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!

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Are we talking about philosophy or the law? (and if it's the law then the laws of which country?)

Because what the law says doesn't mean anything in terms of philosophy.

[CaptChaos]

The right to not have another person living inside you cannot be conflated with wanting your cock made bigger. Honestly, straws, grasping at them and making men from them. Bodily autonomy has fuck all to do with wanting the NHS to deal with your feelz, anyway, you pay to go private because you hate the NHS and it's nurses.

It is completely legal to abort a foetus after 24 weeks, with certain provisos. A 24 week gestation foetus doesn't suddenly gain rights, the vessel it is living off loses them. It does not become a person until birth. Which is why infanticide is illegal and abortion isn't.

[freyaW2014]

larry I know an 8-9 month fetus can feel pain, I meant a younger fetus. I can't imagine any good reason why anyone would want to change the law to anymore than 24 weeks for abortions, To me 24 weeks is far too late anyway.

[larrygrylls]

Capt,

You seem somewhat confused. You talk about the 'right to have another person living inside you' and then claim it is not a person until it is born. Which is it?

[CoteDAzur]

There are very very few women who actually want to abort a fetus after 24 weeks, so you're insistence on turning every reply into a question of late-term abortion is nothing but heartstring tugging, esp. re "8-9 month fetus feels pain" etc.

With that in mind:

"It is not legal to abort a foetus after 24 weeks without specific reason to do so"

I think you will find that in rare cases where the woman decides to end the pregnancy, a convincing case can be made (woman's mental health in danger, etc). Birth his then arranged and baby gets a chance to make it outside the womb.

Think of it this way: If a fetus were considered a person after 24 weeks, there would be no valid reas

[hollie84]

There's only one distinction that matters, and that is born and unborn.

Ridiculous to say that there are no lines you can draw between a foetus and a born person that you can't between two born people - there's a big massive woman shaped line.

[larrygrylls]

Cote,

This debate is about late abortion. There is no argument about early abortion, not in the uk anyway.

[CoteDAzur]

... there would be no valid reason to murder that person. You can't go around murdering people with Down Syndrome, for example.

[PetulaGordino]

it's completely arsewise

bodily integrity/autonomy

it's not about a woman saying "i want an abortion" - that's the follow-up, and she gives permission for the procedure to be performed

it's about a woman saying "i no longer want to support this foetus inside my body"

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

I don't see where anyone specified this debate was about late abortion (aside from you that is).

[PetulaGordino]

the op says nothing about "late" abortion

[CoteDAzur]

"A 'person' in this context is a philosophical term"

No. It is a legal term.

You can tell that by the mention of the term right to life.

[CoteDAzur]

I don't see anything about a late-term abortion in OP or anywhere else, either.

[unweavedrainbow]

No, it is a philosophical term as is the "philosophy of rights". The law is based on such philosophical discussion. The philosophy of personhood is very large and wide ranging and laws on abortion/bioethics will often refer to it.

[unweavedrainbow]

If rights derive their authority from the law or the government, does that mean they can take them away?

[Booboostoo]

cote if the question is a legal one then the answer is a very quick one, inEnglish law foetuses are not legal persons. There is not much room for debate about a matter of fact about the law.

The debate about personhood in abortion, animal roghts, the rights of disabled and ill people, is a debate over the philosophical concept. On the whole enquiries underpinning the development of the law in these areas, like the Warnock report, have avoided the use of the term 'person' because of it's contested status.

You can't tell anything about the use of the term 'rights' as such because of course there are moral rights, legal rights, human rights, natural rights, contractual rights, etc. Again an area of lively debate much of which concentrates on the source of rights.

[CoteDAzur]

OP is not talking about "philosophy of rights", though.

OP is talking about granting a fetus "right to life". That is a legal right, as defined in The Human Rights Act. (Not whatever philosophy textbook Boo read.)

[unweavedrainbow]

btw i think that "foetal personhood" is a little bit of a red herring here. i am arguing in my paper that you can accept foetal personhood and still be in favour of abortion to birth in certain circumstances. this is because an unwanted pregnancy is effectively rape in the sense that it disturbs your bodily integrity. having personhood does not give you the right to hurt other people and if you choose to hurt other people then the person you hurt has a right to self defence. the only self defence possible is such an unwanted pregnancy is abortion, and so abortion is still morally permissible, even without resorting to an argument against foetal personhood or female bodily autonomy.

[CoteDAzur]

"If rights derive their authority from the law or the government, does that mean they can take them away?"

Surely you know the answer to this.

What happens to your right to liberty when the state decides to jail you?

[unweavedrainbow]

Except the human rights act is a much debated over document (in fact i have been doing so this week) with some deeply ambiguous statements. you can't refer to legal documents to make philosophical statements (did you know that the human rights act grants everyone in the world "universal access to health"? tell that to the people dying of Ebola.)

[unweavedrainbow]

which is exactly why not everyone agrees that we do have a "right to liberty". Rights are ambiguous and not everyone agrees on the same ones or even that they exist at all.

[Booboostoo]

unweavedrainbow it depends what you mean by rights and how you justify their existence.

Rights are powers that impose obligations of other to act or refrain from acting that way, but what gives them this power? What is their underpinning?

Those who believe that the only rights possible are legal rights, see the power of rights as stemming from their legal status. That is they are the creations of the legal system and exist as far as the legal system recognises them. So under Nazi Germany laws Jews had no rights in the sense of legal rights but under British laws they had rights.

A more substantial conception of rights sees them as natural and not subject to specific laws. So under this conception Jews has a natural right to life which was inalienable regardless of what Nazi laws may have said. This is a intuitively plausible view, we do think that some things are so important that they should not be taken away by arbitrary legal systems but it is quite difficult to justify the basis for these rights. Human rights are a type of inalienable natural rights but some would wonder why we accord these exclusively to humans and not animals for example.

[PetulaGordino]

unweavedrainbow are you the author of the paper in the OP?

[Booboostoo]

Apologies unweavedrainbow I was responding to your earlier post and the discussion moved on - you are clearly very aware of the points above! I like your self-defence argument, very original! Wouldn't you need the mother's life to be in danger though? Self-defence has a proportionate response requirement and death (which is the outcome of abortion for the foetus) seems a disproportionate response towards someone who has non-culpably occupied one's body for nine months.

[freyaW2014]

this is because an unwanted pregnancy is effectively rape in the sense that it disturbs your bodily integrity. having personhood does not give you the right to hurt other people and if you choose to hurt other people then the person you hurt has a right to self defence. the only self defence possible is such an unwanted pregnancy is abortion, and so abortion is still morally permissible, even without resorting to an argument against foetal personhood or female bodily autonomy.

wtaf?