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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

If pregnant women have bodily autonomy, then it is their body and their choice. The argument is whether a fetus has the right to use another person’s body against their own will.

Otherwise we’re saying that bodily autonomy is not absolute and it’s OK to use people’s body’s against their wishes.

If a woman must use her body to give life to the baby inside her, then I really don’t think it’s that big of leap to a situation where someone is compelled to give a kidney to save a life. After all, we’ve conceded that people can be compelled to use their bodies in ways they don’t desire to.

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This line of thought has been elaborated under a theory called evictionism [1]. Evictionists concede personhood of a fetus, but reject its right to reside in a womb without consent of the owner of the womb. The logic seems sound, but leads to conclusions which are objectionable by current mainstream moral standards (for example, allowing extremely late term abortions for non-medical reasons [2]).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evictionism

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-...

> The logic seems sound, but leads to conclusions which are objectionable by current mainstream moral standards (for example, allowing extremely late term abortions for non-medical reasons.

With evictions in the post-birth world, we generally require some notice before the actual eviction. I have a hard time imagining that we would not do so for pre-birth evictions considering that the consequences to the evictee are much more severe.

Set that notice time to N months and you have then effectively prohibited abortions in the last N months of the pregnancy.

On the other hand, that may be pointless. If a landlord evicts someone without proper notice has the landlord committed a crime or just given the evictee a cause for civil action?

If it is just civil action then this approach wouldn't work for limiting late term abortions under evictionism because the injured party would be dead. Normally in the case of a dead pre-adult it would be up to the parents to sue, but since the mother would be the defendant she can't sue herself.

There is presumably a father though. If he didn't agree to the abortion maybe he could sue? That's a whole different can of worms in general--it takes two to create a pregnancy, so should both have a say in termination? If so what are the results when they cannot agree on whether or not to terminate?

Your questions prompted me to skim through Walter Block's exposition of evictionism [1]. There is a sense of what constitutes a reasonable, gentle, eviction.

"From these examples is derived the principle that when one evicts a trespasser, or deals with any other violator of rights, one is obliged to do so in a certain way; it must be done in the least invasive manner possible consistent with upholding property rights. If a trespasser is on your lawn and you have a bazooka, you are not entitled to blow him away - not as a first step in any case. That is far too extreme and incompatible with the doctrine of private property rights. The homeowner has the right to make sure that the outsider does not trespass further, but he must be evicted in the gentlest manner possible." -pages 21-22

When there is no possible gentle eviction, due to technological or other circumstantial limitations, Walter Block believes that one can evict even when the sure consequence is death of the tenant.

"Based on the private property rights philosophy, the individual then had the right to evict the trespasser in the most gentle manner possible. If there was no gentle manner feasible, an individual's property rights to her womb transcend the so-called "right to life" of anyone else." -page 22

It looks like the world "gentle" is doing a lot of work here. One could claim, in the spirit of your comment, that a 9 month notice period for eviction is required for gentleness. In an even more bizarre twist, one could argue that an abortion is only gentle when the fetus would be then transferred to a life support system that could bring it to full term. With today's technology, this would imply an earliest date for abortion instead of a deadline. Walter Block does not, in my opinion, clarify the issue of gentleness enough in the document to settle the issue.

[1] http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/b...

I think a major flaw in evictions is the concept of invitation.

You cant invite someone out on a boat ride and then evict them while out at sea in the "most gentle manner feasible". The degree to which conception equates to invitation is certainly debatable, but it is an elephant in the room.

Similarly, if the trespass is allowed for long enough, questions of adverse possession and de facto easements come into play.

> There is presumably a father though. If he didn't agree to the abortion maybe he could sue? That's a whole different can of worms in general--it takes two to create a pregnancy, so should both have a say in termination? If so what are the results when they cannot agree on whether or not to terminate?

Before birth, he may sue for his sperm, or the equivalent, back. The truth is before birth absolutely nothing is physiologically required of the father. Yes, there’s clearly a cultural role for the father before birth, but that’s not actually necessary for the woman to give birth. They really don’t enter into the equation. After birth, sure, there’s plenty of precedent for that and I won’t argue that here.

Regarding evictionism, I have to admit that I too find the idea of very late term, elective abortions distasteful. However, the act of giving birth itself is very dangerous for women, so just because her pregnancy has been without complication doesn’t mean she won’t die giving birth.

Being pregnant can kill you. Giving birth can kill you. Birth and pregnancy are mortal dangers. We need to let women choose themselves over their baby if that’s what they desire.

And of course the truth is most will choose to have the baby. If reducing the number of abortions was ever the real goal we’d have free contraception for everyone and the state would pay for all pre-natal and birthing medical expenses.

There’d still be some, but there’d be far, far fewer.

> Being pregnant can kill you. Giving birth can kill you. Birth and pregnancy are mortal dangers. We need to let women choose themselves over their baby if that’s what they desire.

A live birth is much less dangerous than the flu so this isn't really a good argument. I agree that women should be able to commit abortions, at least for the first trimester or so, but I wouldn't say that the danger of live birth is a good motivation for it. The most important reason is to give women who aren't ready to be mothers yet more time to prepare so they are ready and actually want the child before they give birth.

> A live birth is much less dangerous than the flu so this isn't really a good argument.

I don’t think it matters. Women do die from it. It is the woman’s choice to take that risk or not, regardless of how big or small that risk is.

It's whether a fetus is a person afforded rights. An entirely subjective opinion, which is kind of why I don't care what the answer is.

Fine, then the fetus has the right to vacate the womb and gestate in someone willing.

The fetus can’t be given rights to the mother’s blood or use of her body, otherwise that sets a pretty dangerous precedent. If abortions can be outlawed, why not vasectomies? Or chemotherapy?

My point is it doesn’t matter the status of the fetus. It’s about the right of pregnant women to have autonomy over their body.

What is bodily autonomy? Most crimes are committed with the body in some form or another. What if I stab a knife in the air and somebody happens to be standing there? Thus it seems that the limit of my bodily autonomy ends where another person's rights begin.

The thing is that a lot of people think that a fetus is a person with rights. If a fetus is a person with rights then bodily autonomy doesn't quite apply. The bodily autonomy angle seems more of an escape hatch to sidestep the subjective and unsolvable issue of whether or not fetuses are people and have rights.

I'm pro-choice btw

Put simply: the right to decide what goes into and comes out of your body.

Your knife example has nothing to do with your bodily autonomy. It’s why you can’t be forced to donate a kidney or why you can choose to get a vasectomy.

Don't we already compel people to use their bodies in ways that may be against their wishes?

Let's say I have a 1 month old. Pretty much everyone would agree I'm not allowed to murder that baby. However, I also need to care for the baby? What happened to my bodily autonomy? Why can't I fly out to vegas for a weekend and leave the baby at home to fend for itself? I have to be a ward for this little blob? Or I have to go out of my way and waste my time to find someone to care for it?

Why is it my job to keep this thing alive? Why will I be punished if I neglect that job?

Are you really this stupid or are you intentionally trying to muddy the waters?

You can leave your newborn at any hospital in the US no questions asked if you do not want them.

Excuse me, where exactly is my bodily freedom in that instance? I need to go out of my way to do something with my body, just so someone else will live? We've concluded that that is wrong.

You’re not required to give the child any part of your body.

You’re misunderstanding what bodily autonomy means. By you argument, prisons should not exist.

Wikipedia defines bodily autonomy as:

> Bodily integrity is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human beings over their own bodies

I would say that part of having "self-determination of human beings over their bodies" is where their bodies are and what their bodies are doing.

But fine, we can just talk about tons of other laws which don't support the concept of bodily autonomy, like anti-drug laws, seat belt and helmet laws, etc.

> By you argument, prisons should not exist.

No, my argument is that bodily autonomy isn't a fully guaranteed concept in our legal system. A prison is exactly another example of the case, not only the main use of the prison, but also forced invasive strip searches there, forced blood draws, etc.

Arguing to dictionary definitions while absolutely refusing to put any good faith effort into your discussion is telling. Go do that somewhere else.

I was told I didn't understand a concept, so I went to the obvious place to get a primer on the subject. Do you have a better method I can learn about the rights of bodily autonomy in the US legal system?

I will state my point directly:

To me, arguing that a person has no obligation to care for an unborn human they created is no different than arguing that a person has no obligation to care for a 1 month old they created. I don't see the process of birth as some factor in determining whether someone is a human or not. Please note this is entirely separate from the concept of when someone is a human. I'm all for abortions of non-human-yet things should the mother be desirous.

> To me, arguing that a person has no obligation to care for an unborn human they created is no different than arguing that a person has no obligation to care for a 1 month old they created.

Except, in our society you do not have that obligation. Just leave them at the hospital.

Of course, you will have to create odd situations where this doesn't work to support your flawed argument, because you're a luddite and have a smol brain.

There are FUCKING ZERO situations outside of abortion where you can give up your care for the baby while pregnant, nevermind the many other differences where pregnancy is much more serious for the mother than having a 1mo old.

Are you seriously telling me you can't use whatever braincells you have left to come up with a few situations where a woman pregnant with a child and a born child are different? Really?

There's a book by Rothbard, I think it is his "The Ethics of Liberty", where he describes a set of libertarian principles and then how he thinks a society could be made based on those principles. What makes it interesting is that he tries very hard to not have to compromise those libertarian principles, following them even if they go to some places he agrees are pretty dark and trying to explain what would prevent that from happening.

He covers the issue of parents having to care for children and concludes that they would not be legally required to do so. Go ahead and go to Vegas for a weekend and if the baby can't figure out how to survive on its own that's not legally your problem.

His argument for why this would not lead to the large number of baby deaths by neglect that probably most people reading this are sure it would is that adoption would not be regulated in his ideal libertarian state. There would be a totally free market in babies. You could make a lot more than you'd ever win in Vegas in a weekend by first putting your unwanted baby up for sale.

I don't find his arguments very convincing, but it is interesting if you treat it more as an intellectual puzzle than how you would actually set up a society.

Are there any circumstances where you would be OK with compelled organ donation?

For instance suppose someone needs a kidney to save their life and I am the only possible donor and suppose the reason they need a kidney is that I deliberately and without their permission did something that I knew had a significant risk of leading to someone needing a kidney.

I don't know if I should be compelled in that case to give a kidney, but it seems reasonable for there to be legal pressure on me to do so (such as facing some kind of homicide charge if I do not on they die).

What if you die as a result of complications from the kidney harvesting procedure? How is that fair or right?

I think a reasonable argument can be made that I should have taken that into account before doing something that destroyed their kidneys.

If I've wrongfully created a situation where either an innocent person will certainly die or I have a risk of dying (under 0.06% for kidney donation) how is it fair or right that they die?

It's unreasonable to take away people's bodily autonomy. Just.. no.

What if I deliberately poison someone in an attempt to murder them, but botch it so that instead of quickly killing them it just damages their kidneys to point that they will die without a transplant, and I'm the only compatible potential donor?

Wasn't my wrecking their kidneys a breach of their bodily autonomy? Why shouldn't I be required to give up some of my own bodily autonomy to reverse much of the damage I did to their bodily autonomy?

In the US, we can't even compel people to donate a kidney to save a life after they're dead.

We just had the case with vaccine mandates in many cases.

…or be compelled to take a vaccine with less than a year of safety data.

What a bad take. You were encouraged to take the vaccine, you were not forced to. You know that and you're just being dishonest.

Yeah. I was being a bit hyperbolic. But there was lots of talk about ways to force vaccination. Including mandates for keeping your job (both in the public and private sector). You might say that a private company can do what they want (and the libertarian in me says yes) but then you need to be consistent on the other side - remember the uproar when Hobby Lobby said they didn’t want to pay for insure that provided abortion services?

I’m really not taking sides here, I’m just pointing out that we should strive for self-consistency in our government regulations. And either you have a right to your body or you don’t. You can’t pick and choose.

Nothing is absolute. You don't have the right to walk around naked. Sometimes your body autonomy is taken away in some scenarios. I don't think the vaccines should be one. Just because people talked about how to encourage vaccines being taken and were upset they were forced to work with unvaccinated coworkers doesn't mean anti abortion policies are good. You're just a troll.

Walking around naked is not bodily autonomy. Deciding what goes into and comes out of your body is.

You'll have your bodily autonomy revoked (you'll be put in prison) if you walk around naked. They are similar things or have similar outcomes.

No one was forcibly vaccinated. The use of incentives and disincentives to encourage vaccination can certainly be debated, but no had a vaccine forced into their body against their will.

Plenty of people are still not vaccinated by choice.

Yes. See my reply to the sibling comment for my less snippy clarification.

> No one was forcibly vaccinated.

This is not quite correct. Some people were vaccinated against their will. Some old folks homes in the EU vaccinated residents even if they did not consent, for example.

Everything I’ve said is about the US in particular. What you described would almost certainly be illegal in the US, unless the care home had power of attorney over the residents in question.

An employer forcing employees to be vaccinated is nothing else as people may be dependent on the income. This is not an argument against abortion, it is an argument against "my body my choice" line. In the vaccination case that would be true but the discussion around abortion is the premise that there are two competing interests which the argument neglects.

I don’t think the argument neglects so I’ll say it more clearly: the rights of the mother trump those of the fetus when it comes to her body.

>After all, we’ve conceded that people can be compelled to use their bodies in ways they don’t desire to.

We crossed that bridge a long time ago. It is criminal for a parent to starve their children, or abandon them in a hostile environment.

That's not even remotely similar and you know it.

I think they are indeed similar and a framework would be needed to separate them. I'm open to the idea that they are similar but have meaningful differences.

A significant portion of the US doesn't think there is a meaningful distinction.

They are not similar. Primarily because having to take care of a kid doesn't mean you are forced to carry them inside you. Also at least in the US you can drop your baby off at any hospital no questions asked. So not similar at all. You're uneducated or trolling.

If you need me to explain now these are different things you're the problem.

No need for the hostility. At a minimum they are similar in that they are all compulsions to take action and limitations on personal autonomy. I never said they were the same.

You can drop a baby at a hospital, but you can't drop them in the trash.

Your words and actions are hostile to many women in the US. Don't tell me I can't be hostile to you over the internet. Grow up.

If this is how you talk to your allies, I cant imagine how you treat you opposition.

If you find the word "similar" so hostile you can't have an conversation that contains it, there is no room for intelligent discourse.

That’s very different. Being compelled to take some action is very different than being compelled to remove a part of your body or to put something into it, or to give a part of your body to someone else.

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