as a professional philosopher who has read and taught the literature on personhood About a million times, I can give you a more nuanced summary of the arguments than a dictionary that has very limited space which leads to oversimplifications.

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

I am talking about my right to abortion.

No-one should be able to force me (or any other woman) to go through with a pregnancy. My right to autonomy is more important than any potential life.

[hoobypickypicky]

Indeed, Pourquoi.

[CaptChaos]

Larry, please, less of the strawmen there. We're not talking about whatever it is you believe you're talking about. We're talking about whether a researcher can dismiss the right of a woman to bodily autonomy.

He is a man, he has no say. Tough.

[PetulaGordino]

larry of course bodily autonomy includes reproductive rights, what are you talking about? you're looking at it entirely from the wrong way round

in terms of abortion, it's got nothing to do with the right to let medical professionals terminate the pregnancy - it's about the right for the woman to say "i no longer give permission for this foetus to remain inside my body"

[CaptChaos]

and what Pourquoi said

[PetulaGordino]

and yes, to get back to the topic in question, as captchaos says, no one can dismiss the right of a woman to bodily autonomy when discussing abortion

[freyaW2014]

I don't think it's about 'rights'. When a woman becomes pregnant the developing fetus is a life in itself being supported by the mother.
A woman can abort this life if she chooses as the abortion is legal up to 24 weeks (I think) however, just because something is legal it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. That is down to individual conscience and opinion.
As the unborn fetus has absolutely no say or idea what is going on then the only person who can give it any rights is the mother.
I personally am against abortion under pretty much any circumstances but that doesn't mean I wouldn't empathise with a mother who chose this after giving it her own consideration.
In the end laws do what they will, people make decisions and abortion is seen differently by many people but rights are something we have decided to give or not give and are meaningless to a fetus.

[CoteDAzur]

"Well cote I do!"

You do what?

There is no such thing as a "not born person" and that is fact. It is an embryo and then a fetus until birth. Upon birth it is a baby and a person. Right to life and other human rights apply to people, not fetuses.

None of this is terribly ambiguous. I'm not sure how you think "But but I'm a professional philosopher" is supposed to change these fundamental concepts.

[CaptChaos]

I'm not sure how you think "But but I'm a professional philosopher" is supposed to change these fundamental concepts.

I think we're all supposed to bow to that poster's superior wonderfulness, because she is an actual jobbing philosopher and knows her shit.

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

rights are something we have decided to give or not give

No rights are something we are entitled to.

We are all entitled to autonomy and it would surely be an oxymoron to say that we have decided to give someone autonomy over their own body?

This right to autonomy of the woman must take precedence over any rights the foetus may have (which I happen to believe are none, until it is born) because to have it any other way would infringe her right to autonomy over her own body.

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Sorry that should say "No, rights are something we are entitled to."

The comma is quite essential to what I was trying to say!

[larrygrylls]

Why are rights meaningless to a foetus? Do you mean a foetus cannot understand its rights? What about adults with limited mental capacity? Are rights meaningless to them?

Cote, you cannot define the terms of the debate. You cannot say there is no such thing as an unborn person. There is no magic that occurs at the moment the umbilical cord is cut. A foetus has no specific rights under UK law (although it does in several other countries). In the UK, though, it is widely agreed that the closer a foetus comes to being born, the greater moral obligations are owed to it.

The concept of 'bodily autonomy' is completely distorted when applied to this debate. It is as ugly as the expressions those on both sides of the debate use: 'pro life' and 'pro choice'. The issue is a woman's 'right to abortion' versus a foetus's right to life (or a chance of life, as clearly many foetuses do not survive). I cannot claim bodily autonomy for my right to plastic surgery, no matter how badly I want it. Even in the case of operations (under the wonderful NHS) I may be required to suffer many weeks or months of discomfort before I get an operation. Is my 'bodily autonomy' being denied me because of this?

Even if we lived in a matriarchy, with 100% of MPs being women, I very much doubt that we would allow abortion by choice up until birth. It is not something women want any more than men.

[freyaW2014]

Rights are made up by laws and people. Of course you have rights but only because you live in a country where you are given them. There are people dying in war zones right now who don't have any real rights not in reality anyway.

The fetus has no rights as it stands but you can give them the right to life but choosing to continue the pregnancy. I just think it sounds so hard when women say 'my body, my right' as if the life inside them means nothing until they're born.

Some will argue a fetus can feel pain, some say they can't. Abortion practices are pretty barbaric there's no nice way to do it and whatever way you choose to look at it you are destroying a life.

[larrygrylls]

Freya,

There is no argument about whether a foetus at 8-9 months feels pain. They do.

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Yes freya, I can give a foetus the right to life inside my own body. No one else should be allowed I to make that decision for me.

[PetulaGordino]

why are you aligning a woman's right to say that she doesn't want to continue to support a foetus inside her body with you deciding you want plastic surgery?

[PetulaGordino]

" I just think it sounds so hard when women say 'my body, my right' as if the life inside them means nothing until they're born."

what do you mean by "hard"?

[CoteDAzur]

Larry - I'm not defining terms of the debate. No need to, since those terms already have definitions.

There is no mystery around the words fetus and baby, nor is there any doubt that the fetus is not a person while the baby is.

You can tell the difference from the way it is legal to abort a fetus but a serious crime to kill a baby.

After 24 weeks, a fetus doesn't become a person living inside another person. It becomes (possibly) viable, so given a chance to live on its own if the woman is unable to continue the pregnancy.

Once it becomes a person outside the woman in question, that is.

[larrygrylls]

'why are you aligning a woman's right to say that she doesn't want to continue to support a foetus inside her body with you deciding you want plastic surgery?'

It is all to do with the concept of 'bodily autonomy' and what it actually means. It does not mean having someone else carry out a medical procedure on you at your request. It means being allowed to live physically unmolested.

Talk about 'right to abortion' instead of 'bodily autonomy'.

[larrygrylls]

'You can tell the difference from the way it is legal to abort a fetus but a serious crime to kill a baby.'

It is not legal to abort a foetus after 24 weeks without specific reason to do so, either with respect to the mother or the foetus.

[Booboostoo]

cote I do know something the oxford dictionary does not.

A 'person' in this context is a philosophical term, developed in a variety of ways by a number of writers I am familiar with. It is not in any way a fundamental concept, it is a deeply disputed one as I explained above. Appealing to a disputed, unclear and possibly even unhelpful concept to make an argument just means that the argument is very poor.

I never mentioned the term 'not born person' - I don't have any view on it. It really depends on who or what qualifies as a person, otherwise you cannot say whether a pre-birth human foetus is a person.

Again a foetus is a biological definition which refers to a particular developmental period in mammals - in itself it tells you nothing about personhood.