Response: “Bodily autonomy is widely respected in every other context”
[This article is a transcript of ““This whole pro-life movement is super disingenuous” (re kidney donations)” courtesy of volunteer Ben Tomlin. If you’re interested in volunteering to transcribe more of our content, please complete our volunteer survey.]
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A few weeks ago, Buzzfeed published an article titled, “This 23-Year-Old Man’s Pro-Abortion Argument Has Gained Millions Of People’s Attention — And They’re Saying It’s Unlike Anything They’ve Ever Heard.”
Pretty impressive, right? What could this novel argument for abortion rights entail?
Turns out it was the forced kidney donation analogy. We’ve discussed this before, but I’m alright discussing it again.
If my mom was pregnant with me today, she could not get an abortion, right?
“Different sort of video than my normal stuff,” @notjohnjay on TikTok
Okay.
In the eyes of the Tennessee government, her bodily autonomy means jacks**t.
@notjohnjay
Do you mean bodily autonomy is either the most important consideration all of the time or it doesn’t mean jacks**t? Those are the only two options? No, I mean if Tennessee is outlawing surgical interventions or medical interventions because they just really don’t care about women’s bodily autonomy, what are all the other surgeries they’re outlawing? You know, are they outlawing hysterectomies, tubal ligations, or liposuction, face lifts, boob jobs? Like, if this is just about not wanting women to have control of their bodies for XYZ reasons, you would expect that kind of reaction, right?
So let’s say she gives birth to me and then, 20 years later, I go into kidney failure and I require a kidney transplant to survive and my mother is the only viable match on the planet.
@notjohnjay
Okay.
There is not a single law that would compel her to give one of her kidneys to me, right?
@notjohnjay
Right.
Because, in that circumstance, we recognize that her bodily autonomy is that important.
@notjohnjay
Yeah, bodily autonomy is really important. It would take a lot to override it, but I’m not convinced that it’s literally, always, by definition, without question, the dominating factor. Did you know that something like 95% of countries have gestational limits on abortion? So, for example, in Europe it’s standard in a lot of countries to have elective abortion but only until 12 or 14 weeks, which means that, in those places, the fetus has a right to not be killed once she’s 14 weeks or older, she has a right to use her mother’s body. That’s standard around the world, so if you’re looking for a precedent where we don’t consider bodily rights absolute, look no further.
My mother could die, and we could still not harvest the kidney from her corpse to give to me.
@notjohnjay
This part isn’t actually true. When you die, your family can decide to donate your organs if they want to.
Her bodily autonomy is held in such high regard that they would rather let me die than infringe on that freedom.
@notjohnjay
“Let you die.” That’s an interesting choice of words. When you let someone die, it means they’re dying and you don’t take any action to stop them from dying. That isn’t abortion. Abortion is when you have an embryo or fetus who isn’t dying and abortion is taking an action that causes them to die, so you’re not letting them die, you’re killing them.
There are other ways, too, that the forced kidney donation analogy doesn’t really work because, first of all, if that was happening, if 20-year-olds were dying of kidney failure a million times a year, we would probably look at it quite differently than if it’s a relatively uncommon occurrence.
And, more importantly, if it was like a required life stage for any of us to exist at all we first had to almost die of kidney failure and then have someone donate their kidney to us for us to survive, we’d probably look at it pretty differently.
And if it was the case where the majority of the time you are dying of kidney failure because someone else made a decision you had no control over that they knew might mean that you might die of kidney failure and then they refused to help you with it, we’d probably look at it a little differently.
There’s a whole bunch of ways in which the forced kidney donation thing is not analogous to conceiving someone and then killing them through abortion.
Bodily autonomy is widely respected in every other context except for this one.
@notjohnjay
The right of fetuses to not be killed is widely respected at least later in pregnancy, like we were just talking about with international abortion laws, and it should be universal. You should have had the right to not be killed when your mother was pregnant with you. And when she was a fetus in utero, she should have had the right to not be killed. And if you ever get someone pregnant, the child that you conceive with her, that baby, should have right to not be killed.
Because everyone should have that right. This is a required life phase. We all were embryos and fetuses at one point. They’re us in the past. We’re them in the future, and we shouldn’t be just electively killing them.
So that’s why I don’t really believe them when they make this bulls**t claim.
@notjohnjay
That’s a mistake on your part. In fairness to you, people on my side do that too, they think that pro-choicers don’t really care about bodily rights or women’s autonomy or any of the more noble things they describe, they actually secretly care about just having sex without consequences or they don’t like kids or insert whatever bad motivation you want. Our side does that to you guys, too. I wish they wouldn’t. And your side does it to us. “They couldn’t really care about the lives lost in abortion. It must really be that they hate women or freedom or sex or whatever.” It’s a mistake.
That’s why I see this whole pro-life movement as super disingenuous, right.
@notjohnjay
Okay, well, abortion kills human beings, and you can dislike or distrust pro-lifers all you want, but the fact remains.
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