Can we talk about why a woman's right to control her body is important? Can we talk about how we talk about it? Can we talk about why we hook into language used by those who would deny women bodily autonomy? Can we talk about what is really fundamental about bodily autonomy?
I read and hear so many debating points and narratives from so many well-meaning people who want to support a woman's right to control her body. It is clear that many people are speaking passionately about a woman's right to choose whether to remain pregnant, to resist forced genital mutilation and even to be respected for her own exploration and expression of her sexuality. It's so awesome to see all that support.
If we want to foster a society which really embraces all of these things, though, we need to get at the foundation of why its so important to everyone: not just women. The underlying principle which is so important to the possibility of peace and justice in the human world has nothing to do with whether a fetus is more important than the woman who is carrying it or how we define the beginning of a life. Talking in those terms is never going to take us where we want to go. In fact, it plays into the framework of those who would keep women oppressed.
What we need to talk about is the principle of bodily autonomy and why this is so fundamental to small 'd' democracy and a just society. You can't end oppression unless you establish and embrace the principle of bodily autonomy for everyone. So much about our ways of living together would be different if we would focus on that. Seriously. Everything would change for the better. So, can we talk about bodily autonomy?
Imagine if we decided that everyone had to go through all the testing for any possible organs that they might be able to donate to someone in need. Most of us can live with one kidney, for example. So, we could decide that since all life is sacrosanct and we must do everything we can to protect every life, everyone must be prepared to donate a kidney if a compatibility is found with someone in need.
It would have to be managed as a federal law in the United States. So, the state would force you to give bone marrow samples. They would monitor how well you are taking care of yourself because anything you do to damage your kidney could be risking someone else's chance at living longer. If you ever did anything which the state construed as damaging or neglecting your kidneys, the state could put you into custodial care. You might get forced to wear some kind of monitor. Maybe a guardian would have to live with you. Perhaps you'd get forced into an institution.
No problem, right? I mean, after all, it's all about saving lives! I can't imagine that given this kind of authority over people, it would ever be a tool for anything nefarious - such as getting rid of a political opponent or exacting revenge on a neighbor .....
Does that scenario sound like a democracy to you? Even if everyone voted for it, would it feel like democracy? Where is the line between democracy and totalitarianism?
Democracy isn't just about getting to vote for representative politicians. It's about having a voice of equal power when it comes to the things our society does which impact us. The power of that voice can only remain equal if we are not subject to threat against our body and our ability to survive. Once we are subject to threat, we are subject to coercion. Coercion erases our freedom of expression and therefore eliminates our voice. The will of those who would harm us is superimposed and democracy is gone.
The scenario I described above for kidney donors actually exists for women. Read Susan Grigsy's piece "When the state claims of a fetus, it requires an incubator." Right here, in the United States, women are being accused of murder if they do anything that the state deems is putting a fetus at risk. They are being imprisoned and forced into surgical procedures and into forced motherhood by the state.
Many of us are appalled. It can be a gut-level sense that this is not right. Yet, we don't seem to know how to pinpoint it. We focus on the things being said by those who exact this authoritarian force. In doing so, we are distracted from the real crime of it.
The question of a woman's right to choose whether to remain pregnant is not about whether "life" begins at conception. First, the concept of all life being so sacrosanct that we must do whatever we can to protect it is a religious belief or personal philosophy. There is no way to prove such a claim. If you ask someone why all life is sacred, the answer is generally in the realm of "because I said so" or "because God said so." That's not an explanation. That's an attempt at exerting personal superiority. It is a foggy debating point meant to imply that anyone who disagrees is morally inferior. It's a veiled ad hominem attack to shut down a perspective. Quit arguing about it. Simply state, that's what you believe but your beliefs are not pertinent.
The question of whether a woman matters more than a fetus is hinting at the core principle, but misses the mark. It's never helpful to start claiming that some beings matter more than other beings. That simply leads us into the territory of charting out the hierarchy of who matters. It's a stepping stone to -isms and caste systems and genocide. Don't go there.
It's not that one being matters more than another. It's that a body is the purview of one. The only way for a person to maintain an independence of voice and offer their unique perspective to the dialogues which shape our social choices is for their body to be safely under their own control. As I stated before, this autonomy is essential to ensuring that no one is coerced into agreements where they give up other liberties.
It is also the key to establishing a world of maximized safety. (Life is risk and requiring absolute safety is unreasonable.) If we honored bodily autonomy, we would all be relieved of the anxiety of being harmed by another person.
The reason we should all want women to have bodily autonomy is that we all need to recognize that the only person her body is obligated to serve is herself. It is must absolutely be her choice to allow her body to be used for the sake of someone else's life. It's not that the fetus matters less. It's that the fetus cannot supersede her claim to her body's service. Ever. The moment we start making exceptions to the right to bodily autonomy is the moment we walk away from democracy. It is the moment we make room for people to abuse any good intention we may have had and twist it into a tool for oppression. It is the moment we walk towards totalitarianism.
So much of how we choose to let ourselves be governed, rather than assuming the accountability of self-governance, is grounded in the concept of allowing the state to take away bodily autonomy from individuals. Imagine how much would be different if we, each and every one us, would really embrace the principle of bodily autonomy and then develop a system of governance which honored that.
Think about slavery, the forced-sex industry, the war on drugs and so much more. If we had a culture of respecting bodily autonomy, where it was unthinkable to ever do harm or threaten harm to another person's body everything would be different. Everything. If Everyone would learn how to work together in cooperation rather than using the euphemism of competition as an excuse for harming others to get what we want. That simple shift in our way of being would lead to profound changes in the way we structure our societies and how we relate to one another. We wouldn't need protection in the way we think of it now. We would establish relations without the underpinning of anxiety that exists now.
A woman's right to choose isn't about defining the beginning of life or who matters more. It's about humbly recognizing that not all sparks will catch afire. That we can't control that. That it's not serving a peaceful world to try and control it. We each get to control our own bodies. That's it. To claim more is not healthy for society. It's megalomania.
A woman's right to liberation from authoritarian forces over her body is key to everybody's liberation from authoritarian forces. Liberation gives us true democracy - voices in our social systems unfettered from fear of reprisal. Unfettered voices give us the best chance at finding the most creative solutions to our challenges. Being free from the fear of bodily harm is the greatest peace we could ever know. Forget all the other definitions. That's life! Life begins when we are liberated.