I really like your thoughts on this - but there's one thing I never understood about the Christian perspective. If a fetus has a soul, and that fetus is killed in the womb--doesn't that soul go straight to heaven, do not pass go, do not get a chance to sin, collect eternal life automatically? So why is that such a terrible thing? I guess it might go to Limbo if you're Catholic, but Protestants don't have that. Original sin, I guess? So is it damned by default? If so, wow, that's a really sick, twisted philosophy, sorry.
My reasons for being adamantly pro-choice come at it from a different angle, and to me it's not really all that relevant whether a fetus is a human being or not. For me, it's all about the right to bodily autonomy on the part of the person we know is a fully-fledged human being, the woman. A pregnancy is not a minor inconvenience - it causes major physical changes, can be very damaging or even fatal, and it involves months of the woman giving her bodily resources to someone else. Childbirth doesn't "just sting a little bit," it's one of the most excruciatingly painful things humans ever experience it. And, it means months in which the woman is not alone in her own body. She has a guest who is eating her food and changing her life, and whether this guest is welcome or unwelcome makes all the difference. It is never okay to force this on anyone against her will. EVER.
No one is obligated to give up bodily resources to anyone else, even in a life-or-death situation. If someone is in desperate need of a kidney transplant to survive, and I'm the only possible match on the whole planet, I am still not obligated to give up that kidney. It would be nice if I did, but I must at least have the right to refuse, or else I become a sort of organ-farming slave to anyone who claims need. Rose of Sharon wasn't obligated to breast-feed that starving hobo in The Grapes of Wrath--I imagine many women who have devoted their lives to eradicating hunger would still balk at that!
So do I think it's murder to kill an unwanted fetus? No more than killing someone unwelcome who's broken into your house.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-01-24 07:19 pm (UTC)My reasons for being adamantly pro-choice come at it from a different angle, and to me it's not really all that relevant whether a fetus is a human being or not. For me, it's all about the right to bodily autonomy on the part of the person we know is a fully-fledged human being, the woman. A pregnancy is not a minor inconvenience - it causes major physical changes, can be very damaging or even fatal, and it involves months of the woman giving her bodily resources to someone else. Childbirth doesn't "just sting a little bit," it's one of the most excruciatingly painful things humans ever experience it. And, it means months in which the woman is not alone in her own body. She has a guest who is eating her food and changing her life, and whether this guest is welcome or unwelcome makes all the difference. It is never okay to force this on anyone against her will. EVER.
No one is obligated to give up bodily resources to anyone else, even in a life-or-death situation. If someone is in desperate need of a kidney transplant to survive, and I'm the only possible match on the whole planet, I am still not obligated to give up that kidney. It would be nice if I did, but I must at least have the right to refuse, or else I become a sort of organ-farming slave to anyone who claims need. Rose of Sharon wasn't obligated to breast-feed that starving hobo in The Grapes of Wrath--I imagine many women who have devoted their lives to eradicating hunger would still balk at that!
So do I think it's murder to kill an unwanted fetus? No more than killing someone unwelcome who's broken into your house.