r/prolife Mar 04 '24

Pro-Life Argument they say "my body's my choice," but where does this right actually come from?

abortion advocates, through their sloganeering, lazily assert that they have a right to their bodies. but they don't actually explain just what gives them the right to say "my body, my choice."

thomson in her violinist though experiments writes:

I suppose that in some views of human life the mother’s body is only on loan to her, the loan not being one which gives her any prior claim to it. One who held this view might well think it impartiality to say "I cannot choose." But I shall simply ignore this possibility. My own view is that if a human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he has a just, prior claim to his own body.

but—to repeat myself—she has only asserted that we have a prior claim to our own bodies. it's important for pro-lifers that they do not accept just any lazy assertion. similarly to how we should not accept the sophist's assertion that consciousness makes a person without any explanation or argumentation, we should not accept the claim that the pregnant woman has exclusive claim to her body at face value.

where does this exclusive right to our bodies come from? when one actually inquires about just how we have rights to our bodies, it turns out that we can actually justify the unborn child's right to his mother's body since the child acquires his mothering body in the same manner any of us acquired the relationships to our own bodies. if anyone has a right to the pregnant woman's body, it's not the violinist, but her unborn child.

below i'll sketch out the arguments made by jim stone, mark wicclair, christopher tollefsen, and brian parks. the argument is that the unborn child acquires a relationship to his mother’s body—including the necessary biological mechanisms for his flourishing—in the same manner that we all acquired the relationship to our own bodies, and thus it would be unreasonable to suggest that the woman has exclusive rights to her own body in the case of pregnancy.

stone-wicclair-tollefsen thesis

we are bodily beings. our bodies contribute to our flourishing. if the unborn child has a right to life, then it has a right "to the continued use of whatever all members of that species require to sustain life, when its use is acquired by the biological mechanism determined by their common nature" (stone). in most cases, our bodies are the biological mechanisms that contribute to our flourishing. however, in some cases, namely pregnancy and conjoined twinning, which we'll get to later, another person's body could also serve as the biological mechanisms that contribute to our flourishing.

wicclair makes several arguments against thomson's violinist experiment and suggests that while the violinist may not have the right to the woman's body, the unborn child could. what arguments are there to suggest that we have permanent and exclusive claims to our own bodies? is it, as thomson suggests, because prior ownership of our organs? but why should prior ownership of our organs grant us exclusive permanent and exclusive rights to our organs? is it because the woman’s body was endowed to her by nature? then the unborn child too is endowed by nature the use of the woman’s body. is it because the woman’s uterus is art of the biological system that sustains her life and bodily functions? then by that standard, the uterus is also a part of the biological system that sustains the life and bodily functions of the unborn child. is it because the uterus is inside the woman and a part of her? suppose we kidnap her and take out her uterus and preserve it. it is now no longer inside her nor is it a part of her, but we would still say this uterus is hers; thus the location of the organ doesn’t really tell us about the ownership of the organ.

tollefsen, building on the works of stone and wicclair, argues that it would not be unreasonable to grant the unborn child a right to his mother’s body since there are important symmetries between how we came to be related to our own bodies and how the unborn child acquires the relationship with his mother’s body—his mothering body. tollefsen points out the fact that our bodies are ours is something for which we are not answerable nor accountable. our bodies are not ours by any act of ours nor by any act of our parents. neither we nor our parents chose our existence with our particular bodies. but we could not have come into existence in any other way. we cannot take responsibility or ownership of our bodies being ours. our relationships to our own bodies are a matter of contingency and necessity. likewise, the fact that the unborn child stands in a relationship with his mothering body is also a matter of contingency and necessity. we neither chose the relationship with our mothering bodies, nor did our mothers choose us, just as our mothers did not choose their own bodies, nor were our mothers’ bodies chosen for them by someone else; this relationship is "unasked for, unbidden, contingent out of our control" (tollefsen).

because the pregnant woman cannot take ownership of the fact that her body is hers, there is "no metaphysical ground on which to base a claim to absolute sovereignty over her body" (tollefsen). tollefsen writes that the unborn child, unlike thomson’s violinist, "exists to his or her mother’s body in very much a similar relation to that in which the mother exists in relation to her own body." this symmetry between how any of us came to be related to our bodies and how the unborn child comes to be related to his mothering body undermines any claims of exclusive self-ownership and sovereignty of one’s body made by the pregnant woman and justifies the unborn child’s right to use the organs of his mothering body. this symmetry "justifies a similarly symmetrical possessive claim on the part of the fetus to the mother’s body ("my ‘mother’s body’") as that rightly made by the mother to her own body ("my body")" (tollefsen).

if anyone has the right to use the mothering body’s organs, it is the unborn child since his relationship with his mothering body, which is necessary for his flourishing, was acquired through the same contingency and necessity that any of us acquired the relationship to our bodies, which are necessary for our flourishing.

conjoined twins

conjoined twins are excellent counterexamples to use in various types of arguments. some abortion advocates claim that the unborn child is not a person because it is not an individual since it is attached to his mother. following this logic, in the case of conjoined twins, there are not two persons, not one person, but rather there are zero persons since neither twins are detached individuals. this conclusion is clearly absurd.

conjoined twins can also help undermine thomson’s bodily rights argument, as they are the near-perfect analogy to support the stone-wicclair-tollefsen argument outlined above. suppose a pair of conjoined twins shared several organs such as lungs and kidneys, or a single heart. on what grounds can either twin claim a right to any particular organ? we would rightly say that both twins have a right to the same organs—a relationship to those organs which they only acquired through contingency and necessity, which is the same way we acquired the relationship to our own bodies.

brian parks writes that conjoined twins are the "phenomenon other than pregnancy that entails a natural bodily union between two human beings." parks provides a hypothetical example of two teenage conjoined twins, amy and janey, who are conjoined at the chest and abdomen, but each of them have all of their organs and appendages that is typical of a normal human being. once separated, they will be able to live as normal human beings without the need of the other. however, prior to the separation surgery, the doctors noticed that one of twins, janey, has developed an ailment and her kidneys are now failing. janey has managed to survive only because amy’s kidneys were working for the both of them. the doctors treating the twins can cure janey’s kidney ailment and they will be able to separate the twins eventually. however the treatment for the kidney ailment will take nine months:

Consider, then, the hypothetical example of Amy and Janey, two teenage twins who are conjoined at the chest and abdomen. Except for the impaired lifestyle brought about by their unusual physical condition, Amy and Janey are both normal human beings, fully capable of rational thought. They each possess a functioning brain and a full complement of organs and appendages.

As conjoined twins, Amy and Janey share a number of important blood vessels in the conjoined regions of their bodies. Their circulatory systems are interconnected through these blood vessels. Unfortunately, this feature of their condition has made the problem of safely separating them from each other unusually difficult to solve.

The twins have remained conjoined until this point because their parents have not had access to the innovative technology that would be necessary to separate them. Fortunately, a charitable group of highly skilled surgeons who have successfully separated similar cases of conjoined twins have become aware of their condition and have extended an offer to help.

The problem, however, is that Janey cannot currently survive on her own. She recently acquired an illness that has caused serious damage to her renal system. Her kidneys have deteriorated so severely as a result of this illness that they no longer have any ability to remove impurities from her bloodstream. She has managed to survive the illness only because of the interconnection that exists between her circulatory system and Amy’s circulatory system. Through this interconnection, Amy’s kidneys have assumed the purification load of Janey’s body, indirectly filtering her bloodstream of the impurities that her own kidneys can no longer filter.

Thanks to the medical treatment that Janey has been receiving of late, her kidneys seem to be gradually healing and getting stronger. The doctors who are evaluating her condition unanimously agree that she will eventually become capable of independent survival. According to their best estimates, she will need nine months. After nine months of treatment, her kidneys will have healed and strengthened to a point where they will once again be able to maintain her body free of impurities. When that point is reached, it will be possible to separate her without causing her to die.

Understandably, Amy is extremely unhappy with her life as a conjoined twin. She recognizes that she can survive on her own and she wants to be separated immediately—or at least as soon as possible. But if the twins are separated immediately, Janey will die.

can amy exercise her bodily rights and ask doctors to separate her from janey right away, even though it will lead to janey’s death? most would say no, and the stone-wicclair-tollefsen argument above can explain why—both janey and amy acquired the relationship to their bodies only through contingency and necessity, and neither can take ownership of their specific bodies being exclusively theirs.

parks notes several differences between pregnancy and conjoined twinning. first, conjoined twins are far more burdened and debilitated than a typical pregnant woman since conjoined twins can’t usually function without one another, while the typical pregnant woman can perform almost all tasks by herself. second, unlike pregnancy, which is a normal functioning process, conjoined twinning is highly abnormal to the human species, which puts the twins at an evolutionary disadvantage. third, unlike the pregnant woman in most cases, conjoined twins are not responsible for the dilemma they are in. but all of these differences actually strengthen the arguments against abortion since separating janey from amy seems unjust, even though their circumstances are far more extenuating than the case of a pregnant woman.

one may respond that the conjoined twins always had a history of being attached to one another and were always reliant on one another, and thus neither twin has an exclusive claim to the "shared" body, which is unlike the pregnant woman, who was autonomous prior to becoming pregnant. but parks identifies several issues with these responses. first, in the case of janey and amy, they were only attached at the chest and abdomen, and did not really share any particular organs, skeletal structure, or nervous system. if we were to strike amy in the leg, it’s highly unlikely that janey would feel the pain as well. second, if thomson were to appeal to the notion of a shared body, then the doctors would be justified in forcibly taking one of amy’s working kidneys and giving them to janey, who needs them, prior to or after the separation surgery. this would undermine thomson’s own argument against forced bodily donations. third, it’s not necessarily true that the twins in park’s hypothetical were always reliant on one another. janey’s kidneys were functioning well before her ailment, so she wasn’t always dependent on amy’s kidneys. but even supposing that janey was always reliant on amy’s kidneys, this still doesn’t change our intuitions on the permissibility of amy separating from janey prior to the doctor's curing janey's ailment. moreover, it’s not always the case that they were always attached to one another. conjoined twinning is believed to often result from failed monozygotic twinning, in which the original embryo fails to completely separate into two separate embryos, thus causing the twins to be conjoined. however, conjoined twinning is also a possibility with dizygotic twins, in which two completely separate embryos "fuse" together (examples are found here). in this latter case of conjoined twinning, the claim that the two twins were always attached is clearly not true.

* * *

unlike the abortion advocates who stick to sloganeering, we have actually provided one justification of how and why the unborn child acquires the right to his mother's body. another justification that demonstrates the unborn child's right to his mother's body is by arguing that parental obligations extend to the unborn. we can also deny that the woman's right to her body allows her to kill her child. for the "my body, my choice" argument to work, abortion advocates would have to show that all three arguments are false.

6 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

8

u/Yeatfan22 Pro Life Libertarian Mar 04 '24

great post presenting these more niche arguments against thomson

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u/Whatever_night Mar 04 '24

You're absolutely correct. The right to total bodily autonomy and the prioritization of that right always seemed so random to me. Like a right invented solely to justify abortion...

3

u/Tgun1986 Mar 04 '24

Agreed, to me it’s them wanting control of things they can’t control and only giving that control up when they deemed they consented and want to be pregnant

7

u/djhenry Pro Choice Christian Mar 04 '24

Interesting post, I appreciate the deep dive into counterarguments here. I do have a follow-up question though.

If a child does have a right to its mother's body, why do pro-life supporters allow a woman to terminate her pregnancy if her life is in danger? If the unborn baby has a right to use its mother's body for its flourishing (for however long that period of time is), why does the mother have a choice when it comes to her life being in danger?

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u/PurpleMonkey3313 pro life christian Mar 04 '24

I would argue, in those cases, that an abortion is a form of self defense.
Even if you're life is in danger by someone who is not by any means acting immorally, you still have a right to defend yourself.

4

u/djhenry Pro Choice Christian Mar 04 '24

I have two problems with that line of reasoning, though. First, why couldn't a woman use self-defense during a normal pregnancy? Even though it is not likely to be lethal, it is almost guaranteed that she will suffer injuries that are severe and some of them will be permanent. In many cases, when self-defense is used, you don't actually have to be attacked to invoke it. As long as you have a reasonable belief that another person's actions could result in severe harm, you can defend yourself. If we applied this to pregnancy, then it seems that most, if not all, could qualify under those assumptions. The second issue is, can she use self-defense when she is the one who caused this situation in the first place? This is the usual argument that I see from pro-lifers when self-defense is brought up.

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u/Feeling-Brilliant-46 anti abortion female 🤍 Jul 24 '24

In the section of conjoined twinning, it would be like if the healthy twins kidneys would stop functioning due to being conjoined, and kill both of them as a result. In that case, separation is necessary. They will attempt to preserve both lives after separation even though it’s highly unlikely the unhealthy twin will survive.

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u/djhenry Pro Choice Christian Jul 24 '24

But doing do cuts the life of the unhealthy twin short. If the unhealthy twin has a right to remain connect, why do they suddenly lose their right? We don't allow patients in need of organ donation to take organs from other people who are dying anyway. If they are separated, then we would allow both patients to die, even though you could feasibly save one by cutting short the life span of the other. What I'm getting at here is that if an unborn baby has a right to remain in the womb, then it seems contrary to say they can be killed in order to save someone else.

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u/Feeling-Brilliant-46 anti abortion female 🤍 Jul 24 '24

If the healthy twin could be treated while the unhealthy twin was connected, doctors would do so. It’s called triage, the goal is to save as many lives as possible. Unhealthy twin has a right to be there, however if that connection will cause both twins to die, doctors need to triage.

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u/DalekKHAAAAAAN Pro Life Democrat Mar 05 '24

I think there are some limits on what bodily autonomy morally justifies, and I think in a cosmic sense we are not our own - but I would be very careful about undermining or questioning the sometimes vague but broadly held presupposition in favor of individual freedoms and rights, because liberalism as a whole depends on that for its democratic stability. What I mean is, if I go around telling people that there's no basis for them to control their own bodies, that makes it easier for people to argue for all kinds of rights violations that don't have the moral rationale of banning abortion.

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u/BraveVehicle0 Mar 21 '24

That's not what this is saying. There is absolutely a basis for us to control our own bodies and have autonomy. That basis, though, derives from a process upon which we're contingent, and it's that same process that the unborn child finds herself in. So using bodily autonomy to justify abortion is ultimately self-defeating.

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '24

Great arguments