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Sunday, February 17, 2019

My body, my rights

A popular abortion slogan goes like this: "a man has no right telling a woman what to do with her body". There are verbal variations on that slogan, but that's the basic idea.

But what does it actually mean? I doubt most women who say it have given it much thought. On the face of it this slogan bundles two claims into one statement:

1. Does it mean a man never has a right to tell a woman what to do? By contrast, does it mean women do have the right to tell other women what to do?

Does it mean that if a woman joins the armed forces, a male C.O. has no authority to issue lawful orders to a female subordinate? We could multiple examples.

If women who recite this slogan really believe no man ever has a right to tell a woman what to do, do they put that on their resume or job application? 

2. Or is the claim more specific? Is the claim that while there are situations in which a man has a right to tell a woman what to do, he never has a right to tell a woman what to do with her body?

Once again, is it a general principle: no adult has the right to tell another adult what to do with their body? Or is it specifically about men and women? Do women have the right to tell other women what to do with their bodies?

Human beings are embodied agents. I daresay many feminists think human beings just are their bodies. 

Don't laws generally tell us what we can and can't do with our bodies? A law against arson says human agents can't use their bodies to set fire to someone else's house, car, or business. 

A law against vandalism says the agent can't use their hand to scratch the paint on someone's car with a key.

A law against shoplifting says the agent can't use their hands to steal stuff from a store.

Laws like these apply to men and women alike. 

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. You have to admire the ingenuity of secularists in dreaming up scenarios that “justify” their beliefs. The “violinist” defence of abortion is a particularly bizarre thought experiment. The analogy fails in many ways, as others have pointed out. But if you wanted to make the analogy less inappropriate than it obviously is, you would need to modify it. You need to imagine that you yourself have caused the accident which has resulted in the violinist’s need for medical treatment. After all, the situation that a pregnant woman finds herself in has been brought about (in the vast majority of cases) by the woman’s own actions.

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