So, let's say that Roe v. Wade is overturned. . .

[xiphias]

Fundamentally, it seems to me that, while the right to privacy IS a vitally important issue, there's a more fundamental right that Roe v. Wade protects -- the right to control one's own body.

There is quite literally no right more fundamental than the right to do what you want to do with your own body, to the extent that it doesn't infringe on other people. And that sentence, right there, sums up the whole abortion debate in one sentence. If you think a fetus is a person, then restricting access to abortion is potentially justifiable, because you're weighing the rights of two people against each other.

However, f you think a blastocyst is in no reasonable sense a human being, as I, for instance, feel, then a restriction of access to abortion is simply an example of an abrogation of the most fundamental right a person can have -- the right to their own body.

Restricting access to abortion to a woman who wants one is therefore a way of forcing her to work on behalf of a third party -- the fetus (who may or may not have legal standing.)

Could you make an argument based on the 13th Amendment therefore?

For what it's worth: I think that that any law in reference to abortion is inherently a stopgap measure. The only reasonable solution is technological: artificial wombs.

Fundamentally, what should happen is that any woman who doesn't want to have her body used as an incubator for a parasite, for whatever reason, should be allowed to have that fetus removed and placed into an artificial womb in which it could grow to term.

If a fetus does have any sort of legal standing, such a step would protect its hypothetical right to existence, without removing the mother's non-hypothetical right to control of her own person.

Comments

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth: I think that that any law in reference to abortion is inherently a stopgap measure. The only reasonable solution is technological: artificial wombs.

Fundamentally, what should happen is that any woman who doesn't want to have her body used as an incubator for a parasite, for whatever reason, should be allowed to have that fetus removed and placed into an artificial womb in which it could grow to term.

If a fetus does have any sort of legal standing, such a step would protect its hypothetical right to existence, without removing the mother's non-hypothetical right to control of her own person.

I have to disagree. That's not quite good enough either.

Because you're still forcing the woman to become a mother, even if not a parent, if you follow. She may not then have to carry that fetus, but if you force her to allow that fetus to develop and then become a person, you have forced her to reproduce. You have also exposed her to the ever-growing likelihood that this unwanted child will track her down and want a relationship with her someday whether she does or not. There are any number of reasons a woman might not want any of these things happening.

In the end, nothing will do but the right to choose not to have anything to do with it IMO.

[cheshyre]

I will say that those arguments are precisely ones Men's Rights Activists use to try to avoid child support payments and to have more control over the women upon whom they've fathered a child.

The man doesn't want to be a father, doesn't want anything to do with the kid, but because it's the woman's body, it's her choice to keep it if she wants, and he's stuck with it.
In their case, they want to be able to write off all rights/responsibilities/connection to the kid because they didn't want it. Judges usually throw this argument out of court on the lines of (a) if he didn't want it that badly, he shouldn't've given her sole responsibility for contraception, and (b) ruling on what's in the best interests of the child.

[Not agreeing nor disagreeing, and I don't follow the MRA/Fathers' Rights movements as much as some, but it's something I've heard.]

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Yes, they are the same arguments. And frankly, I agree with them too.

If a woman is pregnant by someone who she has no legal contract with (marriage, civil union, whatever) whereby she had an expectation of his assured presence and support, and he tells her when they find this out "Look, I don't want to do this", and she says, "Well, I want this baby and I'm having it anyway", I don't think it's right to force him to participate. She's been given fair warning; it's then on her to find the resources if she chooses to bear and keep that child.

So yes, I'm not one of those people who wants the knife to cut only one way. If it's the woman's body and the woman's choice, let the responsibility for the consequences be hers as well.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that a woman could carry a child to term, give it up for adoption, and then have her own records sealed so that the child could not track her down. I would say that something like that would have to be part of this theory, too.

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

Adoptees can get the records unsealed, if they have a reason. I know someone who went to court to find out her birth parents' names because she needed to know their medical histories to help with treatment of her cancer, for example. She had no trouble getting the information.

[blackthornglade.livejournal.com]

In the state I was adopted in (Illinois, arguably one of the hardest and most controlled adoption states), sealed records remain sealed. The *ONLY* exception that I'm aware of is for a medical condition that is life threatening...as in you have to *have* it before you can go to the courts to request they be unsealed.

Illinois *does* have a voluntary matching database that will either release medical records only, assuming the parents have entered it/approved it, or, if *both* sides want, will release contact info. Those are the only two ways.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

That is the theory, yes; but that is being challenged regularly. There are no guarantees. There are also other issues besides not being contacted. What if the woman was raped and doesn't want her rapist to have offspring by her, whether she ever had to meet them or not? What if she doesn't want to add to the human population of the planet? Personally, I think it's creepy to force her to yield up reproductive matter out of her own body to grow another person against her will.

[yardlong.livejournal.com]

I agree that forcing the woman to become a mother is unacceptable. My view is that there is no "other person" with which to compete until birth, because birth confers personhood. I also agree with your view on the Men's Rights issue, inasmuch as the woman who makes the choice is responsible for her choice.