| "The fetus is utterly reliant on the mother to provide a hospitable environment, it seems self-evident
that a body that is not autonomous doesn't have the same right to self-autonomy." So you're saying that if a life is reliant on something external for its life, then it isn't autonomous and doesn't have the right to self autonomy? Wouldn't that mean that we don't have to respect the living will of someone on life support? They are entirely reliant on other people to provide a hospitable environment. The same would hold true for new born babies, who can't feed or shelter themselves. And, for that matter, that would hold for small children. At what point does a child become
self reliant enough that they don't have the right to decide if they want to be alive? "Just think through the consequences of the argument you are making. You've now established the government as
the absolute arbiter of that fetuses best interests and given the government absolute control of the environment
it relies upon, aka the mother." You're being somewhat hyperbolic here. But this isn't much different that what the government does now. Government
limits our rights in order to provide everyone with a set of equitable rights. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
is what the goal is. And to do that, you have to limit what some people can and can't do in order for everyone else to
have those rights. We have already granted the government authority to act on behalf of those who are too young to make decisions on their own.
Children who find themselves abandoned, or in homes that are dangerous, can be removed by the state and placed in a safer
(hopefully) environment. This system doesn't always work, but its acknowledged that its better than doing nothing at all. "Should the mother be required to eat a government mandated meal to make sure that the fetus is getting the
nutrition required? What if the mother wants to vigorously exercise? Are you going to strap that woman down
to a bed and force feed her veggies to make sure the baby comes to term safely?" You've pushed the idea to the extreme to prove a point. But what you've shown here is only that an extreme
interpretation of this is a bad idea. The other end of this extreme is equally bad. When a mother has total
autonomy to decide the fate of her children until they are old enough to live on their own without the support
of their parent, then a mother could kill their child right up until they were what, 5 or 6? maybe 10? Or force
the child to live under extreme physical or sexual abuse? A better answer here is somewhere in the middle. At some point after conception a child becomes a person. When that happens,
the child should have all the same rights as any other person. They should have the right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
the same as any other. And those who chose to bring that life into the world must accept the responsibility
to care for that life until it no longer needs that care. To do otherwise is to invite cruelty and societal
degradation. |