Humans spend more time developing into adults than most other animals. Depending on the culture, one might arrive at adulthood with puberty, the human brain is not fully developed until around age 26. Because of this long period of childhood, before we are able to make decisions for ourselves, we spend years internalizing the values of our parents and are enculturated into our society. To become an adult, to be autonomous, involves a process of learning to think for oneself and to govern oneself.
The first step to being an autonomous individual is to think for oneself. The most well known expression of this form of autonomy is In the essay, “What is Enlightenment?” by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. He wrote: “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. . . Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.’ ”
The second aspect of autonomy is moral autonomy. To be a fully adult human being, you need to establish your own set of moral principles. This does not mean that you get to make up whatever moral principles you may want. Rather, it is that what you hold to be right and wrong is based on moral principles you hold to be true, not because they are the ones you were brought up on or are the ones that dominate in your community, but because you have become convinced that these are in fact the correct moral principles. Just as with knowledge, the moral law is something you should recognize because you consciously embrace it, not because you passively accept it.
We begin life without intellectual or moral autonomy. In our early years, we rely on family and teachers to understand the world and know good and evil for us. Gradually, we acquire more and more ability to think for ourselves and make our own moral choices. Adolescence is a difficult period because thinking for oneself means raising questions about the beliefs and values you were taught as a child and perhaps even rejecting the culture in which one was raised. College years can be especially difficult as professors actively challenge students’ values and beliefs.
The third aspect of autonomy is participation in the public square and in the law-making process. We are social creatures and in our childhood we learn how to become members of that society. We learn how to dress ourselves in a socially acceptable manner, we learn how to prepare the foods which are typical for our society and we learn how to use the language of our group. But if we are to be autonomous, then we shouldn’t blindly follow social norms, but we should follow them because it is reasonable to do so. We should work to change those which are not. This requires participation in the public square and in the political process.
This is why one can only have autonomous, adult, fully human individuals in a democracy. Democracy is the only political form which allows everyone to participate in arriving at the rules and norms which govern the relations within the society.
Theocracies and facsist states rest on the assumption that only certain individuals have the capacity to be adults and that those in charge must make the rules for the rest. Theocracies, fascist states, dictatorships of the proletariat all rest on the assumption that some group or individual has special insight into how the society should be organized and what laws should be followed. They assume that this individual, group or party has special insights into the workings of the world which are not available to the rest of the society. They, therefore, are entitled to make rules on behalf of the society. This results in the infantilization of society.
We should, however, distinguish what I was discussing above with expert opinion. There was a point in time where the question of who should lead the fleet into battle could be left to the assembly. Since most men had experience in the navy, they had a base of knowledge and experience that could help them arrive at a reasonable decision. It would be ridiculous to hold an election for admiral today. Only a miniscule number of people have any insight into what is required to lead a modern navy. Most of us couldn’t even identify the various kinds of ships, let alone know how best to use them in combat. In this case, and many others, we need to rely on expert opinion.
Physicians are among the experts we most frequently come in contact with. For a long period of time, patients were simply expected to accept whatever form of treatment the doctor recommended. Recently medicine has begun to change as patients are being asked to play a greater role in determining their treatment. For example, living wills and medical power of attorney place restrictions on the kinds of treatments a doctor may administer. Even in the face of expert opinion, it is still possible to exercise some autonomy.
This, then, brings us to the issue of abortion. Much of the debate regarding abortion has been focused on the tension between moral ideals: the right to life versus the right to choose. As a result, much of the discussion has been reduced to questions of “When does life begin?” and “Does a woman have control over her body?” Framed as a battle of rights, it leads to a rights balancing act. Except that, as the recent laws restricting abortion and the soon to be announced overturn of Roe v. Wade, the rights of the woman have been completely overshadowed by the rights of the fetus.
In the analysis I am suggesting here, the issue is placed on a different footing. Banning abortion deprives a woman of her autonomy. It takes away her ability to act as a moral agent. Her ability to make choices based on her understanding of moral principles is replaced by an external agent. Moreover, this external agent has this power over the woman not because of some claim to expert opinion, but because of a claim to superior moral insight. It is not a moral insight that has been arrived at through the development of a social consensus, but because a handful of people believe their moral insights are superior to the rest of the society. Or, more bluntly, because they have the power to enforce their moral view. As a result, they, in effect, infantilize the entire society.
A moral society requires autonomous individuals who obey the moral law because they recognize what as a moral member of society they ought to do. Being moral does not mean behaving in conformity with the moral law. It means acting in conformity with the moral law because you recognize it as the moral thing to do. It would be one thing if the restrictions on abortion were derived from debate in the public square and a subsequent consensus. But restrictions on abortion are made against the social consensus by a cadre of true believers who are willing to deprive people of their ability to be autonomous, fully adult human beings.
Contrast this with the position of the fetus the abortion restricters are working so hard to protect. Their moral claim is that they believe they are protecting the weakest members of society. And with this claim, they can gain much sympathy. But what kind of autonomy does a fetus have? The fetus is entirely dependent on its mother for survival. Until the moment of quickening it displays no evidence of a capacity for moral agency. One might argue that the fetus has the potential for moral agency. But why deprive the actual existing mother of her autonomy for the sake of a fetus in which autonomy exists only potentially and which can be realized only decades in the future?
Thinking in terms of autonomy makes clearer what is behind the abortion controversy. The point of abortion restrictions is not to save the lives of babies. If that was the case, there would be calls for pre- and post-natal care, parental leave and financial support for families. But the real point is to deprive women of their humanity. It is not just “choice,” it is moral agency. Opponents of abortion do not trust women to make the right decision, but rather wish to substitute their judgement for hers. And if someone makes moral judgements for you, you are not an adult; you are a child. Opponents of abortion are adult men making decisions for infantilized women.