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by xCathedra
4009 days ago
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The term person has established precedent, both for humans and non-humans. For humans, the legality of abortion is often thought of in terms of the humanity of the embyro. However, the actual legal issue is whether the law extends to the embyro the right of personhood. Peter Singer has advocated both for the personhood of certain animals and the non-personhood of certain humans (including live infants below certain cognitive thresholds) for some time. |
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There is no precedent for making it illegal to refuse to risk your health, well-being and bodily integrity to sustain another person with your own body. If the risk is negligible, sure, everything else would be denial of assistance -- but pregnancy (to say nothing of birth) is extremely risky as far as biological processes go.
You could argue about a voluntary pregnancy being some kind of contract that suspends your right to bodily integrity but that still wouldn't apply to unwanted pregnancies, which represent the majority of abortions.
Arguing that a foetus' personal rights are violated by early stage termination of a pregnancy is just special pleading biased by religious ideas about the inherent sanctity of life. Most nefariously, the same people who argue for the rights of a foetus also oppose the welfare that would be necessary to address the social impacts of the unwanted birth. Or to put it more hyperbolically: "A human's life is holy, until they are born".