Re:What I learned trying to classify abortion access across ...
by kelseyfrog on Monday July 18, 2022 @05:56PM
(#32144464)
This has helped clarify my thought - that bodily autonomy is non-alienable, not even through sex. Moreover it's non-alienable in the same way freedom from slavery is or less so in the way that certain contracts are unenforceable - they simply deprive too much.
Re:What I learned trying to classify abortion access across ...
by throwaway894345 on Monday July 18, 2022 @08:28PM
(#32145920)
I can understand that position if someone’s axiom is that an unborn child is “just a clump of cells”, but do you think it’s okay for a child to be killed in cases where a couple just couldn’t be bothered to use contraception?
If yes, in a hypothetical world in which giving a child up for adoption isn’t possible, would you support a parent killing their toddler because they don’t want to have to slave to support them (that is, their autonomy is harshly limited)? If no, how do you reconcile this with your position on abortion (e.g., perhaps you would draw some distinction between slavery/forced-labor and bodily autonomy?)?
Re:What I learned trying to classify abortion access across ...
by kelseyfrog on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @01:13AM
(#32147782)
Sorry, but this thread excludes arguments that presuppose the "life of a child" maybe there are different threads that follow that line of reasoning.
This thread is also not about post-birth situations. I'm strictly interested in discussing the construction of a bodily autonomy right to abortion that is not predicated on the aliveness of anything. Maybe you'll have better luck elsewhere.
No worries!
> I feel like analogizing here might confuse rather than clarify
Agreed--finding accurate analogies is hard for most things, IMHO.
> What is the underlying social reason for the agency-responsibility regarding pregnancy? I'm genuinely asking with the understanding that there may be multiple reasons, but I don't have an internal sense of agency-responsibility toward pregnancy that apparently others do. Under what principles is such a responsibility formulated?
Protection of life. Indeed, as a society we purport to value life (especially vulnerable life) even above commerce.
We also don't let parents neglect children even though this restricts parents' liberties. When you elect into parenthood (e.g., via consensual sex or adoption), you have a legal/moral responsibility to provide vital necessities to your children while they're in your care. Of course, once a child has been born, parents can elect to transfer that responsibility (to the state or other parent/s), but for obvious reasons we can't transfer care of an unborn baby.
Of course, this is predicated on the axiom that an unborn baby constitutes human life.