i suspect you would not allow a woman to decide to kill her 3 month old child or to simply drop one 5 feet onto the sidewalk because her bodily autonomy allows it.
does an unborn entity of, say, 5 months possess no rights?
if one were to slip this woman ru486 and cause fatal miscarriage, would that be murder?
because the idea that she can end that pregnancy and commit no crime but that someone else could not would seem to pose a contradiction.
it can't be murder if you kill them but not if i do.
how do we resolve that?
this is why i think defining the moment of personhood is the key.
once we do that, the contradictions and the precedence of rights and values gets resolved.
Of course I would not allow the killing of a 3 month old child. Once the child is born, it is no longer a part of the woman's body and thus the conflict between the fundamental rights of the mother and the fetus no longer exists.
As a human being, the fetus possesses the same rights as the born, but again, in the case of pregnancy, the mother's right to control her own body, which is fundamental, cannot be fully exercised without violating the right of the fetus to live.
So, again, the fundamental question becomes, who decides and enforces that decision?
The same question applies to the determination of personhood.
My instincts and emotions would legally favor the fetus over the mother, but intellectually I am hesitant to place my judgment above the mother's in this matter, particularly in a blanket fashion.
Equally important, I know that empowering the State to regulate such things is fraught with danger, which I think the last two years have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Certainly, reasonable people can disagree on this.
As for the ru486 scenario, that is clearly a violation of the rights of both the mother and the fetus and the perpetrator should be dealt with accordingly.
this seems a difficult framing.
i suspect you would not allow a woman to decide to kill her 3 month old child or to simply drop one 5 feet onto the sidewalk because her bodily autonomy allows it.
does an unborn entity of, say, 5 months possess no rights?
if one were to slip this woman ru486 and cause fatal miscarriage, would that be murder?
because the idea that she can end that pregnancy and commit no crime but that someone else could not would seem to pose a contradiction.
it can't be murder if you kill them but not if i do.
how do we resolve that?
this is why i think defining the moment of personhood is the key.
once we do that, the contradictions and the precedence of rights and values gets resolved.
Of course I would not allow the killing of a 3 month old child. Once the child is born, it is no longer a part of the woman's body and thus the conflict between the fundamental rights of the mother and the fetus no longer exists.
As a human being, the fetus possesses the same rights as the born, but again, in the case of pregnancy, the mother's right to control her own body, which is fundamental, cannot be fully exercised without violating the right of the fetus to live.
So, again, the fundamental question becomes, who decides and enforces that decision?
The same question applies to the determination of personhood.
My instincts and emotions would legally favor the fetus over the mother, but intellectually I am hesitant to place my judgment above the mother's in this matter, particularly in a blanket fashion.
Equally important, I know that empowering the State to regulate such things is fraught with danger, which I think the last two years have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Certainly, reasonable people can disagree on this.
As for the ru486 scenario, that is clearly a violation of the rights of both the mother and the fetus and the perpetrator should be dealt with accordingly.