Art of Lie

Artist:

Rim Bitik

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon. 

Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy. 

To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died. 

And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.

Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.

If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other. 

When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.

When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.” 

Abortion is actively getting rid of a life.

You aren’t responsible for murder by opting out of the first two- you were not responsible for the accident or disease that would require the need of organs/blood from another person.

Which is…shakey. And debatable. And also doesnt address the central point of bodily autonomy.

If I consent to ride on a motorcycle, you dont get to deny me a blood transfusion if I’m hit by a bus. Agreeing to an act that results in the desire for medical care doesnt negate your right to medical care.

No woman is obligated to be an incubator or broodmare and yes your body is your own. Incubators and broodmares have the sole function of sustaining and bringing life into the world respectively, something no woman in the first world is expected or even encouraged to do in mainstream society today. But the fetus developing inside of it’s mother is wholly separate from their body, even if dependent upon it.

And just because YOU think you’ve solved the trolley debate (though misusing how it was being applied, since it was being used to discuss action vs inaction) doesnt make it law.

Again, we are not incubators or broodmares. Our bodies are ours, only ours, completely and irrevocably. That means we get to decide what happens to our bodies, who gets to use it, how they use it, and for how long.

We don’t surrender our right to medical care and control over our bodies because we got laid. That’s not how this works.

We don’t surrender our right to medical care and control over our bodies because doing so might keep another person alive, whether that person is a fetus, or a stranger who needs a kidney, or a friend who needs blood. We get to make the choice how our bodies are used, even when lives are on the line.

You dont get to use another person’s body against their will for your benefit. No one does. Not even a fetus.

Its. A. Choice. Thats what consent and bodily autonomy mean.