Hi yasic, I would like to provide my thoughts on two things that you mentioned here. You wrote
"It is more than just 9 months, it is 9 months with medical risks, emotional harm, and a host of other issues.
And even if it were just 9 months, the child still has no right to mooch off an innocent victim against her consent."
The way that you said the women was an innocent victim, I'm guessing that you would place the fetus as an unwanted invader and their being their an injustified interference?
Bodily integrity doesn’t overrule the right to life unless in done self-defence. Which presumes that the child is attacking its mother by gestating and causing the pregnancy. This is nonsense. Your own child in gestation is completely the natural result of sexual intercourse of the parents. The child did not force the parents to create a being who needed their womb. You cannot be acting in aggression if someone elses actions beyond your control forced you to be in someone elses property, without your consent, and without the ability to move elsewhere. You are completely innocent and not worthy of capital punishment. The guilt and responsibility of you being there is completely the result of other people-in this case the same people who are accusing you of trespassing and claiming they have a right to cause fatal injury due to said, tresspassing. You can’t kill someone who is isn’t there by their own decision and actions.
There is also the bizarre turnaround where in the third trimester the women is unable to claim ‘self-defence against attack on bodily integrity’ even though nothing in the situation has changed. The ‘attacker’ ‘trespasser’ what have you, is still on private property without permission, places even more demands on her than at the beginning of the pregnancy and now, having reached viability, doesn’t actually have to be there. Yet at viability, the charges of ‘attacker’ ‘invader’ and ‘trespasser’ have been dropped, because apparently this attacker suddenly has gained more rights to not be removed, even though they are unwanted and they can clearly move. Quite clearly ‘bodily sovereignty’ is not absolute. But why should a right to life have to give way for ‘right to expel an unwanted invader’ at the beginning of an attack, but the complete opposite at the end of the attack when more force is being applied? If someone is more of an intrusion, they get less right to be there, especially when, after viability, they do not have to be there. When someone can move off a property and go elsewhere trespassing charges not increased to get that person off safely but are suddenly tailed off and eventually dropped altogether. But when someone is incapable of not being in private property and unable to move elsewhere, (not out of spite or laziness) but out of a physical disability ‘trespasser’ charges are applied. Bizarre.
Surely ‘trespassing’ is only imposed upon people who have the physical ability to understand privacy and are not forced to be upon private land without the ability to move and survive outside of it, but those who choose to break the law and put themselves on the land, though their being there is not crucial to their survival.
Pregnancy is designed to keep the baby safe from an environment that, at the moment, is inappropriate and hostile for it to be in. Pregnancy is designed to be this ‘attacker’ safe. Pregnancy is designed to keep this ‘attacker’ safe on the property rather than outside of it. This fact does not make sense is the baby is an ‘attacker.’ It would make no biological sense for the biological offspring to be an ‘attacker’ to its biological parents, particularly in mammals where the reproductive setup is the offspring inside the parent for the first part of its life. Pregnancy is not an allergic reaction as your body fights the intrusion. In fact, the natural response to the women’s body is supplying the means in which this ‘attacker’gets stronger, rather than weaker. Women have periods because their womb has been prepared for the baby to attatch and has been prepared to make this attatchment easy for it to do so. Its pretty clear that pregnancy is not an unjustified attack but a natural happening that the body expects and is prepared to encourage the pregnancy to continue. The default position of your body (or her, I dunno if you’re a guy), as a mammal, is that the baby is not an ‘unwanted invader.’ If humans were reptiles, or fish, then I would see yout point, because then your offspring living inside of you would be an invader. But humans do not lay eggs or do they disperse gametes into water to be fertilised, they gestate.
You also wrote;
I do disagree with you in that if it is decided that personhood starts at conception that a woman has no right to remove it, if she got pregnant against her will (rape). In this case alone, the woman is not responsible for the existence of the child and in this case the right to bodily integrity does in fact apply, and overrules the right of life of the child.
By current law (and rightfully so IMO), a person cannot be forced to supply their body to keep someone else alive (unless responsible for the other persons condition in certain situations), this includes the use of the womb, blood, kidneys, and the like for a baby.
I agree with your statement that people cannot be forced to supply body parts for donation, but I don’t see how this applies to the condition of a mother pregnant with her child. You noted that some people can be forced to supply the remedy for the person’s condition if that condition is the result of their actions. First of all I think I would like to bring to the table that sexual intercourse can bring into creation a child and not only that, its always a child a) that has a need b)tat help is specifically and naturally satisfied by the womb. The womb itself is particularly designed for this child to use during this particular need. As a women, in my body, I have a particular organ that it specifically just for my offspring’s use during embryonic and fetal development. The womb is not crucially designed to keep me alive, it is however, specifically designed and crucial for my offspring’s survival, should I do the thing that makes any. This is not the case with any other organs in my body. None of them are designed purposely for a strangers, even a close family’s use. They are a second-best fit during sickness or injury. The fetus is not using the womb out of sickness or injury but out of necessity of being created, and not having the abilty to be created functioning fully independantly, only with needs.
I would also like to bring to attention, again, to the point that you made that sometimes we can force people, their time and attention to bring us out of danger if they have caused to place us in harm’s way. The women is responsible for her child’s condition of needing the use of her womb. The child, once been concieved, is incapable of being without need and without the abilty to have that need satisfied by anyone else. It’s a package deal. There is also that the child is always created(and created with a need) without its consent. This is causing someone to be completely dependant on yourself in a situation of their life or death, and all this without their consent. This is placing someone in harms way, therefore because you have placed someone in harm’s way you are obligated to get them out of it as safely as possibly. You owe them, they do not owe you. They certainly do not owe you their death to get you out of the responsibility of sacrificing your time and emotions and use of your own body, whatever it entails, in order to get them in their own two feet safely.
Also in the case of refusal of giving a kidney/ blood whatever is always before the possible joining of the reciever to that organ. In the case of non-consent to your offspring using your womb, this is expressed only after the person expressing this has, in one fail swoop, caused the need in the reciever for their organ specifically and has made the reciever use the organ already. Package deal. This is also done without the knowledge and consent of the reciever, but done in knowledge by the donor. The non-consent of the donor is a non-issue here because the donor themselves, before they expressed their non-consent, did the thing themselves that physically made the reciever start using the organ, therefore consent was given. Change your mind? Tough. No one is allowed to take their blood/kidney back, after they physically let ther reciever start using their organ. And if the reciever had be made to die-not naturally out of the orginal disease or injury but out of applied force- before they are removed out of physical attactment of the donated organ that you want back-even worse. Abortion is not ‘refusal to give aid or charity’ therefore letting strangers die of natural causes, its applied physical force to our biological children to stop them getting what they need to get to independence after we, knowingly, created them and specifically depedant specifically on us. This breaks three priniciples, none of which are done in charity or acts of a good samaritan. The enforcement of this upon everyone is not slavery, its how society works.
Parental obligation to provide an environment that adds to our children’s wellbeing.
Non-aggression obligation
Obligation to do what is in your power to deliver people that you’ve put in harms way to safety.
If some humans do not receive this treatment, or it is said that in fact, its not wrong if they get the complete opposite, then they are victims of severe discrimation and injustice. You also mentioned the issue of rape which I understand is even more difficult to explain and may conflict with the premises brought up in the arguments above. If you would like to hear my views, you are welcome to ask for them and I'll give them seperately, but I've been typing all day and am quite tired.
Take care.
