(Note: This post originally appeared on a different blog of mine, back on November 18, 2010, when I was teaching intermediate-level writing at Utah State University. It has been lightly edited to reflect updated views on this matter.)
I had a very interesting conversation with my English 2010 classes the other day which truly illuminated the inability -- or refusal -- of many pro-life activists to see abortion from a bodily rights perspective.
Essentially, I asked them if they would support laws concerning mandatory organ and blood donation. Should people be required by law to offer themselves up in any way, if it means that another person's life would be saved? All of my students, without exception, said that they would not support such laws. They would never support, they said, requiring anyone to do anything with their bodies against their will -- even if it meant someone else would die. One even went so far as to say that preserving life didn't outweigh someone's rights to their own body.
Further, they all said that even if the donating person in question is dead, and no longer requires his or her organs, mandatory donation would infringe on his or her personal rights. Yes, you read that right -- all of my students supported dead people's right to ownership over their bodies, and a "say" in what happens to those bodies, even if other lives hang in the balance.
The reason I found this to be so interesting is that all of these students -- again, without exception -- are vehemently pro-life, meaning that they oppose abortion rights. Most of them want abortion to be illegal in America, some of them in opposition to any exception at all (even if the pregnant woman would otherwise die). And they all have arguments about when life begins, how an unborn fetus is a separate being deserving of legal rights, and that a woman already does have a choice -- in whether or not to have sex, so if she can do the deed then she'd better be prepared to carry and deliver a baby.
I could go into a detailed argument for each of these anti-choice arguments, but what I want to get at is that, in this instance, I think they all miss the point. We can argue until we're blue in the face over when human life really begins and what constitutes morality, but none of these things touches upon the real issue here, which is the question of who owns the woman's body. You cannot grant two people occupying the same body equal rights under the law. One naturally has to concede to the other. So the question becomes, does the fetus' or embryo's supposed right to life include a right to live inside of and use her body against her will? Does it trump a woman's right to autonomy and control over her own medical decisions and what happens to her own body ... or does a woman's right to ownership over her body trump any right to life that a fetus may claim?
My English 2010 students, who identify as pro-life, seemed to think that requiring anyone to lose control over their own body for the sake of another was unconstitutional and, at its core, wrong. This is what they thought, at least, when the question concerned organ and blood donation. I'm curious, then, how we can say its wrong to require someone to donate an organ or donate blood (or do anything that compromises their bodies in any way) so that someone else can live, but then turn around and say it's right to force women to donate their bodies to fetuses so that they can live.
Pregnant women can come out of pregnancy with life-changing and debilitating disease, they experience difficult bodily and hormonal changes, and they risk losing their jobs. Some go into severe depression. Some die. So choosing to carry a pregnancy to term is certainly a life-altering, body-altering medical decision that affects each pregnant woman. It is a decision that can affect a person far more heavily than donating an organ or donating blood, something that my pro-life students said people should not be obligated to do.
People can, perhaps, argue about the morality issues associated with abortion. Some may not agree with it, and think it's a good thing when a woman chooses to carry a pregnancy. They may even completely disagree with the practice. But who can really demand that, by law, a woman must be mandated to donate her body to every pregnancy that happens in her body? To say so suggests that a fetus, and, indeed, the government, claim more ownership over a woman's body than she does.
Many pro-lifers seem to be anti big government, wanting government and legislation out of our personal lives ... except, it seems, in the case of reproductive rights for women. In essence, the message I see is that the fundamental human right to ownership over ourselves should not be granted to women, but, rather, to other people who may need her body to live. It is demeaning, especially after it's made clear that such an expectation isn't expected of anyone other than pregnant women.
"The underlying assumption," one of my pro-life students said, in response to my initial question, "is that saving lives is more important than my personal rights and choices. I don't think that's true."
He, of course, would never want to be told he had to do anything with his body, even to prevent another from dying. Even to prevent his own child from dying, I'm sure. And yet he supports legislation that would force women to do just that.
It's further evidence, I think, that the pro-life movement is less about saving babies and more about controlling women and women's sexuality.
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