“The right to avoid genetic parenthood”
[This article is a transcript of “‘The right to avoid genetic parenthood‘” 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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The point of abortion is to make sure an embryo or a fetus dies. Some pro-choice people will say that’s not the point. The point is just to terminate a pregnancy. If the embryo or the fetus is too underdeveloped to survive without the mother’s body and they happen to die, that’s incidental, but it’s not the point.
If that’s true, if abortion is just about ending a pregnancy, it’s just about bodily rights and a woman not wanting her body used without her consent, then why do abortion advocates have a problem with the idea of artificial wombs?
This article talks about exactly that: “Abortion Rights After Artificial Wombs: Why Decriminalization Is Needed Ahead of Ectogenesis.” Ectogenesis is artificial wombs. The author explains that artificial wombs will challenge defenses of abortion based on arguments for protecting bodily autonomy.
She talks about other potential defenses of abortion that would survive the existence of artificial wombs, such as redefining fetal viability, talking about property rights, and talking about the right to avoid genetic parenthood.
Of course, when you’ve already biologically reproduced, avoiding genetic parenthood is just a euphemistic way of saying kill the fetus, which is the point of abortion.
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