A Soapbox

mock rape culture (aka bring awareness), NOT the victim

Dr. Mari Nicholson-Preuss

aka my badass boss.

(via t33nag3dirtbagbaby)

1) That the punishment of someone who infringes on another’s bodily integrity should be decided without consideration of the offender’s intent or ability to understand what he did. 2) That the death penalty is an acceptable punishment for infringement upon bodily integrity.

What we’re saying is that human beings have a right to decide what happens to their own bodies, even if that decision results in the death of someone or something else. For example, by law, you cannot be forced to donate one of your kidneys or part of your liver to someone who needs it. You cannot be forced to give blood. Even if you are the only person with a certain blood type and your refusal will mean the death of someone else - maybe a family member, maybe your child - if you refuse, that is your right as a human being and no court can prosecute you for murder. You, and only you, are the final arbiter of what happens to your body, and if you decide the risks are too great, the right to refuse to help is absolute.

What you are implying is that bodily autonomy ought to be less important than saving someone’s life; that a fetus, or a human being, should be given the opportunity to live at the expense of other people’s bodily autonomy.

So put it into context. You have a kidney that’s a perfect match to someone in the hospital - let’s call him Fred - who will die in the next week if he doesn’t get it. For your own personal reasons, you do not wish to have your kidney removed. Your reasons aren’t material to this particular argument, but they can range anywhere from your phobia of hospitals to your allergy to most kinds of anesthesia, to a history of kidney disease in your family that may mean you will need that extra kidney one day or to the simple fact that you do not wish to give this kidney at this time. The point is: you do not consent.

If life is considered more important than bodily autonomy, then the law can force you to be taken to the hospital against your will, be sedated against your will, cut open against your will, and have your organ removed against your will. You may be tied down to the bed; you may be locked in a room and not allowed to leave until you agree to the operation. You may be shown tapes of Fred and his family over and over and over again. But however it happens, it happens without your continuous consent. This isn’t Fred’s fault - he doesn’t even know you exist, he has no idea that this is happening, and maybe he would be horrified if he knew and would ask them to stop. But it’s happening because life, in this universe, is more important than bodily autonomy. Namely, Fred’s life is more important than your bodily autonomy.

Now put yourself back in the world we live in - you still have that kidney that’s perfect for good ol’ Fred in the hospital who needs it within a week, otherwise he’ll die. If you refuse, for whatever reason, the result is that Fred does, in fact, die. But Fred has not been punished, Fred wasn’t given a death sentence. The decision you made had nothing to do with punishing Fred; it was about your health, your body, your life. Certainly people might be angry that you didn’t give Fred the kidney that he needed, but just because he needed it to survive did not mean he had a right to it that trumped yours. No matter what reason you had, your bodily autonomy was more important than his need.

Now, if you think that the world where life should be more important than bodily autonomy is the one we ought to live in, then we’re going to have to just agree to disagree, because I find that a fucking Orwellian nightmare of the highest order.

Okay, here is my two cents.

Of course, even babies of color are not in high demand with couples looking to adopt.  Many who do want to adopt outside their race choose to go outside the country, where laws are less strict and the process is often less expensive.  Of course, most of the infants adopted this way are obtained in unscrupulous fashion, but who cares about that when you’re saving a little Korean or African baby from the horrible fate of growing up in Korea or Africa???  And all those children who have birth defects, are born with diseases or disabilities, or have other issues… WELL.  Who wants to invest that kind of expense and time?  Why would you adopt someone broken, LOLOL?!

Granted, there are some wonderful people who understand the system a little better, and make it a point to try and give POC and disabled children a good home.  But they make up a very small fraction of potential adopters!  This difference in supply and demand leaves a lot of children stuck in the foster system, where their chances of being adopted diminish with every passing year, and their chances of being physically or sexually abused INCREASE!  Isn’t that wonderful?

And of course, we haven’t even talked about the person who is giving birth to the baby!  I know you probably think pregnancy is a wonderful, happy time, and for some people it is, but it is also one of the greatest health risks a person can take. I love my son very much, and from the day I found out I was pregnant with him, I wanted him!  But I also nearly died giving birth to him.  You see, I had pre-eclampsia, the most commonly fatal birth complication in the world.  My blood pressure was 180 over 130!  At twenty-two years old, I was actually headed for a stroke, hah hah!  How funny is that?  And all it took was missing a single pre-natal appointment during which my blood pressure rose to dangerous levels and my body tried to kill both me and my son.  Those seizures sure were fun, as was the emergency c-section performed without anesthetic!  And being chained down while the operation was performed, because I was delirious and wouldn’t stop trying to fight off the doctors, that was a BLAST!  It was great for my husband too, since he almost lost his wife and child in just forty-five minutes.  You can imagine how thrilled he is at the prospect of me ever getting pregnant again.  Babies are certainly cute, but pregnancy can have massive health complications, and I know it’s such a bummer, but they are PERMANENT.  :(  My abdominal muscles never recovered from being hacked through with a scalpel, and the flood of hormones caused by late pregnancy have changed things from heartburn (never used to have it, now, all the time!) to my emotional reactions (I cry when I see pictures of kittens now.  I used to be tough).  These are changes I did not ask for, cannot control, and cannot fix!  And many people go through worse!  I know, right?  Unbelievable, but go look up the word ‘episiotomy’ and then look up ‘birth rape’ and I’m afraid you’ll find some stuff that just isn’t very shiny.  Plus, the studies actually show that people who carry a baby to term, give birth, then give it up for adoption suffer HIGHER rates of post-pregnancy complications like post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis, general depression, and other mental health issues.  Adoption actually isn’t good for the person giving birth at all!

I’m afraid the picture you chose to use there is also pretty disingenuous.  I know, I know, it seems like nitpicking.  I’m not trying to be mean!  :(  But that picture shows a fully developed, viable infant, and most abortions are performed when the fetus isn’t even a fetus - it’s a blastocyst.  That’s just a clump of cells.  Seriously! You can totally find pictures on the interwebs and they’re not even gross, LOLOL!  Later-term abortions are usually performed because of health complications, though some of our intrepid state legislators are trying to change all that!  They care so much about people who are pregnant, you see, that they want to force them to carry dead or dying fetuses inside them until their body either becomes infected while it rots in their tummies (this is called sepsis, and it makes people very sick, and can even kill them!), or forces it out naturally in a gush of blood and fluids!  Isn’t that so caring of them?  I’m so glad they’re around to make those decisions for me!  And if a pregnant person is not allowed to terminate an unviable fetus, in some states, they have to carry the child to term, give birth to it, and then watch it die in their arms because its lungs weren’t developed, or its brain formed outside its skull, or any of a million possible birth defects that will kill you just as quick as lickity-split!  Isn’t that wild?!  Of course, these people go through terrible grief, and as I mentioned, some of them may get sick and die from not being able to abort dead or dying fetuses.  But I guess that’s just A-okay with you, huh?

Basically, I think before you suggest adoption as a universal alternative, you should actually go do some research on adoption.  And before you condemn abortion, you should do some research on abortions - not the stuff your church is giving you, the stuff the real doctors are saying.  Go to Planned Parenthood (if they haven’t all been closed down, ROFLMAO!) and request whatever information they have on the process, the statistics of who has abortions and why… and actually, all of that is on the interwebs!  Isn’t technology AMAZING?

And in closing, since I’ve been asked this question many times and I know it’s coming?  Yes, I realize I am here talking to you because I was not aborted.  But the thing is, if my mother had chosen abortion, I wouldn’t know the difference, so it wouldn’t matter to me.  And if she decided that choice was best for her, then that choice would have been best for her, and I would never want to take that choice away from her.  As it is, since I was given up for adoption, and since I have seen the statistics on how badly people who give their children up for adoption suffer, I have spent much of my adult life worrying about her, whether she’s healthy, whether she’s okay, and feeling that if she did suffer from any of the common post-birth symptoms, it is at least partially my fault, even though she made that decision on her own.  Which is silly, I know, but at some point, all children have to stare down the consequences of their parents’ having them.  For some, that’s poverty.  For others, a life-time of their parents struggling to treat and care for a severe illness or disability.  For others, it’s wondering if their mother ever got over giving them away, and wishing you could reach out and assure her that it’s okay, she doesn’t have to be haunted.

Then we go overseas where it’s all “You’re pregnant out of wedlock, let’s stone you to death instead of giving you and others like you birth control or the option to abort.  I’m sorry that we live in such a fucked up society that if I force myself on you and get pregnant you’re still the one who is shamed.  Wait no I’m not, suck it up and deal with it”, “You’ve been told your baby is dying in the womb, no abortion for you girl, you have to keep it and die of blood poisoning.  Too bad we could have avoided it if we were more understanding of a woman and her body”.

Open your eyes for God’s sake.  You can’t even get pregnant, you’re a man and I get that you have a right to your unborn child and the potential for mental trauma.  But you personally are not at risk of dying from pregnancy complications.  You personally are not at risk of being shunned by your community and killed for carrying someone elses child.  You personally are not having to carry the mental and physical scars of going through an unwanted pregnancy with your potential rapists child.  You personally are not at risk of being considered used, dirty and unwanted because of something you could have avoided if proper health care was available to you.  You aren’t personally responsible for raising a child (or person with mental capacity of a child) who also has a child because “Abortion is murder in all circumstances”.