Not Your Choice

I was having a debate with someone recently and they brought up a couple of interesting points: a) why does a foetus not have bodily autonomy and b) does death count as a violation of bodily autonomy.

Having thought it over, I’m honestly on the fence about this. It really does seem to me like killing someone is a violation of their bodily autonomy, and the part I’m conflicted about is why a foetus doesn’t have bodily autonomy. In the past I’ve said that it’s because they’re entirely dependent on another person, but they brought up the point that technically everyone is dependant on something. In this situation, abortion would be a matter of conflicting bodily autonomy, as the foetus’s right to bodily autonomy would be opposed to the pregnant person’s

Just a quick argument against bodily autonomy in the contexts of abortions. 

My argument would be as follows,

Premise 1) All (bodies) are that which (should be given bodily autonomy)

Premise 2) (Fetuses) are (bodies).

Conclusion 3) Therefore, (fetuses) are that which (should be given bodily autonomy).

So common objections would be to premise 2, where they state that fetuses are not bodies. This claim at face value makes somewhat sense, but the problem with this is that the refutation sits on the false premise that fetuses are conceived immaterially. This is of course impossible, and denied by the physical component of cells. Someone’s response to what I just said would go along the lines of “but they don’t have a brain, heart, etc.”, yet this is drawing an arbitrary and personal line to suit their preference or argument. Similarly, if we have a debate on whether slavery should be re-instituted, and someone brings up a personal definition that excludes a certain race from the label “human” vs a definition from Merriam Webster that says no races are excluded, the latter definition will win and should win.

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This post is only some whiny girl complaining about something she doesn’t like. This post won’t sway anyone’s opinion. This post won’t change dominant women. This post doesn’t affect anything. This post will not end feminism.

“Pregnant people” includes pregnant women.

Since pregnant people are a) pregnant and b) people.

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Now that the baby, my very first niece, is so close to being born, I am filled with regret. If my sister had listened to me, my niece would never had the chance for life. We wouldn’t be anxiously waiting for her birth that could come any day now. No one would be wondering what sort of life she would lead. She’d be dead. 

I know a lot of pro-choice people hate when pro-life people toss the word “kill” around when talking about abortions. The fact of the matter is, as soon as the sperm hits the egg, that’s a new human life. The baby might rely on the mother for nutrients, but so does a newborn after they are born. That baby has a unique genetic code and actively is growing. The fact that its DNA is different from the mother and that it is very much alive, means that an abortion is killing a human life. 

I know a lot of pro-choice people hate that sentence right there. I used to argue pro-life all the time online (rolls eyes at the fact I was a stupid “keyboard warrior”) and the one thing that seemed to rile pro-choice believers up the most was if I told them that abortion was killing a human life. 

If you look at it from a purely scientific and sort of academic approach, being pro-life should be the obvious answer unless you are okay with everyone, regardless of age, being murdered at any point.

Purely scientific, though, when the egg gets fertilized, the cells start reproducing with a DNA sequence that is entirely unique to that baby and a chromosome count that makes it undeniably human. It doesn’t quite look like a human yet. No, that takes a while. But the baby is a unique sequence of genes that make it a unique human being very soon after fertilization. 

So, based on that alone, we have a human life. Now, the word “kill” upsets people probably because it has an emotional attachment to it and no one wants to believe they’re okay with killing other people. However, you look up the definition of the word “kill” on a basic google search, the top result is “ cause the death of (a person, animal, or other living thing).” Well, that fetus/baby is a living thing. It’s rapidly developing and is carbon-based, so it’s considered living.

If you also look at the definition of what is considered “death”, a google search results in the words “ the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism “. “THE END OF THE LIFE OR A PERSON OR ORGANISM”. If you won’t define the fetus as a person (which I can understand), it is definitely an organism. Organisms are living things. The fetus is living. 

So what I’ve basically just proven to you all is that a fetus of any age is a human because it follows the rules of science to prove that it is. Secondly, that when you abort that fetus, you are in fact killing it. Therefore, you are undeniably killing a human being. 

I’ve held this belief for years. But when faced with the fact that my sister was pregnant and that my parents weren’t happy, I wussed out. Instead of standing up for what I really believed in, I gave in to my mom and dad’s desires. I took their side purely because I was exhausted from all my own battles I’ve had with them. I told my sister that I thought she’d be “happier without it” and that “God will forgive” her.

And now that baby is about to be born and all I can think about is that I urged for its death because I didn’t want to argue with my parents. That feels really slimy to me. I know what my beliefs are. I know what’s right and wrong in most cases. And I know even if you remove all emotion or attachment from a fetus, it is human and if you abort it you are killing it. 

I’m ashamed of myself. I’m ashamed even more because my niece is going to grow up and be my age and have her own story and if my sister had done what I’d said, that wouldn’t be. There’s so much potential for my niece, but her life could have very easily been snuffed out before she ever had a chance.

Worse yet, what if that comes out to her one day? I don’t know how she’d find out, but what if she does and she’s horrified that I would suggest she be killed?

It just feels all wrong and makes me sick to my stomach.

I’m sorry, but I can’t get behind the “pro-choice” movement. Sure, it’s not fair that women have to carry a life inside them for all that time. And yes, our adoption system sucks. And, no, I wouldn’t personally adopt an unwanted child because I’m not interested in ever being a parent. 

The thing is, I don’t advocate for those children to be killed just because they are unwanted, though. The way I see it (and I know I have very black and white morals, as I have been told that) killing an unwanted fetus is the same as killing an unwanted child. They’re both living and human. One is younger than the other. Haha. Yeah, the fetus is way way younger, but its biology is what makes it alive and human. Abortion is straight murder.

I feel like pro-choice advocates don’t want to see this. It was curious that so many of my arguments would make a pro-choice believer so angry. One outright told me that it wasn’t fair that I was using words with such emotional connotations to describe an abortion to them. But the thing is, you look at it from a black and white perspective and what the definitions of things are and what not… A fetus is human and it is living and to abort it is causing its death which is killing it. 

Fine. Be pro-choice, but if you can’t even stand the fact that the word kill and human are attached to an abortion, maybe you should take a good long look at what you’re advocating for.

I like how you say “it’s unfair that people have to carry a life in them that whole time” but in the same breath, you openly deny them their autonomy. It’s gross to me that you have no qualms about that.

We get annoyed with people using emotionally manipulating language because it’s dishonest. It isn’t arguing from facts. It’s appealing to the emotions of the person you’re trying to sway. You’re just trying to guilt them into agreeing with you instead of arguing from a reasonable position. Yeah, that makes me mad. Using terms like “infanticide” and “murder” to describe a medical procedure annoys me. It’s dishonest emotional pandering and you’re happy to do it if it’ll force people to take your moral standpoint, even if it’s wrong.

What do you think about someone’s ability to choose to kill themselves? I sort of read through your blog and got an idea of what you’d say to me about some of what I argued. You seem to value bodily autonomy over human life. My question is, does anyone have the right to tell a person who is so absolutely miserable and scared that they think suicide is the only option that no they cannot kill themselves? Or do you think they have the right to decide if they want to be alive or not? And if you think they have the right to decide, why? I’m not talking about someone with a disease that is already killing them and them opting for a humane death instead of going through however long of time suffering as they wait for the disease to kill them. I’m talking about someone who is healthy but is just miserable/scared/etc and doesn’t want to continue to live anymore.

I think this is really pertinent to the abortion conversation. For instance, if it’s not okay for someone to kill themselves, why does human life come before autonomy in this situation and not in an abortion situation? Why, also, was this person’s life worth anymore protection than a fetus’? Why is it okay for someone to sacrifice a fetus for the sake of autonomy but not for someone to kill themselves?

Please don’t feel like I’m being hostile or anything. I’m trying really, really hard to not come off that way because I’m not feeling hostile at all, but I know how easily a certain choice or words or perceived tone could make it seem like I am hostile. Also, I sort of really like this debate. Looking into your blog, I’d never even heard the term bodily autonomy before today or considered its existence. It’s brought a whole new set of questions to consider in this discussion. Though, I think I feel that morally we should preserve a human’s life first and foremost as the right to live feels like it is a bigger right than body autonomy.

Which I guess that gives you my answer to the suicide questions above. Life comes before autonomy, so no we shouldn’t stand aside and allow people to kill themselves for the sake of their right to their own body. Equally, it makes sense to me that we shouldn’t let someone kill someone else, either, for the sake of autonomy.

You cannot actually, physically force someone not to kill themselves. This is coming from a person who has frequent suicidal ideologies. You can tell someone they shouldn't, you can try to reason with them, you can do everything in your power to convince them not to, but short of calling the police on them and having them forced into a psychiatric hold at a hospital which, a) is a horrible idea because the police have been shown to have no idea how to handle people with mental illnesses without killing them anyways, and b) psych holds are miserable, degrading, and can often just make someone worse more than it can make them better. You can't force them to not. I am in no way saying that suicide is ok, or that one shouldn't try to help someone in that position so they may choose differently. I'm just saying that more often than not, forcibly making them stop does more harm than good. If they were that determined, and that desperate that nothing else would possibly make them ok, then that is their choice.

But you're also comparing apples to oranges. You're comparing a non-autonomous fetus, who is actively violating the autonomy of a person in order to sustain its own life, to an autonomous person who isn't doing those things. And I still argue that a fetus isn't a person, but personhood is a philosophical debate that I already know that we are not going to agree upon.

Now that the baby, my very first niece, is so close to being born, I am filled with regret. If my sister had listened to me, my niece would never had the chance for life. We wouldn’t be anxiously waiting for her birth that could come any day now. No one would be wondering what sort of life she would lead. She’d be dead. 

I know a lot of pro-choice people hate when pro-life people toss the word “kill” around when talking about abortions. The fact of the matter is, as soon as the sperm hits the egg, that’s a new human life. The baby might rely on the mother for nutrients, but so does a newborn after they are born. That baby has a unique genetic code and actively is growing. The fact that its DNA is different from the mother and that it is very much alive, means that an abortion is killing a human life. 

I know a lot of pro-choice people hate that sentence right there. I used to argue pro-life all the time online (rolls eyes at the fact I was a stupid “keyboard warrior”) and the one thing that seemed to rile pro-choice believers up the most was if I told them that abortion was killing a human life. 

If you look at it from a purely scientific and sort of academic approach, being pro-life should be the obvious answer unless you are okay with everyone, regardless of age, being murdered at any point.

Purely scientific, though, when the egg gets fertilized, the cells start reproducing with a DNA sequence that is entirely unique to that baby and a chromosome count that makes it undeniably human. It doesn’t quite look like a human yet. No, that takes a while. But the baby is a unique sequence of genes that make it a unique human being very soon after fertilization. 

So, based on that alone, we have a human life. Now, the word “kill” upsets people probably because it has an emotional attachment to it and no one wants to believe they’re okay with killing other people. However, you look up the definition of the word “kill” on a basic google search, the top result is “ cause the death of (a person, animal, or other living thing).” Well, that fetus/baby is a living thing. It’s rapidly developing and is carbon-based, so it’s considered living.

If you also look at the definition of what is considered “death”, a google search results in the words “ the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism “. “THE END OF THE LIFE OR A PERSON OR ORGANISM”. If you won’t define the fetus as a person (which I can understand), it is definitely an organism. Organisms are living things. The fetus is living. 

So what I’ve basically just proven to you all is that a fetus of any age is a human because it follows the rules of science to prove that it is. Secondly, that when you abort that fetus, you are in fact killing it. Therefore, you are undeniably killing a human being. 

I’ve held this belief for years. But when faced with the fact that my sister was pregnant and that my parents weren’t happy, I wussed out. Instead of standing up for what I really believed in, I gave in to my mom and dad’s desires. I took their side purely because I was exhausted from all my own battles I’ve had with them. I told my sister that I thought she’d be “happier without it” and that “God will forgive” her.

And now that baby is about to be born and all I can think about is that I urged for its death because I didn’t want to argue with my parents. That feels really slimy to me. I know what my beliefs are. I know what’s right and wrong in most cases. And I know even if you remove all emotion or attachment from a fetus, it is human and if you abort it you are killing it. 

I’m ashamed of myself. I’m ashamed even more because my niece is going to grow up and be my age and have her own story and if my sister had done what I’d said, that wouldn’t be. There’s so much potential for my niece, but her life could have very easily been snuffed out before she ever had a chance.

Worse yet, what if that comes out to her one day? I don’t know how she’d find out, but what if she does and she’s horrified that I would suggest she be killed?

It just feels all wrong and makes me sick to my stomach.

I’m sorry, but I can’t get behind the “pro-choice” movement. Sure, it’s not fair that women have to carry a life inside them for all that time. And yes, our adoption system sucks. And, no, I wouldn’t personally adopt an unwanted child because I’m not interested in ever being a parent. 

The thing is, I don’t advocate for those children to be killed just because they are unwanted, though. The way I see it (and I know I have very black and white morals, as I have been told that) killing an unwanted fetus is the same as killing an unwanted child. They’re both living and human. One is younger than the other. Haha. Yeah, the fetus is way way younger, but its biology is what makes it alive and human. Abortion is straight murder.

I feel like pro-choice advocates don’t want to see this. It was curious that so many of my arguments would make a pro-choice believer so angry. One outright told me that it wasn’t fair that I was using words with such emotional connotations to describe an abortion to them. But the thing is, you look at it from a black and white perspective and what the definitions of things are and what not… A fetus is human and it is living and to abort it is causing its death which is killing it. 

Fine. Be pro-choice, but if you can’t even stand the fact that the word kill and human are attached to an abortion, maybe you should take a good long look at what you’re advocating for.

I like how you say "it's unfair that people have to carry a life in them that whole time" but in the same breath, you openly deny them their autonomy. It's gross to me that you have no qualms about that.

We get annoyed with people using emotionally manipulating language because it's dishonest. It isn't arguing from facts. It's appealing to the emotions of the person you're trying to sway. You're just trying to guilt them into agreeing with you instead of arguing from a reasonable position. Yeah, that makes me mad. Using terms like "infanticide" and "murder" to describe a medical procedure annoys me. It's dishonest emotional pandering and you're happy to do it if it'll force people to take your moral standpoint, even if it's wrong.

Looking at you @plannedparenthood

The intention (which originated on 4chan, not Reddit like I initially said) was to hurt a liberal business.

“How about we meme “Undocumented Immigrant Day” at Starbucks into existence? Announce free coffee for all illegals on a certain date. August 11? 11 looks like II (for Illegal Immigrant). I’m open to suggestions there. Name a liberal place for all illegals to go at once and demand free stuff.”