If a pregnant woman decides she will have the baby, can she do whatever she wants with the fetus while it is inside her? (since “it’s her body”)
Do proponents of the “It’s my body” argument think there are any limits to this argument?
What are you asking, specifically? Are you referring to drug or alcohol abusers? Do they have a right to drink or abuse drugs while pregnant? I would say no, myself, BUT what are you going to do about it? Should we propose that such women should be locked up until they have their babies? Should we force such women to have birth control until such time that they might be fit mothers? If they didn’t want to be locked up in a baby factory, would you allow them an abortion? Where would you draw the line at endangerment? A glass of wine now and then? Living with a smoker? Being caught at a party where marijuana is being smoked? How about bungee jumping? Speeding without a seat belt? How about this? Should parents who are likely to pass serious genetic diseases or defects have the right to reproduce? Personally, I would like to see EVERYBODY put on mandatory birth control until they have proven they would be fit parents, but then somebody would have to decide who is fit, and whatever system was put in place would be corrupted in favor of people with money and power, or biased towards certain races, etc.
Yes, what about causing the suffering of a fetus you plan to keep? Is that the same as child abuse? What if you are planning on aborting?
The trouble is, this could change from moment to moment. Vehicular manslaughter of a pregnant woman can include a count for the fetus’s death, but what if she was on her way to the abortion clinic?
A woman could say she’s decided one way or another, but it could be conditional on future issues, etc.
I’ve always thought the ultimate test in the “it’s my body” argument is the Siamese twin test.
Let’s say that there is a set of cojoined twins, whom we’ll call (just to pick names out of a hat) Chang and Eng. Now, let’s say that Eng decides (for whatever reason) that he wants to end his life. We determine that he is perfectly sane and competent to make this decision. However, if we allow Eng to commit suicide, it will not only result in his death, but in Chang’s as well.
Do we allow Eng to say “it’s my body” and kill himself (and Chang too), or do we acknowledge that there might be limits on this right?
Zev Steinhardt
I’m not sure this is a helpful example in this case. In your example, both twins are alive and are condidered individual human beings.
In the case of a fetus, many people do not accept that it is a human being worthy of protection.
That is why the question becomes more tricky: can the woman do anything it wants to this fetus, which by itself has no standing as a person, if she has already decided she wants to have the baby? (with the understanding that whetever she does to the fetus will negatively affect the baby that she decided to have)
I don’t see how it is either twins fault that they were born connected to a different person.
Certainly ending his own life will be a larger moral question than if he was an independent person, but I don’t see that anyone can deny him his right to do with his life as he will.
Yeah, this is a ridiculous analogy. Essentially Eng would be committing murder - suicide. You wouldn’t argue that someone has the right to commit suicide *and * take someone with them. Unfortunate that he’s stuck with his brother, but you can’t ignore the circumstances.
It’s not so much an analogy as it is a test of how far the “it’s my body” rights go. If you want to say that they stop in this case, then that’s fine. However, if you maintain an unlimited “it’s my body…” right, then Eng should have the ability to commit suicide, regardless of what other effects happen as a result.
Zev Steinhardt
I’m sorry, but I really think it’s is bad comparison. Eng does not have his “own” body, he* shares* one with his brother.
I am pro-choice, and would agree that a fetus is not a person. However, I would also say that once the choice has been made to go through with the pregnancy then the fetus should be treated, and the given the respect of a developing person. While the woman ultimately has the “right” do whatever she wants while pregnant*, it would in my mind, be abusive to the unborn child to do things like smoke and drink.
*Does anyone know if there are any laws saying what you can or cannot do while pregnant?
Do you think there should be laws saying what you can or cannot do while pregnant?
Actually, our current law doesn’t hold that “the fetus isn’t a person”. It just holds that the rights of the mother to bodily autonomy outweigh whatever rights the fetus might or might not have. And that right to bodily autonomy is NOT absolute.
So you don’t have the right to purposefully cause deformities in your unborn baby.
But the problem with “no smoking while pregnant”, as well as “no early abortion” laws is enforcement. How are you going to tell whether some woman walking down the street smoking a cigarette is pregnant? You can’t force someone to wear a neon “I’m pregnant!” sign every time they go out in public. So if person A gets pregnant, smokes a cigarette, and takes a pill to terminate the pregnancy, how is law enforcement ever going to become aware that a crime has taken place?
So banning abortion by pill becomes impossible, all you can effectively do is ban the pills themselves. And we know that a very large fraction of pregnancies…probably over 50%…spontaneously terminate. How is law enforcement going to separate those from induced terminations?
I don’t think your siamese twin model quite works. You are comparing siamese twins who have already been born and lived long enough for one to decide that life isn’t worth living with a fetus and a pregnant woman. I don’t see that much of a similarity.
I haven’t sorted the whole abortion question out yet and because of that I’m hesitant to tell someone else what to do if they are pregnant. That seems to me to be the real problem with the anti-abortion movement. Its adherents are bent on deciding for someone else what that individual should do without exact knowledge of all the factors of the situation facing that individual.
As to the OP question. No, I don’t think a pregnant woman who intends to carry the fetus to term has a right to do things that are apt result in a physically or mentally defective individual being born. However, I’m not at all convinced that this is a valid argument against the “it’s my body” claim in cases where abortion is the aim of the woman.
Is this in fact law today?
Also, what do proponents of the “It’s my body” argument think of a woman’s right to purposefully cause deformities in her unborn baby (assuming she is planning on having the baby)?
To a hardcore anti-abortionist where a foetus is a human every bit as much as the mother is, the siamese case is perfectly valid a case. It may not be relevant to the discussion in the world-view of the majority of the board, but limitting the discussion to only our shared world-view is inherently dishonest.
It is a question of where the line is in the big question of “What do I have the right to choose to kill for my own selfish reasons?”
- Virii
- Bacteria
- Plants
- Annoying Insects
- Other Animals
- Cute Animals
- Foetuses
- Pets
- Post-Foetus/Prebirth Masses
- Yourself
- Connected Siamese Twin (via Killing Yourself)
- Baby (see threads on India/China killing of female babies–this is a distinctive class for some cultures)
- Anyone Else
I’ve tried to put these in a sort of ordering from what might be least-worst to worst (of course it will vary) but I don’t see that we aren’t discussing just this topic.
And how would the answer be different if “Chang” were brain dead? I wouldn’t think that there would be a moral issue with severing Eng’s ties with Chang, or even with Eng committing suicide.
The “it’s my body” argument does not extend to harm done to others - it is certainly wrong for someone to kill himself in a crowded room with a bomb, right?
The problem in making this illegal is that not all things a mother can do that might cause harm will cause harm. My mother smoked when she was pregnant with me, and no obvious harm resulted. (Back then they did not know it was an issue.) Ditto with drinking.
What is the probability that an action cause harm to trigger a law? Does anyone know if a child born deformed because of a mother’s actions has been able to sue? That would be a lower standard, I would guess, and would represent actual harm, not potential harm.
I reserve the right to say that I don’t think the siamese twin case is applicable and any hardcore anti-abortionist is free to post the argument that it is. However, the hard core anti-abortionist has no need for the siamese twin example. The fertilized egg and all subsequent stages of the developing blastocyst, fetus and so on is a human being to him or her, independent of any hypothetical construct involving siamese twins.
Agreed,; it just seemed a point that needed to be made.
Well, mostly agreed. For the hard-core anti-abortionist, the siamese twin example is the only way they have of translating their world view into yours and why it is that they can absolutely not agree with abortion. But so long as that linkage is made, indeed, it can be dropped thereafter.
That would be an interesting thing to find out.
But the crux of what I want to get to is not what the law currently says, but what do people think should be the case.
Do people think a child born deformed because of a mother’s actions should be able to sue?
Anyone can sue. The question would be is it demonstrable in court that the mother’s actions, and hers alone, casuse the deformity. Are we really that sure of cause and effect in any particular case? I think the evidence is that alcohol increases the risk of certain defects but any particular case isn’t a well-controlled experiment with other variables eliminated and stuff like that.