20 March 2006 - 9:38am
Assumptions behind "the abortion debate"
As we see more and more people -- mostly men, let's face it -- stepping up and pontificating about abortion, I find something rather striking and unavoidable: the assumptions that seem to form the foundation for the debate as it's being presented by politicians, pundits, columnists and the media.
Assumptions like:
- Women are incapable of making "moral" decisions (and therefore we need laws to control women).
- Women don't have any "self-evident" or "inalienable" rights when it comes to their reproductive parts.
- Men know more about the issue than women (and therefore women cannot decide for themselves).
- Women who have sex are somehow "less than" everyone else (and therefore not entitled to even claim a right to their own bodies).
- Men's sperm have constitutional rights (and therefore women who've permitted sperm to enter them have ceded their constitutional rights).
- Men must decide how much control, if any, women shall have of their own bodies (and therefore all these laws are only a natural outgrowth of the natural order of things).
These assumptions are there. Hear it in the things said. Hear it in the things left unsaid. Read it between the lines.
Every so-called "pro-choice" person who just wants us all to "be reasonable" about abortion is buying into the assumptions above to varying degrees.
Every person who disagrees with the points above is labeled as "radical" -- not just by the right, but by so-called "progressives," too.
Given these, is it any surprise that the misogynist rightists claim "the sanctity of life" in embryos but not in women? Is it any surprise that they are going after birth control as well?
Why are so many of the self-proclaimed "pro-choice" voices silent? Why do so many of people who claim to believe in equal rights buy into the assumptions above? What do these assumptions say about our society?
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The state asserts its power over what happens inside a woman's body. Using arguments about "life," the state asserts it is working for the common good by compelling a woman to carry through a pregnancy - even if it endangers the woman's life or if the pregnancy was forced.
This same logic - the state controlling someone's body for the common good - might be extended to kidney donation, or bone marrow transplantation, or even blood donation. Until now, these have been voluntary and being an organ donor is a personal choice.
If the state has a compelling interest in seeing pregnancies through because of life, what about these other situations.
To whom does the body belong?
It can be argued, "but there's a baby. What about the baby's right to life?"
Well, that's a pretty point, because there are any number of people who are well beyond "baby" who need organs, marrow, and blood to give them their "right to life."
On the one hand we find it morally repugnant, and pretty much illegal, to sell our kidney (just like we can't sell babies), but it is right for the state to get involved if it preserves life?
How selfish of someone to die without having offered their body to the state. The state has more use for the corpse than does the bereaved family.
If a woman's womb can be seen as needing state regulation for the "right to life," then a man's body could also be used in this way - to the concept of organs, marrow, and blood.
With most people having two healthy kidneys, and each year a significant number of kisney patients can no longer tolerate kidney dialysis, under the right to life, what stops the state from compelling people "donate" their kidneys?
The state is crossing a line and some want to make is a sharp line. Wombs only, but that line is not as sharp as some would like it to be.
Today it may merely be wombs, but as the anti-abortion people oft remind us of a slippery slope, they aren't looking at the precipice behind themselves. And that slope is at least as slippery as the one they have their eyes on.
A blanket right to life means adult life, too, and the day make come that our bodies are the property of the state.
Actually, if you ask me, a person should be allowed to sell a kidney if he so chooses. Free market and all that.
--|PW|--
I hear how "selfish" women are when they ask that a rapist's leavings be removed from their bodies. I wonder if those who are trumpeting so loud about this are ready to take the next step and say that people who aren't organ donors are selfish?
Life they say begins at conception, but it ends at death, so why not harvest the needed parts to help others live? That would be the argument for the other side of this coin.
After all, the person with a tissue match to yours has a right to life. You cannot simply withhold organs on demand!