Does Bodily Autonomy Justify Abortion?

motherhood, abortion, bodily autonomy

Does bodily autonomy justify abortion? At first, that may seem like a ridiculous question. Of course it doesn’t. The right to life trumps every other right we have, including the right to bodily autonomy, so abortion is still wrong. Case closed.

Well, not quite. Consider this. If someone needs a life-saving blood transfusion, and you’re the only one around with a matching blood type, most people would agree that you cannot be forced to donate your blood to save their life. The police cannot arrest you, bring you to a hospital, and forcefully put a needle in your arm so they can take your blood and give it to the person in need.

Or consider another scenario. Imagine that someone has kidney failure, and all the dialysis machines in the world are being used. In this case, would it be right for the person’s doctors to forcibly sedate someone, remove one of his kidneys, and give it to their patient? Of course not!

And if that is the case, then why should women be forced to let their unborn children hook themselves up to their bodies and use them for nine months? If people can refuse to let others use their bodies in cases of blood and organ donation, why is pregnancy any different? This can be a difficult argument for pro-lifers to refute. It bypasses our usual talking points about human dignity and the universal right to life, so it can easily catch us off guard. How should we respond to it?

Killing vs. Letting Die

To begin, let’s note the biggest difference between abortion and refusing to donate blood or organs. Most methods of abortion in use today involve actually killing the fetus rather than simply expelling it from the woman’s body and letting it die outside her womb, and that is a huge difference.

Consider this analogy. Let’s say that someone with a super rare blood type needs a blood transfusion, and you are the only match in the entire world. If you do not want to help this person, it would be one thing for you to refuse to give them your blood, but it would be an entirely different matter for you to kill them so they stop bothering you about it. It is at least debatable whether you have to donate your blood to save this person’s life, but it is obviously wrong for you to straight up murder them.

And abortion is like that. We can talk about the morality of simply expelling a fetus from a woman’s body, but like I said before, most forms of abortion in use today involve actually killing the fetus. Consequently, just as it is wrong to kill someone so you don’t have to give them your blood, so too is it wrong to kill a fetus so you don’t have to let it use your body to survive.

Children vs. Random Strangers

But what if a woman really does just want to expel the fetus from her womb and then let it die? As uncommon as that may be, could it possibly be justified by bodily autonomy? Let’s consider one more scenario. Imagine that a woman lives alone with her newborn baby, and a huge snowstorm comes. She does not want to breastfeed her child, but she does not have any baby formula either. On top of that, the snow is so bad that she can’t go out to buy any, and nobody can get in to bring her any.

In that scenario, would she be justified in letting her baby die simply because she doesn’t want to breastfeed it? Can she appeal to bodily autonomy and refuse to let her child use her body to survive? Of course not! That would be absolutely monstrous.

And why is that? Why isn’t bodily autonomy the deciding factor in this case the way it is in the cases of blood and organ donation? I would suggest that it is because mothers have a unique responsibility towards their children, a responsibility that we do not have towards random strangers (obviously, fathers have this responsibility too, but since the bodily autonomy argument focuses on women, we will only speak about mothers). They have a responsibility to give their children the basic care they require, and that responsibility outweighs their right to bodily autonomy.

A Parent’s Responsibilities

So why do mothers have this unique responsibility?  There are reasons. For one, except in cases of rape, every time a woman gets pregnant she is directly responsible for creating the life in her womb. A fetus is not just a random person that a woman may or may not want to help. No, it is a direct creation of its mother, so its mother has a special responsibility towards it. You can’t just create a life and then throw it to the curb. If you create it, you have a special responsibility towards it that you do not have towards random strangers.

On top of that, mothers are also entrusted with the care of their children in a way that nobody else is. Think of it like this. If someone leaves a baby on your doorstep, you can’t just leave it there and let it die. At the very least, you have to bring it somewhere it can receive the care it needs, and if you can’t do that, then you have an obligation to care for the child yourself. You may not have chosen this responsibility, but the circumstances have foisted it upon you. You have been entrusted with the care of this child, so you now have a special responsibility towards it.

Mothers are in a similar position. They are entrusted with the care of their children in a way that nobody else is, so they have a special responsibility towards them that nobody else has. They have an obligation to either care for their children themselves or give them to someone else who can care for them. As we can see from the breastfeeding example, this special responsibility overrides their right to bodily autonomy. Mothers still need to give their children the basic care they require even if that entails letting them use their very bodies to survive, and for pregnant mothers, this means that they need to carry their children to term.

Some Other Sources of Responsibility

But that’s not all. There are other reasons why pregnant mothers in particular have an even greater obligation to provide for their unborn children (although admittedly, these reasons do not apply to cases of rape). For one, when a woman willingly has sex and conceives a child, she is not just responsible for creating that life. She is also responsible for creating that life in a needy, vulnerable condition, and if you put someone in a position of great need, you have a special obligation to care for that need. She has performed an act that has as its natural consequence the creation of a life that needs to connect itself to her body in order to survive, so again, she has a special obligation towards it, one that she doesn’t have towards random people who may need her blood or organs.

Secondly, when a woman willingly has sex and conceives a child, not only is she directly responsible for creating a new life in such a needy condition, but she is also directly responsible for connecting the child to her body so it can survive. A woman doesn’t conceive a child outside her body and then choose whether or not to let it in. No, she conceives it inside her body, and when the embryo eventually connects itself to her uterus, that connection is simply the natural result of her willfully chosen act.

Consequently, it is not really a question of whether a woman should be forced to allow a fetus to use her body to survive. Simply by having sex and conceiving a child, she has already performed an act that naturally leads to that connection. She has essentially connected it to her body by her own free choice, and it is wrong for her to change course and reject the child.

Everything in Its Place

Now, none of this is to say that bodily autonomy isn’t important. It is, and as the examples of forced blood and organ donation show, violating it can even be gravely wrong. However, it is not the most important thing in the world. More to the point, it does not override a fetus’s right to life and to the basic care it needs to survive.

So the next time someone tries to use the bodily autonomy argument to justify abortion to you, don’t be caught off guard. Explain to them the differences between pregnancy and whatever examples they may give you. Explain that those differences give pregnant mothers special responsibilities towards their unborn children, responsibilities that we don’t have towards random strangers, so abortion is always murder, no ifs, ands, or buts.

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13 thoughts on “Does Bodily Autonomy Justify Abortion?”

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  4. Don’t fathers have any responsibility? Why are mothers so burdened by biology but men can do whatever they want? (And don’t insult my intelligence by saying meaningless crap about how the Catholic church thinks men are supposed to take care of their families. Men — including every single male in the church — ignores that when it suits them. Even when they do decide to be involved, all men insist on BEING IN CHARGE, so that they never have to do anything inconvenient but can demand food, sex and cleaning whenever they want.)

    1. I personally agree that men have responsibility, but I don’t want to impose my morals on the rest of society…

      But on a serious note, wouldn’t it be better to have laws to enforce manlihood rather than laws that allow a “choice” to be manly? Most American men will just say, “baby, I told you I’ve got to have my Charley Danielson and my big screen for the WFL. You already know my stand, it’s on you now.”

    2. Of course fathers have responsibility. I say this explicitly in the article: “I would suggest that it is because mothers have a unique responsibility towards their children, a responsibility that we do not have towards random strangers (obviously, fathers have this responsibility too, but since the bodily autonomy argument focuses on women, we will only speak about mothers).” So no, men can’t “do whatever they want.” Fathers have just as much of a responsibility towards their children as mothers do.

      And it’s not insulting your intelligence to point out the Church’s teaching that men are supposed to take care of their families; that’s not just meaningless rhetoric. There are plenty of men who actually do that without being the terrible fathers and husbands you make all men out to be. Unless you literally know every man on the planet, you have no right to make such a sweeping assumption.

    3. 1) men do have responsibility and the law recognizes that. That’s why the court can make a man pay child support (under threat of prison) even if he’s not aloud to have any say in the way his child is raised.
      2) the men you describe would also be considered bad fathers by most. To say that all men act that way is an emotional statement not based in fact. The reality is that men are human to and consequently do sometimes act in a prideful selfish manner (as do women) but that doesn’t mean they do it all the time and don’t sacrifice countless things for the good of his children.
      Also, we men want an equal say in how our house is run meaning the women needs to be the servant 50% of time. Being a servant 50% mean you are not the one in charge leading people to believe the other is the one that has taken charge. In reality, neither is in charge and both are in charge. Human relationships are a balance between being the servant and being the master and this can make things difficult sometimes. A little tip is to never keep score of how often the other person gets their way and how much you do for the other. It will always feel like you are the one doing more and being the great servant. Hope this helps.

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  6. I didn’t piggy back another article. I wrote this last month, so I had no idea what would be coming out a week before this one. And to be honest, I still don’t know what article you’re talking about. I don’t read everything that comes out here on Catholic Stand. So if you want to talk about cases of rape, I’m more than happy to. Just explain what your point is, and I’ll gladly give my thoughts on it.

    1. an ordinary papist

      Taking on a Popular Pro-Abortion Argument By Nate Guyear 1 February AD 2021

      Sorry about that, I presumed you all read each other for the most part. Well, it basically
      has to do with the color gray in what seems to be a black and white world. So, if you care
      to take five minutes to read the unfolding dialogue you’ll have another point of view. By
      the way, I do support the SC vote for the fetal heartbeat law that pares back to almost square one, this scourge, that one day will be no more.

  7. an ordinary papist

    I noticed your fervor seemed a little squishy when you mentioned rape, glossing over my comment (and your stand) about point # 4 in a previous essay from a week ago, one, you obviously piggy-backed for maximum effect. Also noted is that the term woman was used six times but never adolescent, the correct term should the subject be a child of a criminal and violent act. It must be very hard to accept that the supreme court didn’t call it ‘murder’ and probably never will. I suggest you both cut and paste these essays to the local and major news outlets where they might do some good, rather than ply the calm, balmy waters lapping at the feet of the choir.

    1. I read through your comments about the rape question, and if I’m reading you correctly, you’re suggesting that police should take rape victims into custody (because we can’t take their unborn children into protective custody without them) until they give birth to make sure that they don’t abort their babies. If that’s what you do mean, then I get where you’re coming from, but that’s going way too far. At most, we might hold a person in protective custody if we have a really good reason to suspect that someone will try or is actively trying to take their life, but simply being raped isn’t a good enough reason for that. Simply being raped doesn’t tell us anything about whether a woman will or will not get an abortion, so it wouldn’t be nearly enough information to take a woman into custody to protect her unborn child. And that’s assuming that we even could take a woman into custody to keep her from potentially aborting her unborn baby. To be honest, I’ve never thought about that before, but my first reaction is to say that we should never do that except in extreme cases.

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