Thoughts on reproductive rights
September 24th, 2008 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunadelcorvoI was inspired to post this as a comment to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
virginia_fell's excellent post regarding reproductive rights and recent legislation, so I thought I would post it here as well. Please, read, and discuss!
Why abortion MUST remain legal, and why we, as a society, have NO legal precedent to outlaw or limit access to it or to any form of birth control.
In this country, we do not mandate organ donation, we do not even mandate blood donation. Even in the case of a family member asked to donate life saving bone marrow, we do not, as a society, find it appropriate to make this compulsory, even when we can sit and talk to the person whose life hangs in the balance. Even after death, our wishes with regard to our own physical bodies determine whether our organs may or may not be used to save the lives of other human beings. And it is right that we should not. If the government tried to make these things mandatory under law, I am confident at least as many Christians and religious persons as non-religious would be having fits, and for once I would agree, though doubtless for different reasons.
Do these measures save lives? Of course. Is this a good thing? Naturally, no question. But mandatory, to be legislated and enforced by the law of the land. Absolutely not.
But to remove or restrict the right to abortion & birth control is to remove the control of one human over their body in order to sustain the life of another, something we clearly do not find appropriate. Even if you assume a fetus IS a human being from conception/implantation, if the law of the land cannot help itself to my kidneys when I am dead, nor to my blood or tissue while alive, in order to support the life of another human being, why is it that the law should be able to mandate the use of my body, against my wishes, for a period of nine months, to support the life of another human being? The answer is that it cannot, any more than it can compel organ, tissue or blood donation.
Is it better to avoid the necessity of abortion? Of course. (Better still not make sure that all women have full, complete and informed access to birth control, which will drastically remove the demand for abortion in the first place.) But to make full term carriage mandatory, to be legislated and enforced by the law of the land? Absolutely not.
virginia_fell's excellent post regarding reproductive rights and recent legislation, so I thought I would post it here as well. Please, read, and discuss! Why abortion MUST remain legal, and why we, as a society, have NO legal precedent to outlaw or limit access to it or to any form of birth control.
In this country, we do not mandate organ donation, we do not even mandate blood donation. Even in the case of a family member asked to donate life saving bone marrow, we do not, as a society, find it appropriate to make this compulsory, even when we can sit and talk to the person whose life hangs in the balance. Even after death, our wishes with regard to our own physical bodies determine whether our organs may or may not be used to save the lives of other human beings. And it is right that we should not. If the government tried to make these things mandatory under law, I am confident at least as many Christians and religious persons as non-religious would be having fits, and for once I would agree, though doubtless for different reasons.
Do these measures save lives? Of course. Is this a good thing? Naturally, no question. But mandatory, to be legislated and enforced by the law of the land. Absolutely not.
But to remove or restrict the right to abortion & birth control is to remove the control of one human over their body in order to sustain the life of another, something we clearly do not find appropriate. Even if you assume a fetus IS a human being from conception/implantation, if the law of the land cannot help itself to my kidneys when I am dead, nor to my blood or tissue while alive, in order to support the life of another human being, why is it that the law should be able to mandate the use of my body, against my wishes, for a period of nine months, to support the life of another human being? The answer is that it cannot, any more than it can compel organ, tissue or blood donation.
Is it better to avoid the necessity of abortion? Of course. (Better still not make sure that all women have full, complete and informed access to birth control, which will drastically remove the demand for abortion in the first place.) But to make full term carriage mandatory, to be legislated and enforced by the law of the land? Absolutely not.
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Date: September 24th, 2008 11:13 pm (UTC)