If You Don't Have the Right to My Liver, You Don't Have a Right to My Womb

If someone needs a liver transplant, or bone marrow, or a blood transfusion, do they have a right to just take it from your body?

Of course not. Donating a liver, bone marrow, or blood is a voluntary action. Refusing isn't a crime, and it won't land you in jail.

What if the person will die if not allowed to use your body? Still no.

Yet when it comes to pregnancy, anti-choicers believe that this is different. In this case, a woman's body is not her own. Even if we accept the premise that life does begin at conception (which I don't), legislation banning abortion doesn't fly. A fetus has no more a right to a woman's womb than a person already born has to her organs or blood.

If the body of a person is necessary for the life of another person, that is deeply unfortunate, but even if all a dying individual requires to survive is a pint of your blood, they don't have the right to force it from you. You can be reproached for refusing to help, but your body is your own, and we do not legislate against a man or woman's bodily integrity, their flesh and blood. You don't even have to check that box on your driver's license to be an organ donor after your death (I do), although it is estimated that through this simple act a person could save or help as many as 50 people, so it seems a very pro-life stance.

For risky operations, such as giving up a piece of your liver or your bone marrow, most would applaud such a donation as a selfless act, but wouldn't condemn a person who was unwilling to undergo that ordeal — yet women who receive abortions are denounced and called "baby killers" by some. A woman's risk of death or health problems from childbirth is significantly higher than that from a (safe, legal) abortion, and if she does not want to take that risk, it's her choice. If she doesn't want the strain on her body of carrying a fetus or the burden of nourishing it for nine months, it is her body. And if she has additional complications that put her health in even greater jeopardy, she can take the path of self-defense.

Now let's consider the slut-shaming argument. The woman chose to have sex, she created the fetus, so she has to give it her body. Well, that doesn't quite work either. Say a father or mother has a baby or child who needs a liver transplant, or bone marrow. Nobody can force the father to give up a piece of his liver; nobody can force the mother to offer up her bone marrow. Even though they created that child, it does not have the right to their bodies. You can make judgments against them, despite not knowing their circumstances; you can assume that they can't possibly have a good reason, although I would think they know their situation best. But you simply can't legislate away their right to their body.

Some people don't consider a fetus to be a life. Others consider it to be 100% a unique human life at conception. And others believe it falls in some area in between, perhaps ascribing to the concept of it as a "potential life." Wherever a pregnant woman falls in that spectrum (and wherever you fall), her body is her own to control. Period.

Photo credit: Steve Rhodes