My Body, My Choice.
The essential question here is whether or not a woman has the right to exercise her bodily autonomy to ‘remove’ her preborn child from her womb via abortion.
Obvious Restrictions
Okay, we all care deeply about the right to bodily autonomy and the capacity to make one’s own medical decisions. That is pretty standard, whether we’re pro life or pro choice.
But, we also all recognize that there are limits to this. For instance, I can’t go driving after ingesting alcohol into my body. I can’t move my body in ways that will directly endanger someone else’s safety.
When we ask probing questions, we can help people come to the recognition of the logical errors themselves.
Q: It’s my body, my choice. So I should be able to do what I want.
A: Is that right absolute?
Q: Yeah, I should always be able to do what I want with my own body.
A: Should I be allowed to drink and drive?
Q: Absolutely not! You could seriously hurt someone!
A: Exactly! So the right to do whatever I want with my body is not actually absolute. We have restrictions against certain actions if that action can hurt someone else.
Yeah, but that’s different, because a fetus isn’t a person…
Annnd we’re back to the argument of Human Rights 101. If a fetus isn’t a person, then we don’t have to justify how we treat him/her. But if the fetus is a person, then we can’t treat them with violence!
(If you started with Human Rights 101, then they probably won’t argue that the two year old is a person but the preborn child is not—since you already established the humanity of the preborn child).
But they might say…
It’s different. A fetus directly uses the woman’s body, so she should be able to decide if she wants to continue with the pregnancy.
Okay, I can see what you mean, but…
A: Should a pregnant woman be allowed to drink? Or take drugs?
Q: Well, no, because that could cause harm to the baby.
A: Exactly! And so, to protect the baby, we don’t allow pregnant women to ingest certain things, because it could cause harm to her preborn baby. Even if it’s her body, she can’t do things that can seriously hurt her baby. No one’s value is dependent on whether or not they’re ‘wanted’ by somebody.
The Other What-Aboutisms.
Of course, there’s a dozen other reasons people believe that abortion is necessary, so… keep reading!