rationalskepticism.org

THWOTH wrote:Seems to me the entire debate about the 8th rests on this principle of individual autonomy, the idea that all individual humans are free, that they own themselves and have dominion over their bodies and what they do with them. Furthermore the matter rests on the interplay of more nebulous societal attitudes to things like sex, the role and status of women in society, and obviously women's fertility.

Pregnancy and childbirth are not by any means trivial matters, they are major life-changing events in both the physical and psychological sense--and in the economic sense too--and the consequences of pregnancy and childbirth for mothers (and, hopefully, for fathers as well) bring certain responsibilities that persist well beyond the due date - indeed, many of these responsibilities last a lifetime. Pregnancy and childbirth are also not without potential and serious risks of harm to women and their developing offspring. I won't list the risks here, but even so-called normal pregnancies and deliveries can be, and often are, a physically and emotionally challenging experience that has a significant and long-term impact on the lives of all concerned. When one factors in wider attitudes, and particular regressive or 'traditional' attitudes to sex, women, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood etc, pregnancy becomes a social minefield.

Even where, as in the majority of cases, children are wanted and/or planned for pregnancy takes on the mantle of a huge mental and physical challenge - the very definition of an ordeal; something significant is being navigated here, perhaps the most significant thing any human can ever be asked to navigate, and in many cases it is something which must be endured even when the prospect inspires excitement and joy. Inevitably, and for obvious reasons, all of these concerns fall chiefly on the shoulders of women.

As I said, pregnancy and childbirth are not trivial matters. But we all knew this already didn't we[?]. It stands to reason that decisions about pregnancy and childbirth are not, and cannot be, trivialised, and yet those who dogmatically oppose abortion effectively trivialise the entire process by simply declaring that pregnant women should and must endure not just pregnancy and childbirth, but also the long-term consequences thereof, no matter how physically, psychologically, economically, or socially distressing or risky it might be, and regardless of a woman's circumstances or her own thoughts about it.

Essentially, those intransigently opposed to abortion not only deny pregnant woman their rights of self-ownership and self-determination with regards to their own bodies, their bodily autonomy as we're calling it, but in so doing they rob all women of their right to full autonomy as individual human beings - for unlike men, women's autonomy as individual human beings is but conditional on the state of their reproductive organs such that as soon as a woman 'falls' pregnant her uterus becomes automatically annexed to the opinions, desires, and/or dogmas of others. Anti-abortionists seek to own the wombs of all women, not just pregnant women, and by that to exert their self-declared dominion over women's bodies, and ultimately over their lives.

As hackenslash pointed out, jamest's position is entirely issued by fiat and entails a declaration that a bifurcated ovum is an "actual" individual human being, that is; a single human distinct from all other humans. I've asked jamest to justify his point of view with some sort of reasoned argument, but alas none has been forthcoming. Presumably jamest would feel more comfortable with the idea of an artificially created zygote gestated to term in a vat than with the prospect of women exercising choice over their bodies, their reproductive health, and their general well-being? By jamest's lights, as soon as conception occurs, by whatever means, an "actual" individual human is created, and whether it grows within a womb or a vat attached to machines is immaterial to that asserted fact - its declared right to exist supersedes all other concerns. This simply highlights how trivially jamest and his fellow travellers take pregnancy and childbirth, and in so doing they forfeit their right to be taken seriously on this matter.


edit: fix