This is a big fat sticking point for me. And it wretches my stomach to think that otherwise reasonable and moral people would think this is ok. It's threads like this that makes me think that most of GAF's liberal minds have fallen off the deep end some times.
Ultimately, rights are a human construct. What we as a society choose to protect is a mark of the quality of the society and of ourselves.
To put a person's bodily autonomy above the sanctity of life - when we're talking about destroying a waking sentient being - the thing that gives us reason and worth as a species in the first place... because the woman bearing it decided past a fairly generous cut-off date, past the obviousness of the pregnancy itself, despite the options for giving the child up, that she'd rather not have to suffer the indignity or inconvenience of bearing a human life to term...
Seems to me as a society that gives little consistent care or consideration to the import of human life, one that fails to understand why human life is important... or even the nature of humanity itself.
Luckily, back in the real world, and not this sounding board, most people don't agree with the notion of late term abortions.
The vagina isn't really a magical canal of personhood - the fetus doesn't suddenly become more human once it's ejected from the body. But to listen to many here; you'd think that one day before birth, while the baby is still in the mother, abortion is still a reasonable and correct course of action. This is plainly ludicrous for any reasonable person to see - and to take a position otherwise marks one as an extremist for personal freedoms.
Maybe it wasn't clear enough, but all I said was that the woman had a right to have the fetus removed from her body - not kill it.
That the fetus is killed in an abortion is regrettable, for it is life and I believe life should not be killed if it can be avoided, but it's an inevitable consequence of abortion.
That's why I personally support legislation that bans abortions past that date where it is viable enough to survive outside of the womb, and not on the basis of its capacity to feel sensation, cognitive processes, or other things we value in humans.
That's before we get into pregnancy complications, severe malformations, genetic disorders that drastically reduce quality of life, and so on, but that's a discussion for another thread imho.
Bodily autonomy isn't without restriction, however. I am not allowed to physically assault you with my fists, for example. The government can reasonably restrict what I can do with my body in such a case.
The issue here is that if you assume (as most pro-lifers do) that the fetus is a person who ought to be afforded rights, whose bodily autonomy do you protect? If abortion is allowed, you're saying it's okay to deny the fetus' bodily autonomy. If abortion is not allowed, you're saying that it's okay to deny the mother's bodily autonomy. And I think many pro-lifers view temporarily restricting the mother's autonomy as preferable to permanently restricting the fetus' autonomy through death.
And there's another issue that I don't see discussed much. Let's assume that the mother's autonomy trumps the fetus' autonomy. We decide that in much the same way I can't be compelled to donate a kidney, the mother can't be compelled to donate ~9 months of nutrients and bodily support to the fetus. That in itself only allows the mother to cut off the pregnancy. It does not allow her to kill the fetus. It might be acceptable to let a fetus die just like it's acceptable (though unfortunate) that someone needing my kidney will die if I don't donate it. But I am not allowed to poison the would-be kidney recipient.
Given that, is it allowable to you for a woman to receive a late-term abortion of a viable fetus? After all, it's still infringing on her autonomy.
That is essentially the position I hold, see my response to Zaptruder above.
I should also clarify that I don't hold the view that a fetus should be given rights on account of it belonging to the human race, but rather that any being capable of processing pain should be afforded protection from such pain, and death. I don't discriminate on a species level unlike most people, and so I must take that into account when it comes to my position on human abortion.
I accept animals being killed, not because they lack nebulous things such as rights, but because for some humans it is a necessity to get the micro- and macronutrients they need. That doesn't mean I like it, just as I imagine some pro-choice people who don't like abortions still accept them, but I'm not going to push for the ban of animal slaughter because it serves a purpose.
As for rights, well I disagree with Count Dookake. They are very much subjective constructs handed out by governments in an effort to make society function so much smoother. Would giving bodily autonomy to fetuses help society?
I think not, I actually think it would cause a lot of harm, whereas the alternative "only" results in un-aware beings dying.
