I don't think life is even the correct framing. Life is cheap: we kill life forms far more advanced than a human zygote every day, for reasons as trivial as amusement (sport hunting), and it's not like we uniformly value human life either. We execute people, and if someone is brain dead with no chance of recovery, we also just allow them to die. There's no sense in which "it's alive" is a sufficient reason on its own to allow it to continue to live, considering that in terms of mental faculties aren't even on par with the brain dead person. A pro-forced birth person has a lot more arguing to do before they can get from life, particularly in the sense that a zygote is alive, to a moral responsibility to prolong that life; unfortunately for them, none of the rhetoric in their repertoire accomplishes that.
No, the correct framing of the discussion is one of personhood, not life, which is something we explicitly acknowledge in cases of brain death, where the component of life that is actually valued, the mind, is gone, and so we see no particular need to keep the body alive. Dead brains and zygotes are directly analogous here: both are composites of human cells that are, in a strict biological definition of the term, alive without a person driving them. If an argument cannot be made for heedlessly supporting the life of a person with a destroyed brain, then no such argument can be made for the fetus, either.
Besides which, the question under discussion isn't "is a fetus alive?" but "does the fetus right to life, assuming that it has one, outweigh the woman's right to bodily autonomy and self determination?" because this is an issue, at the very best the pro-forced birth side can hope for, of two competing rights, not one right alone. I don't think it's accidental that the woman's life has been completely forgotten by our pro-forced birth users here, but even if they suddenly decided that the women do factor into decisions of their own bodies, they can't for a moment actually make the case that the fetus' right supersedes the mother's, because it never does that anywhere else. Once the baby is literally born it unarguably has a right to life, but if that child finds itself in a position where it can only survive by being connected to its mother's body and leaching off of her, nobody in their right mind would argue that the mother should be forced by law to be connected to the child, nor- by the way- that the child should be forcibly connected to the mother without its consent either. If I have a compatible organ that could be transplanted into someone who needs it on the brink of death, I cannot be forced onto the operating table and, in fact, my refusal of that is sufficient for there to be no surgery at all. Why is it, then, that in a directly analogous situation, the mother's refusal to give of her organs to the zygote is not sufficient?
No, the correct framing of the discussion is one of personhood, not life, which is something we explicitly acknowledge in cases of brain death, where the component of life that is actually valued, the mind, is gone, and so we see no particular need to keep the body alive. Dead brains and zygotes are directly analogous here: both are composites of human cells that are, in a strict biological definition of the term, alive without a person driving them. If an argument cannot be made for heedlessly supporting the life of a person with a destroyed brain, then no such argument can be made for the fetus, either.
Besides which, the question under discussion isn't "is a fetus alive?" but "does the fetus right to life, assuming that it has one, outweigh the woman's right to bodily autonomy and self determination?" because this is an issue, at the very best the pro-forced birth side can hope for, of two competing rights, not one right alone. I don't think it's accidental that the woman's life has been completely forgotten by our pro-forced birth users here, but even if they suddenly decided that the women do factor into decisions of their own bodies, they can't for a moment actually make the case that the fetus' right supersedes the mother's, because it never does that anywhere else. Once the baby is literally born it unarguably has a right to life, but if that child finds itself in a position where it can only survive by being connected to its mother's body and leaching off of her, nobody in their right mind would argue that the mother should be forced by law to be connected to the child, nor- by the way- that the child should be forcibly connected to the mother without its consent either. If I have a compatible organ that could be transplanted into someone who needs it on the brink of death, I cannot be forced onto the operating table and, in fact, my refusal of that is sufficient for there to be no surgery at all. Why is it, then, that in a directly analogous situation, the mother's refusal to give of her organs to the zygote is not sufficient?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
