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!

Every moment prior to birth, the foetus exists entirely due to the goodwill of the mother. And yes, that means it may be dealt with as the mother sees fit.

Hollie,

A newborn baby exists only due to the goodwill of its parents, too. It cannot feed or drink independently. It cannot co-ordinate its movements. Breathing is only one aspect of independent existence. I assume you would not argue for infanticide on this basis.

larry bodily autonomy is the idea that we have a right to determine what happens to our own bodies. It is a concept mainly used in medical ethics, for example to justify refusals of treatment by competent adults. It is in some cases related to consent, for example the difference between a surgeon cutting your belly open with a scalpel and someone assaulting you with a knife is that the former involves consent to what is being done to your body whereas the latter violates your bodily integrity/autonomy (as well as causing you other kinds of harms). The argument is that bodily autonomy trumps other considerations and you cannot do things to people's bodies even if you think it's in their own best interests. It has been a very influential concept in US and UK medical ethics and law, although other legal systems to do uphold it, e.g. InFrance medical treatment can be forced on competent adults for their own good.

Bodily autonomy does not demand of anyone to have an abortion or to carry out an abortion. Bodily autonomy can be used as an argument for a woman's right to have a foetus removed fro her body - the fact that currently this involves the death of foetus is a side effect and has nothing to do with the extend of the right to bodily autonomy. A doctor who believes in the patient's right to self determination may carry out an abortion even if they disagree with it themselves but they are not obliged to. Health care professionals have a right to conscientious objection.

As soon as we can transfer a fetus from the uterus of one woman into an alternative place it can be kept alive then you will have a point about newborns. Society as a whole has a responsibility to care for people who cannot care for themselves, it is a transferable and shared task not requiring the 24/7 use of the biological systems of one person.

thank you booboo - you have explained what i was trying to, and clearly failing

A newborn baby is outside of anyone else's body. A newborn baby is BORN.

If you're that set on having a debate about late term abortion, larry, or about bodily autonomy for that matter, why not start a thread on it?

I presume those who've been talking about BA mean it in the sense that if you were to cut a vein and start drinking my blood because you were short of iron, I'd be entitled to refuse that to you because my body belongs to me - even if you would die as a result. Likewise if I want to cut off my own hand with an axe, while it may be unwise, it's probably not illegal or "wrong" to do so, it is part of me. I think that covers it whether you think the foetus is "part of the mother" or "another being living off the nutrition of the mother."

Boobostoo, what about the removal of a fetus at 30 weeks without killing it but putting it in an incubator?

I love this Feminism board and have learned so much and become (quietly) radicalised.

However there are a couple of things I can not agree with (I do understand the arguments) and one of them is the termination of a fetus after 24 weeks. ( the other is prostitution and trans women)

Surely also part of the evidence that the foetus is not yet a person, is that if you kill the mother, the foetus will also perish unless it can be quickly removed from her body and survive on its own at that point - at which point it is born and becomes a person?

Either way, a woman's bodily autonomy should be inviolable. Until we can come up with a way of foetuses gestating in a box, then, in order to maintain women's rights to their own bodies, then the foetus will cease to exist. Maybe forced birthers should, instead of haranguing women, put their money where their mouths are and solve the actual problem.

Chaos

Both of my children were gestated in a box for the first few weeks of their lives... it was called an incubator .

blackcats, ok, not quite the same thing though, but fair point. The foetus gestating in a box thing was actually a quote from a Python film....

What I'm saying is that, instead of whining about women not conforming to what they want, forced birthers need to maybe start looking at ways around this, and also ways to fund the lives they 'save'. I'm not even talking about lta's here, as far as I'm concerned the ones who stand outside abortion clinics with placards are just as bad.

Has anyone cited McFall v Shimp yet?

Interesting vicmackie. But they were men, and therefore real actual people instead of pretend ones like women are.

It is interesting that the judge felt that it was morally indefensible, and yet still ruled in favour of Shimp's bodily autonomy, even in the knowledge of McFall's inevitable death.

Larry has a point in that birth is a biologically significant event but it's not clear that it is a significant moral event (which is what is required to change the status from non-person to person).

Consider this:
an alien spaceship arrives on earth. They are friendly there is no need to worry about our safety. How do we treat them?

• do we offer them medical treatment, voting rights, the protection of the law?
• do we use them for medical experiments and use take their organs for transplants?
• do we eat them and hunt them for fun?
• do we keep them as pets, look after their welfare but make decisions on their behalf?

What quality or characteristic do they have to exhibit to make our minds up on how we will treat them?

This is, whatever anyone says, by definition, a very extremist position. Very few women believe in abortion at will to term. I also struggle to believe that most on this thread would want to attend (or perform) a late term abortion.

Also, no one has absolute bodily autonomy. If a mountain climber is holding a rope on which a feow climber is hanging, he cannot cut the rope on the basis of 'bodily autonomy' unless his own life is at risk.

blackcats73 a woman could refuse the procedure to remove a viable foetus on the grounds of bodily integrity but she could not insist that the foetus was killed. She would have the choice to carry on with the pregnancy or consent to the procedure that removed the foetus from her body alive. I think!

Yeah that's what I dislike most about judges: a lot of them seem to be incredibly judgmental (I'm only half kidding).

But yes: the right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life - them's the breaks, as things stand.

If people want to change that law, that's absolutely fine with me on condition that they embrace the logical conclusion, which is forced harvesting of tissues and "spare" organs/organ parts from unwilling live donors.
It's possible to take a lobe of someone's liver, a lobe of each lung, a kidney, loads of blood, some bone marrow, and no doubt a number of other things, from live donors without killing them.

In my opinion, if we're going to declare that one person's right to life trumps another person's right to bodily autonomy, and use that to force women to donate their bodily resources to zygotes/embryos/foetuses, then in the name of fairness and equality every living person must be subject to the same treatment.

larry the mountain climber and rope example (a real one by the way) has nothing to do with bodily autonomy but with self-defense against a non-culpable aggressor. There are a couple of interesting cases. In general self-defense is partly justified by the attacker's aggression but this becomes more complicated in cases where the person posing a threat to my life does so non-culpably like the mountain climber hanging off my rope (he did not intend to put my life at risk nor is he at fault for doing so).

A couple of other cases include 3 sailors in a lifeboat who killed and ate a cabin boy and claimed self-defense. Their claim to self-defense is not implausible apart from the fact that they picked on the cabin boy rather than leaving to luck as to which one of the four should be sacrificed to save the others.

The self-defense argument (or defense of an innocent third party to be more accurate) was used in the case of coinjoined twins Mary and Jody where one twin's continued existence threatened the life of the other one.

Larry - A newborn baby exists only due to the goodwill of its parents, too. It cannot feed or drink independently. - this doesn't have to be the mother - this could be the father, or any other adult. In many cases, babies are not cared for by their biological mother, there's a whole industry of 'maternity nurses' that for some who are rich enough to afford them, they will do the entire care of a newborn for parents if the parents want - I personally know 3 people who were adopted and removed from their biological parents within hours of their birth.

However, a foetus doesn't have other options, it's the mother or noone. If the umbilical cord fails, the foetus dies. If the mother of a newborn baby can't/won't feed the child, other people can.

There is a huge difference between a right not to have one's body interfered with and a right to demand a medical procedure. One is bodily autonomy, the other is completely

I am fairly sure I have read this paper, or something similar. It is making an ethical argument, but I would need to re-read it to remember the details.

FWIW, I think the difference between a fetus in my womb and a newborn is that only my body can sustain the fetus (or conversely, my body may not be able to triggering a miscarriage, or the fetus may not be viable, ditto). A broader range of people can sustain a newborn. I think the ethical issue is that neither are capable of sustaining themselves without help.

The ethical issue would be why I can make a decision not to sustain a fetus, but not sustaining a newborn would be murder. Both are living. I get the arguments about bodily autonomy and am fully aware of the debates historically and currently on abortion, so it is not my purpose to enter that debate here. But reconciling oneself to abortion if the life or wellbeing of the mother is not endangered does require an ethical sleight of hand.

There is a huge difference between a right not to have one's body interfered with and a right to demand a medical procedure

You do understand that pregnancy is not a benign, featureless process - you do understand that, right?
Pregnancy constitutes a FUCKING MASSIVE LEVEL of "interference with one's body." There is no system in the body that is NOT interfered with by pregnancy.

" I also struggle to believe that most on this thread would want to attend (or perform) a late term abortion."

You are right but some women do attend very late abortions, the very small percentage of women who have to make that decision and the very small percentage of women who work within that part of the medical profession. Most of the very few late term abortions are for serious medical reasons. no one should be really worried about women choosing willy hilly to have late abortions as the vast majority take place before 13 weeks.

I am one of Those people who support abortion up to term.