Can we agree that women are entitled to bodily autonomy?

[msrisotto]

We are allowed to impose boundaries on who we have sex with, who we get naked in front of, who we spend time with with no justification required. No one is entitled to anything from me. Women's rights are human rights.

As I have said the umbilical cord has to be cut for the baby to be classed a person in law- would it be ok to come along and kill that child because it's attached to the mothers body and isn't by law a person yet? Would the mother get to chose because it's attached to her body and not yet a person that the child should live or die?

Either you are discussing laws or morals.

Legally the foetus is not a person until it is born.
Legally you cannot have an abortion after 24 weeks except for specific reasons.

That is the law (end of).

Morally, a foetus the day before it is born is just as much of a Perrin as the day after it is born.

Laws are based on the ethics of the age. If you want to change the LAW on abortion to allow it up to birth on demand, then the LAW on when the foetus becomes a person and gains rights is also up for discussion.

I always found these absolute bodily autonomy threads a bit scary until I realised what a tiny percentage of women's opinions they represented. If you look at the percentage of women who want to extend the date of abortion on demand, it is absolutely minuscule.

And, in Canada, although the law changed, they could not find an abortionist to perform these very late abortions on demand.

No one has absolute bodily autonomy when you need the help of a third person to achieve it. Look at the assisted dying debate which, to my mind, is far less contentious as it only affects one entity.

The legal definitions are ALREADY SET. Your morals have no bearing on them.

Christ, this is painful.

I always found these absolute bodily autonomy threads a bit scary until I realised what a tiny percentage of women's opinions they represented

It's not even that - there's a principle in play that I would never exercise, and wouldn't expect any woman to exercise voluntarily, and would be surprised if any doctor would facilitate given the obviously bad mental state a woman would have to be in to ask them to abort a 40 week baby.

It's the principle that when it comes down to the bare metal, I believe a woman should have control of her own body, even to the detriment of a child she may be carrying. In practise, I trust that women would not suddenly rush out and start injecting heroin, chain-smoking, and demanding their baby is killed before the cord is cut. I believe that any woman who would do any of that needs help, not prosecution.

bad mental state a woman would have to be in to ask them to abort a 40 week baby

And worse, it means that women who are in the terrible situation of having a baby that will not survive, or is already dead, are put through more trauma, just to guard against this so unlikely as to be virtually impossible idea that women want to wait until the very last moment to abort their babies.

I don't think they represent a tiny percentage at all, but a large one. Ask any woman if they think they should decide what happens to their body, or should someone else be able to decide, and you'll find most of them are for bodily autonomy.

Laws can and do change, surely? As (moral?) opinion changes.

Lady I'm confused. Are you saying in every country in the whole world, personhood is legally defined as starting at birth?

Spaghetti in mainland Britain you can abort to term if the baby has severe disabilities or would be born dead. So in Britain that terrible situation is seperately legislated for.

Nobody's asking anybody to approve of pregnant women smoking. Sorry this has turned into a bit of an essay:

I think this is an area where it's difficult for people generally to think rationally because it brings together two areas that have a fuckton of emotional baggage attached (some of it deliberately manufactured). It's worth breaking down into:

1) rights / the law
Bodily autonomy should be an absolute fundamental human right for everyone. The only exception should be where a person lacks capacity to make their own decisions and in those cases there should be thorough oversight to ensure that every decision is made in the person's best interests. Human rights apply to everyone, whether they are sensible or foolish, kind hearted or a total git, whether they have a foetus growing inside them, are capable of having a foetus growing inside them or neither of these. Paedophiles and terrorists have human rights. Women deserve them too.

There are several states in the US, as well as some South American countries, which can serve as examples of what happens when pregnant women are criminalised for things they have done in pregnancy. I posted a link a couple of weeks ago when this subject came up, I'll see if I can find it again.

2) societal attitudes
As well as all the overt anti-choice propaganda, and the less extreme 'I'm pro-choice but ...' type attitudes, there is a strong societal belief that pregnant women need protecting and are not capable of making decisions for themselves, or that if the decisions they make for themselves might harm their foetus there is a genuine conflict of rights and it's the duty of upstanding citizens to prevent them from making the wrong choice. This is why there are loads of stories of women being denied service when they want to buy alcohol, coffee, soft cheese, common household medicines ...

There are also extremely strong societal attitudes against smoking generally, and especially smoking in pregnancy. There is no doubt that smoking is extremely dangerous, increases the risks of pregnancy, and harms the health of everyone around the smoker. There has though been a deliberate effort to manipulate attitudes to be ever more strongly anti-smoking to encourage more smokers to quit and discourage young people from starting. The 'spoilt identity' of the smoker is a major tool in tobacco control's toolbox. It's had some success but really, it's stopped working now for the smokers who are left, especially for pregnant women who smoke. Nobody on the planet wants to be that person.

Of course you judge. You've been taught to. Nobody wants to police your thoughts but rather a lot of people want to manipulate them.

3) what actually helps
We've been vilifying pregnant smokers for years yet the rate of smoking at the time of delivery remains stubbornly at 10%. Anybody who actually cares about the health of women, babies and children should focus hard and urgently on what works, not what makes them feel better. Stigma is now actively getting in the way of women seeking help and women's success at quitting. The smokers who are left, including those who are pregnant, are overwhelmingly poor or have MH issues or both.

Women who smoke in pregnancy need non-judgmental support. It has to be OK for women, pregnant or not, to ask for help to quit and the support has to be there when they need it. Women need up-to-date accurate information on all available methods, including the relative risks of NRT and ecigs and the best ways to use them to successfully quit smoking.

Women need support whatever method they use to quit and they need to be respected as people whose own health matters, whether they are pregnant or not. It should never ever be forgotten that that the major harm from smoking is to the smoker themselves, even pregnant smokers. They are the ones who have the 50% chance of premature death, losing on average a decade of life. Smokers' lives matter, whether they are male or female, pregnant, 'pre-pregnant', infertile, post-menopausal blah de blah. It's not enough to shame women into quitting for 9 months for the sake of their foetuses if they then fail to quit long term for their own health. Women are people and their health matters, even after they have finished popping out the sprogs.

I've got a thread in site stuff requesting a webchat on smoking in pregnancy by someone really sensible. I started it because I think MN lets down a massive bunch of women who could be getting support here. MNHQ have said they are thinking about it so if you feel this is something you could support, please do give it a bump.

@LadyMaryCrawley1922 fair point.

Re- the people who argued for the case in Ireland and I
Man. I agree that those are fair pints and yes I was writing in regards to the main land uk.

The State has told the High Court that the constitutional protection given to the unborn does not apply to three embryos frozen in a fertility clinic in Dublin. The court could not and should not decide "the critical issue" of when life begins, the State has urged.
What I have found from digging info online in regards to Ireland is that the embryo might actually be valuable only when it's inside the woman.
I found case where there was an argument (court case) on whether a woman should be allowed implant embryos she has with her estranged husband/ex in Ireland.

The argument was based on when life begins and the court decided the woman cannot have her embryos because the law does protect embryos outside the womb.

And if they are basing their judgment on religious grounds for when life begins, It's laughable that they don't consider an embryo the beginning of life because even outside the womb it's a living thing. (The extent of it is debatable).

If the argument is based on conception, I would argue about when does it life begin, and is that the beginning of life. If it's from the moment the the egg meets the sperm, my conclusion is that it's not about the right of the embryos and foetus but how the female body is controlled. They didn't care enough for the embryos outside of the body. It can be discarded, so why is not the same to that inside the woman's body.

Will foetuses in the lab in the future have different rights to those inside the woman with less control of survival?

www.pressreader.com/ireland/irish-independent/20061006/281676840399592

www.irishtimes.com/news/state-says-court-cannot-rule-when-life-begins-1.1011943

I hope I have made sense.

how on earth can you say a law protects men when you've no idea what the demigrapics are for prosecution or why the legislation was introduced in the first place. It's because if they can prove that the person they wanted to murder was the woman and not the foetus, they can only be charged for one murder.

If it was a car accident, the only charge they would get would be for the human passengers.

The most important thing of all, most women who loose their foetus (excluding medical or abortion reason) is from men kicking and punching them through violence/domestic or other kinds mostly done by men and it's hard to convict them for it. Unless their intentions can be proven. Some times it's even hard to tell that they are the cause of lose.

I wonder if the stage of the foetus would matter too, which I haven't looked into yet.

Laws can and do change, surely?

Not very often, no. The law needing to be born to be an actual human person is very unlikely to change. And it would be a very very bad thing if it did.
Even places that give rights to a foetus still know that you aren't a person until born, thank fuck.

My stomach is alive, my stomach is human. Should it have rights? Personhood happens at birth.

I'm trying to counter balance the point that a baby only becomes human after birth because the law says so- as I have explained this means fully expelled with cord severed. I feel that by that stage and some point before birth the baby is a human and has rights of its own. The right not to be abused or killed. I am not anti abortion, but I feel that women's autonomy needs to be balanced considering the foetus and its stage of development. I think it's wrong to say that the foetus should have no rights what so ever in any case. Do I think women should be arrested for smoking, drinking- no of course not, but I don't think we should turn a blind eye- these women may be in need of support. It depends on circumstances and making sensible choices.

Pencils in space- no your stomach is part of your body. Not capable of life if it's own, an independent being

Here's the link I was looking for. It's about what happens in practice when women are criminalised for making choices in pregnancy which might harm a foetus. This is happening in the US right now.

For all the people who say personhood happens at birth- at what point is a child "born" and a "person"- when it's head is out, shoulders, fully out, cord cut....
When it's head is out can I kill it cos hey it's not a person and has no rights, or is it born then. By law it isn't a person. Does it have the right being partially expelled not to be harmed or can I just do whatever I like to it cos it's not a person.
Please explain to me what happens during birth that suddenly makes this being a person that deserves to have some rights?

Missymoo, a foetus is entirely dependent on a woman's body. It's part of her body until it is born and at that point it it gets personhood and all the rights that go with being a person.

The woman has personhood throughout this process and thus human rights, including the right to bodily autonomy.

Missymoo100
You become a person in your own right when the placenta detaches from your mother. But I dont think anyone is making the argument you claim.

I'd like to know how some of you don't think an unborn baby is a human until after birth, does the vagina have some magical power that confers personhood upon the "foetus" passing through I guess you should ask the uk courts that the same question.

In the uk, yes women are entitled to bodily autonomy. There is a technicality in this. You only have bodily autonomy and the right to terminate at 24 weeks. Anything after that would have to be medical and the doctors have to agree that it's necessary. We are in denial if we think the uk gives absolute autonomy to pregnant women.

Currently women in England and Wales have to prove to a doctor that carrying on with the pregnancy is detrimental to health or wellbeing to get permission for a termination.
Without permission, abortion is a criminal offence.
But medics at the British Medical Association's annual conference voted to scrap that rule.
But for abortion to be governed by criminal law rather than governed by healthcare regulation is nonsense.

I thought it was an interesting read when the judgment was made.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40418986

Please explain to me when your ludicrous hyperbolic made-up scenario has ever happened. Please explain to me what other areas of law you think should cater to such absurd hypothetical situations.

Laws need to be precise but they also need to be workable. When do you think a foetus should gain rights? What threshold you you think is more definable and workable than the moment of birth for the acquisition of personhood?

Pencils in space
a baby is only dependant as far as it's inside the mother, but it could be removed and would be capable of living independently from somewhere shortly after mid term.

I've been interested to read a lot of the comments on this thread. Thanks to you all.

It's a bit late for me and I'm tired - been working on something else since early morning.

But ... of course the violinist argument is relevant. However, it wasn't Radcliffe Richards (not really her style, although she did some good stuff in her own way). No, it was Judith Jarvis Thomson ( Philosophy and Public Affairs , 1971, 'A Defense of Abortion').

[Did anyone say this already? I didn't see it, if so.]

Here's a link
Thomson's violinist

Thing is (apart from 'credit where it's due' and so on), the argument is perhaps more nuanced than it's sometimes given credit for. Ethics/morality is sometimes a complicated matter. But, anyway, I thought some of you might like to read the whole thing (those who haven't already).

Me, I think it's an important and justly celebrated bit of applied philosophy; makes good points; in general, on balance, all usual qualifications, probably gets much of it right. Yes (for JJT''s and other reasons), we can agree that women are entitled to bodily autonomy in relevant regards. Yes. Just yes.

(I'm not really clear about why there's still any argument about this. Aren't women people? Aren't people paradigmatically entitled to bodily (and emotional, psychological, sexual, cognitive, creative ...) autonomy? If not, what is ethics even about?)

1971 (date of JJT's article) was, in some ways, a long time ago. Have we progressed or regressed in our (societal, communal, interpersonal, what you will) understanding of ethical/moral issues since then? Sometimes I wonder.

And a pregnant woman's right to refuse treatment will be trampled over anyway, at least in those countries where pregnant women are treated as subhuman and secondary to the fetus

You didn't mention the right to refuse treatment. You were talking about the right to have a female surgeon or midwife.

Pencils in space- it's not absurd that is the law. That a person has to be fully detached from the mother to count as a person, look it up. I took an exam based on law and this was a hypothetical question on the paper! Surely people must think that the baby has rights beyond the legal threshold of personhood.
As for ask the judges- the law gets stuff wrong- i.e. the law allowed for the convictions for being gay not so long ago- was this right at the time because the law says so and is an absolute authority? no! I want to get across the point to previous posters who have said that a baby should have no rights because it's not a person or human, simply because the law says so. people seem to be clutching onto the argument of the "law says so". The topic was should a woman have total autonomy and I've said no and given my reasons.