Andrew Powers’ ’15 opinion from last semester (“On Abortion,” Apr. 15) was bold and largely well-reasoned. In it, he laid out a philosophical and legal case against abortion, maintaining not only that we already acknowledge the value of expected consciousness, but also that we have legal precedent enforcing the upholding of that value. As he asserts, “child rearing and animal breeding” are already “universally accepted precedents … hold[ing] that individuals are morally responsible for that which they create.” These precedents, Powers wrote, “should apply to fetuses analogously since what we should truly value is the potential consciousnesses of individuals.” Therefore, “the parents of a fetus are morally required to act in its best interests, and thus abortion — the destruction of this potential consciousness — is unethical.”
I protest.
In fact, neither of the above cases is analogous, neither practically nor legally. Animal husbandry, in which we are allowed to create and destroy entities without reflexive, humanoid consciousness at will, has utterly nothing to do with abortion. Animal husbandry, in fact, claims that an entity you created — or had a hand in creating — is in your hands to kill or maintain at your leisure, even if it is just to eat something you find tasty. Though I personally disagree with that logic, it remains a sufficient retort.
Child rearing is also inappropriately applied. Child rearing assumes the child is already born and endowed with its own independent consciousness. This is not the case with fetuses.
But there is real established legal precedent to draw from in order to decide whether denying someone access to an abortion is ethical: self-defense and the right to bodily autonomy.
Say someone was going to physically restrict and nauseate you for nine months, then force a seven-pound mass through your vagina. Just to add insult to injury, that person also isn’t paying for related health expenditures. In fact, you’ll be paying for his or hers.
If such a person attempted to accost you in an alleyway and force these violations upon you, then you would be in your full rights to commit acts of self-defense sufficient to keep those harms from being inflicted. Inherent in this foundational legal precedent is the right to bodily autonomy, and we allow it to be defended with murder, if necessary. If someone attempted to shove a seven-pound mass through your vagina and the only way to stop them from doing so was to shoot and kill him or her, you would be allowed to do so.
This remains true regardless of the mental state or cognitive capacity of any assailants. If they were psychopaths who also had severe cognitive limitations such that they couldn’t understand the impact of their actions, nor stop themselves, nor even think, you could still kill them and remain blameless under the law. This legal precedent also stands regardless of whether or not that person could acquire greater cognitive capacities — or, in this case, any consciousness at all — at a later date.
Therefore, if a developing fetus and the pregnancy it engenders threaten your bodily autonomy, it is imperative you be allowed the right to abort it. Here arises a seemingly tricky but actually not-so-tricky specter: consent. Clearly, if you want to be pregnant and have a baby, that is okay. If you are engaged in consensual BDSM, that is perfectly legal. And so here the pro-life skeptic might insist that since the woman involved chose not to use birth control — let us forget that birth control does not work 100 percent of the time, and that rape exists — or even merely chose to have sex, knowing there was a risk of pregnancy, then she ought to be forced to bear the child anyway.
Actually, no. If a woman walks alone at night in a dangerous neighborhood of her own volition, knowing there was a risk she might be accosted or raped, she would still be well within her rights to defend herself with lethal force against a bodily assault, again regardless of the mental state or cognitive capacity of the assailant. Her rights, in this situation, are still being violated. It doesn’t matter that she entered into a situation in which her rights might be more likely to be violated or not. What does matter is that they are being violated per se.
If this legal precedent does not hold, than you would be guilty of murder for defending yourself with lethal force against being violently tortured or beaten, given that the neighborhood you entered into — and were subsequently beaten in — was particularly dangerous. Not to mention that you might not have known that the neighborhood was dangerous, or that birth control only works if you use it correctly, and therefore couldn’t give meaningful consent to taking the risk in the first place.
Clearly, such a legal or ethical stance is dangerous and unconscionable. To undermine abortion is to undermine the very right to self.
ADVERTISEMENT
