I’ve never understood this take - other than rape (in which abortion should be allowed imo), why is it a loss of bodily autonomy? Women choose to have sex consensually, no?
That's a separate question from whether that loss of bodily autonomy is justified.
> Women choose to have sex consensually, no?
Well, yes, sometimes. Maybe you could be more explicit about how you think that justifies the loss of bodily autonomy?
For example, maybe you have a principle like "If you played a necessary role in the creation of a person, then you can be compelled to use your body to support their life." Do you think fathers should be compelled to donate blood or organs to their offspring?
No more or less than eating certain foods or consuming certain beverages.
Being forced by the State (ie at the point of a gun) to carry a pregnancy to term is not an inevitable "consequence". It's a choice.
Women have a long history of using abortifacients to terminate pregnancy, so there's nothing "natural" or inevitable about forced birth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion
In Roman times, Silphium was such a popular abortifacient that the plant was over-harvested to extinction.
Your argument is effectively that people should be able to reneg on the consequences of actions if those consequences are not desirable.
I think you've gone a little too broad with that principle. If I ask a taxi to take me somewhere, I can get out if I notice the driver is drunk. If I accidentally spill a glass of water, I can clean it up. And so on.
Well, yes.
Why did you say "other than rape (in which abortion should be allowed imo)"? Either you think the foetus has value and needs to be brought to term, or you don't. That makes it seem that you aren't deciding based on the value of the foetus or the importance of all life, but rather want to assert superiority and punish women for having sex. What difference does it make to the importance of the foetus if the pregnancy was rape or not? Why does that make more difference than whether the pregnancy is wanted or not?
You can eat meat from murdered animals every day, you can pierce or tattoo your body or kill brain cells with alcohol, you have the right to return a $5 plastic toy for a refund, but if your birth control fails you can't kill 10 cells. Has it any more soul or value at that stage than the hair or fingernails you cut off without a thought, or the dead skin you shed, or the spit you spit? Why does it have more value than the woman?
That's literally the entire basis of modern medical intervention, yes.
Induced abortion has, from documentary evidence, been a thing for at least ~3500 years, and even without induced abortion very many pregnancies historically ended in miscarriage (still the case) and/or maternal death (much less the case, now, but still a concern.)
We do have still work to do in making the end of the pregnancy the desired one (healthy baby), yes.
I think you mean something other than “inevitable” here, since “inevitable” means “cannot be avoided”, such that if A and B is the inevitable consequence, than B must happen with 100% certainty.
But childbirth isn't even approximately an inevitable consequence of pregnancy.
I'm still curious what principles you think justify the enforcement of the latter, and especially why they don't cover things like the OP's forced organ donation scenario.
Edit: Just to expand on the first point, I think there's some circular reasoning going on here.
If the claim is "people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term," you can't support that with "because people should endure the consequences of their actions" if "consequences of their actions" means "being forced to carry a pregnancy to term."
Because then you're just saying "people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term because people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term."
Is your opinion that anyone can reneg on known consequences of their actions?
Don’t misunderstand, women should have a choice in what their bodies are used for. My assertion is, other than rape, they already have it with respect to having a kid or not.
> sex leading to kids is hardly some unknown fact
Oh, I'd wish. There are people who still - in the 21st century - do not have like basic knowledge about sexual wellness and have very weird (and sometimes very dangerous) ideas about contraception, safety and risks of pregnancy. I mean, it's hard for any educated person to believe in this shit, but I've met or read some pretty insane opinions. Like people who genuinely believe really weird nonsense such as that virgins cannot get pregnant their first time. And they aren't malicious folks (well, maybe some are, of course) - just awfully misinformed.
Humanity is in a very weird place. On the one hand we've walked on the Moon and about to conquer nuclear fusion power, but on the other hand we've just climbed down from the trees and learned how to make a fire.
For example birth control pills are 99% effective. From the NHS:
> When taken correctly, the pill is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. This means that fewer than 1 in 100 who use the combined pill as contraception will get pregnant in 1 year.
So, if you're in a relationship for 5 years, that's 1 in 20. For my group of people I know, this matches up pretty well.
That's ridiculous. Many people engage in sex using contraceptives design to prevent pregnancy, but we all know that contraceptives aren't 100% reliable. So the possibility of any given sex act leading to kids is absolutely an "unknown".
And that's before getting into the point about how, in many places in the world, knowledge of (or access to) contraceptives is withheld from portions of the population to begin with. For that matter, there are some (mostly very young, I expect) who don't understand the whole "sex leads to kids" thing.
For example birth control pills are 99% effective. From the NHS:
> When taken correctly, the pill is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. This means that fewer than 1 in 100 who use the combined pill as contraception will get pregnant in 1 year.
So, if you're in a relationship for 5 years, that's 1 in 20. For my group of people I know, this matches up pretty well. I have one friend who has three children. They were all conceived while on birth control.
That's usually how medical treatment works, yes. We don't tell people who fall off a ladder, slice their finger chopping vegetables, or break a bone playing sports "You knew the risk, you're just gonna have to live with the consequences of your choices"