{"id":20278,"date":"2015-09-06T21:29:13","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T04:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20278"},"modified":"2015-09-06T22:36:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T05:36:45","slug":"on-right-to-live-vs-right-to-autonomy-and-why-fetuses-arent-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20278","title":{"rendered":"On Right To Live vs Right To Autonomy; And Why Fetuses Aren’t People"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chair-as-person\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This post is part of an ongoing discussion I’m having on Tumblr<\/a> with “Sirwolffe.” I’ve edited the post before putting it on “Alas.”<\/p>\n

Sirwolffe writes:<\/p>\n

You are comparing the right to life with the right to refuse pregnancy. Isn\u2019t it obvious that one is more important than the other? Life is the greatest gift we have, and the most important one too. How can your right to use your body how you wish override that? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s not self-evident that a right to life always overrides a right to bodily autonomy. ((You said \u201cyour right to use your body how you wish,\u201d but I\u2019m going to shorten that to \u201cbodily autonomy.\u201d))<\/p>\n

Suppose I\u2019m dying, and the only thing that can save me is being medically hooked to you for nine months, so your kidneys will take the poisons out of my blood. ((I\u2019m swiping this example from Judith Thomson<\/a>.)) You are the only person in the world with the rare blood type necessary for this to work. The procedure carries a high chance of having permanent effects on your body, and a low chance of killing you.<\/p>\n

In that circumstance, should the police force you to be hooked up to me for nine months, whether you want to or not?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re consistent in your belief that right to life overrides the right to bodily autonomy, then you\u2019d have to agree that the police should <\/em>force you to do this for me. For that matter, even if it takes nine years – or the rest of your life – you should agree to the principle that the police can force you to do this for me.<\/p>\n

But in fact, no court in this country will force you. Because there is no legal or moral rule that my right to life always overrules your right to bodily autonomy. You cannot be legally forced to let anyone use your internal organs for their benefit. Because you have the right to bodily autonomy.<\/p>\n

Pregnant people should have that same right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Next, a fetus isn\u2019t just human. It is both wholly human, and a live human. A brain-dead patient is dead, not living. An ear growing in a vat is not a whole human.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An embryo ((I deliberately use the word “embryo,” even though Sirwolffe said “fetus,” to emphasize that abortions typically happen to either embryos or early fetuses. According to Guttmacher<\/a>, one-third of abortions occur at six weeks into the pregnancy or earlier, and 90% of abortions occur in the first twelve weeks. 99% of abortions take place in the first 20 weeks. The biological structures needed for any thought or consciousness to exist aren\u2019t in place until the 28th week<\/a>.)) is not a whole and complete person, any more than a foundation of a building is a whole and complete building. An embryo is made, and there is a person making it<\/strong>, providing all the resources and doing all the work. The embryo is literally incapable of continued existence without a pregnant person filling in the gaps of the many ways it is not yet complete. <\/p>\n

Your argument erases that pregnant person from consideration; your argument treats them like a non-person whose rights don\u2019t merit a moment\u2019s consideration. A baby doesn\u2019t magically appear, whole and finished; it is made by a person. A person with rights.<\/p>\n

Now, why isn\u2019t a fetus a person? Because it can\u2019t think or feel? It will surely develop those properties within several months.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier in our discussion, you agreed that a brain-dead patient is dead – and that could be a difference of only a day. If you\u2019re allowed to say that a difference of a day, during which a person\u2019s brain dies, can nonetheless be a morally important difference, then why can\u2019t I say the same about a difference of four or five months?<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if the brain-dead patient was alive yesterday. If they\u2019re brain-dead now<\/strong>, then they are no longer a person with a right to life. Because without a brain capable of sustaining some sort of consciousness, it isn\u2019t a person with rights.<\/p>\n

By the same logic, it doesn\u2019t matter if the embryo or fetus will in theory be able to be a person four months from now. The abortion isn\u2019t being performed four months from now; it\u2019s being performed today, on an embryo. And an embryo isn\u2019t a person, and a non-person cannot have rights.<\/p>\n

A pregnant person is a person, who has consciousness and rights. An embryo is, at most, a hypothetical <\/em>person; it has no more ability to think or feel than a brain-dead person does, or a chair does. Maybe in several months it\u2019ll gain that ability – or, then again, maybe not. (Even without an abortion, there could be a miscarriage, it could be born brain-dead. Etc).<\/p>\n

So what we\u2019re weighing here, is the rights of a real, existing person, versus the “rights” of a hypothetical person who doesn\u2019t exist and might never exist. When these things are in conflict, shouldn\u2019t the rights of the person who exists <\/em>take precedence?<\/p>\n

There was a time when black people were not legally considered persons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regardless of what the law said, there\u2019s never <\/em>been a time when black people weren\u2019t morally and logically people. ((This is a side issue, but your understanding of history is wrong<\/a>.)) <\/p>\n

Hey, what if I say chairs are people? And when you disagree, I imply that you\u2019re being like a racist saying Blacks aren\u2019t people. Is that a fair or logical argument? Or by making that comparison, am I assuming what\u2019s at issue – that chairs are people?<\/p>\n

I do agree with one thing you wrote: Being legal doesn’t make something moral. A pregnant person is a person, and morally they should have rights. Morally, you should not have the right to force them to be pregnant against their will.<\/p>\n

Even if pro-lifers manage to create laws that treat pregnant people like slaves who don\u2019t own their own bodies, that will just change the law. It won\u2019t change that forced childbirth is immoral.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

One last question: Imagine you\u2019re in a burning building. There\u2019s a hallway with two rooms, far from each other, so you only have time to run into one of the rooms and escape before the roof collapses.<\/p>\n

In one room is an adorable four-year-old girl. (Or even a mean, grumpy four-year-old girl who hates puppies. Makes no difference to my example.) In the other room is a suitcase containing fifty petri dishes with one-day-old viable embryos, each of which has been assigned to a person who wants the embryos implanted in their wombs. So if you save those embryos, many or all of them will, six months from now, be babies.<\/p>\n

If that were me, I would dash to save the four-year-old girl, and leave the embryos to die. No question at all. Would you really <\/em>run to save the suitcase of one-day embryos, leaving the girl to die? And if you\u2019d save the girl, aren\u2019t you admitting that there is<\/em> a moral difference between the life of a born human, and the life of an embryo?<\/p>\n

Thanks for the discussion. I appreciate it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing discussion I’m having on Tumblr with “Sirwolffe.” I’ve edited the post before putting it on “Alas.” Sirwolffe writes: You are comparing the right to life with the right to refuse pregnancy. Isn\u2019t it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20278"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20283,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278\/revisions\/20283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}