Secular Pro-Life
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet The Team
    • Mission and Vision
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Stances
      • Abortion
      • Religion
      • Contraception
      • The Rape Exception
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Content
    • Index
    • Blog
    • Presentations
      • A Secular Case Against Abortion
      • Building Bridges
      • Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths
      • Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study
    • Research
      • Abortion Law and Abortion Rates
      • Abortion Law and Pregnancy Rates
      • Later Abortion
      • Embryonic Hearts
    • Collections
      • For the biology textbook tells me so
      • They can hear you
      • Parents can hear you
      • Our children’s heartbeats
      • Becoming Pro-Life
      • Ask An Atheist
      • LGBTQ and Pro-Life
      • Fixed that meme for you
    • Print Materials
      • 100 Pro-Life Sign Ideas
      • Overview of SPL
      • 3 Reasons to tell people you’re pro-life
      • How to talk (not fight) about abortion
      • Bridges PRC Curriculum
      • FAQ
      • Presentations overview
    • Store
  • Contact
  • Get Involved
    • Why support SPL?
    • Donor Opportunities
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Volunteer Survey
    • More Surveys
      • Why do you support SPL?
      • Best and Worst Abortion Arguments
      • “Ask An Atheist” Interview
      • Non-Traditional Pro-Life Survey
      • LGBT Pro-Life Survey
      • Parents experiences with prenatal screening
      • Your experiences with adoption
  • Donate
  • Opt-out preferences
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Whose Body Is It, Anyway?

March 11, 2019/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Clinton Wilcox

There’s an argument I see pretty often by pro-life people that completely misses the point of the pro-choice objection. It is represented in the following meme:

Now, the irony here is that whoever made the image is making a logical mistake while accusing pro-choice people of being “logic-impaired”. They have erected a strawman to attack rather than attacking the actual argument.

Now, I have encountered pro-choice people who are ignorant of the science of human reproduction. But when someone is making a bodily rights argument, that’s not the argument they’re making. There are at least four things a person who says “it’s my body” might actually mean, which is why it’s so important to ask a clarification question of that person to make sure you are responding to their actual argument and not attacking a strawman, as in this meme. These four things might possibly be:

  • “It’s inside my body. It’s not even in the world yet. It clearly can’t be a person.” (a “location”-type argument)
  • “It’s a part of my body, like my kidney or liver. Having an abortion is no different than having your appendix taken out.” (a “medical necessity”-type argument)
  • “It’s inside my body, and I have the right to determine what happens to everything inside my body.” (a “sovereign zone“-type argument)
  • “It’s attached to my body, and no woman should be legally compelled to remain as life support to anyone, person or not.” (a “right to refuse“-type argument)

This meme assumes that the second kind of argument is always being made. The argument “the fetus is my body, therefore I can have an abortion if I want to” is the specific argument that this meme responds to. However, of all four of these arguments, the second argument is the rarest one. I’ve encountered a number of people who don’t think the unborn entity is a human being. They think it is merely a clump of cells, but they don’t think it’s a clump of cells that are literally a part of their body, like an appendage. More often, they think of the unborn entity as an intruder, as a rapist or a parasite. Something that is unwanted occupying their womb. That is why they have the abortion in the first place.

So yes, it’s theoretically possible you may encounter someone making the second argument. But that kind of person is an absolute rarity. While I’ve encountered a couple of people who made the first, the latter two arguments are the ones you are most likely going to hear. If someone makes one of the former two arguments, all it takes is a brief bit of education to let them know why their understanding of human reproduction is mistaken. Then they’ll usually realize their argument is bad and take refuge in one of the stronger bodily rights arguments, anyway. Sharing a meme like this (and making the argument in the meme) is just going to reinforce the pro-choice opinion that pro-life people don’t have good arguments for their position.

Edit: Timothy Brahm of Equal Rights Institute wrote a similar piece a couple of years ago called Fellow Pro-Lifers: Please Stop Sharing This Strawman Meme, in which he goes into greater detail about why we should avoid sharing it.

[Today’s guest post by Clinton Wilcox is part of our paid blogging program.]

Related Posts

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://i0.wp.com/secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/for-the-logic-impaired-someone-elses-body-your-body-not-your-10649718.png?fit=262%2C400&ssl=1 400 262 Clinton Wilcox https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Clinton Wilcox2019-03-11 11:58:002023-02-14 15:12:22Whose Body Is It, Anyway?
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow via Email

* indicates required

Categories

  • Ableism
  • Abortion pills
  • Administrative
  • Adoption & Foster Care
  • Biology
  • Bodily Rights
  • en español
  • Later Abortion
  • Legislation, laws, & court cases
  • Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss
  • Personhood
  • Philosophy
  • Pro-Life Demographics
  • Rape Exception
  • Religion
  • Research
  • Speeches, Discussions, Presentations
  • SPL Emails
  • They Can Hear You
  • Top SPL Articles
  • Top SPL Graphics
  • Uncategorized
  • We Asked You Answered
  • Year In Review
  • Your Stories

Archive

It’s crucial that we demonstrate that anyone can–and everyone should–oppose abortion. Thanks to you, we are working to change minds, transform our culture, and protect our prenatal children. Every donation supports our ability to provide nonsectarian, nonpartisan arguments against abortion. Read more details here. Please donate today.

DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
© Copyright 2025 Secular Pro-Life. All rights reserved. Website Design by TandarichGroup

Related Posts

I Used to Be Religiously Pro-Life Safe, Legal, and Celebrated: Where Do We Go From Here?
Scroll to top
Manage Consent

To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
Want to receive our email newsletter?

We’d be happy to keep in touch. Subscribe for access to our newsletter and other updates.