Hands Off My Body! (SCOTUS-Pocus – The DOBBS Decision)
We continue our series on the Supreme Court’s DOBBS decision.
Ever since the DOBBS decision was handed down, in fact ever since it was unceremoniously leaked in May, the screeching from the sociopolitical left has been deafening, probably because they don’t know how to protest something without beating people up, vandalizing, smashing, and burning up property, and using any volume under 140 decibels.
In the longstanding abortion debate, the arguments appear to boil down to the the sanctity of human live versus the ability of any woman to do whatever the hell she wants without anyone else telling her what to do.
As I’ve already outlined some of the major fallacies in the pro-abortion camp previously, I want to spend a moment to look at the most commonly used screech that pro-abortion advocates use to try to muscle their view into the public arena.
“My body, my choice!”
As usual there are variations of this same theme, including “hands off my body”, “you can’t tell me what to do with my body”, and my personal favorite, “you’re a man, you have no say in the matter”.
Typically, this whole argument wants to imply personal and individual control over one’s own body. And this would be perfectly fine, save for one thing: every pro-abortion woman who screams this in the face of others, forgets that with personal control, comes personal responsibility. It’s this other side of this “my body, my choice” coin that They all seem to deliberately ignore, but it is the most important aspect of the argument, and integral to a potential solution to the abortion debate.
Now, certainly it is true that everyone has a “right” to one’s one body. But just because we all have a right to our own bodies and what we do with them, does not mean that our rights are consequence-free, nor indeed that just because we are free to do whatever we want with our bodies, that we should actually do “whatever we want”.
Do What You Want
It can be argued that any of us has a right to smoke like a chimney stack and drink five quarts of whiskey a day. Sure, you’re free to do that. By doing so however, you’ll also ruin your liver and your kidneys as well as your lungs, and more than likely develop cancer.
You also have the right to refuse to commit to regular exercise and a relatively healthy diet, and instead plant yourself in front of your massively-oversized flat-screen 4K TV watching every night of football available, while consistently eating and drinking twice your body weight in potato chips, pretzels, and beer. Sure, you’re free to do that. You’ll also be 17 times more likely than someone who doesn’t do that, to become morbidly obese and develop potentially deadly conditions like type II diabetes and heart disease, or have a massive stroke.
I’ve used the example of prostitution before, in that prostitutes may certainly claim that they’re free to do with their bodies whatever they want, so their choice of subjecting their body to multiple sex partners every day for years, may be within their personal right to do that, but it’s also a crime for which they run the risk of getting caught, prosecuted, and jailed – thus limiting their personal freedom to do with their bodies whatever they want. This is a perfect example of disproving the pro-abortion fallacy that “no law or state can deprive me of the right to my own body.”
But sure, it’s your right to use your body to commit a crime, or abuse the hell out of your body and ruin your life, but just because you can, certainly doesn’t mean you should.
Freedom vs Responsibility
This is where personal freedom meets personal responsibility.
We would all agree that we have the freedom to do what we want with our bodies, even if that means doing something destructive or illegal. But equally we must also actively take personal responsibility for what we do with our bodies.
When it comes to abortion, this comes down to a simple choice: take protective action to avoid a pregnancy in the first place, or accept the responsibility of reckless and irresponsible actions, including those actions that result in the creation of another life.
As a medical provider, I am not blind to the potential “need” (using those quotations intentionally) for an abortion procedure in specific cases where justified. However, it cannot be denied that such cases represent an extremely small percentage of abortions performed in the US yearly. The overwhelming majority of abortion procedures in the US are performed simply because a pregnancy was unexpected and/or unwanted. When such as result is traced back to the actions, it becomes clear that irresponsible behavior is at the root of the quest for such abortion procedures.
Irresponsible Behavior
We see these personally-irresponsible actions all the time – risky sexual behavior, multiple partners, lack of effective contraception by either or both sex partners, and a sense of selfishness (aka the “I want my own life/career, I don’t want a kid” mentality), lead some people to think of abortion as a relatively easy way out of a sticky situation. This isn’t limited only to women.
There are enough men out there who refuse to use contraception when they should (the old stupid I can’t feel nuthin’ line), or refuse to obtain vasectomies when they could. These men exhibit just as much personal irresponsibility and selfishness as the women who seem have the “oh well, I’ll just go get an abortion” attitude. I’d be willing to bet that many men faced with an unwanted pregnancy because of his irresponsible actions, think of abortion as a convenient (to them of course) method of birth control, and pressure their partners into having the procedure, even if the woman may be thinking about carrying the baby after all.
Because men are equally responsible for an unintended pregnancies (may I remind some doofus who argued with me about this point on Facebook, that the man’s sperm needs to be around somewhere for pregnancy to occur), they are equally responsible for the disposition of the child. Our society has made “single, powerful women” into a virtue to the discredit in this one point: because of this attitude, some women faced with an unintended pregnancy will keep the man out of the equation and choose to abort the child on their own, without any consultation with the man responsible for the pregnancy. This is absolutely as wrong as both of them engaging in reckless sexual behavior in the first place.
Irresponsible Pressures
Personal control of one’s body cannot be separated from personal responsibility. When two people get together and control their bodies in intercourse, they must be willing to accept the responsibility of any and all consequences of that action. If their action results in an unintended pregnancy, then both partners need to be responsible to themselves and to each other in the decisions that are made. Neither the man attempting to “pressure” the woman to “just abort the kid”, nor the woman choosing unilaterally to have an abortion without saying a word to the involved man, is anywhere near responsible behavior.
And here’s where religion can tend to blur the whole issue. Many (not all) major world religions extol the virtue of personal responsibility. And while it is certainly a moral goal to abstain from sexual activity until one is married to the partner, our society has long abandoned that noble and long-term goal for the short-term pleasure of sex. Even otherwise well-meaning anti-abortion advocates would concede that extramarital sex is a societal norm, even if their religion would frown on it.
Catholic Myopia
But it’s the Roman Catholic church, and their frankly myopic prohibition of artificial birth control methods. While I think their prohibition of birth control is a noble goal which should be followed by those with a proper moral compass that personally restricts their sexual activity until they are married to their life partner, our society has drifted so far away from the religious principles of our ancestors. Because of this deliberate destruction of religious and moral influence on our culture, it’s an unattainable goal to expect that every person in America would abstain from sex until they’re married, let alone to remain monogamous to their life partner.
Again, I am deliberately putting aside the percentage of sexual acts of a criminal nature that result in a pregnancy (rape, incest), as well as the percentage of pregnancies that clearly present a severe risk to the life of the mother (that’s a discussion to be had later), because these types of occurrences represent a minuscule percentage of abortion procedures performed annually.
This leaves the need for taking personal responsibility for our actions exactly in the lap of the the first part of that phrase: personal.
Making It Personal
Every woman who decides to engage in any sexual activity while claiming the “right to do what I want with my body” and “my body, my choice”, must also make the deliberate choice to be responsible for her action, whether or not that action results in an unintended or undesirable consequence.
Likewise, every man who decides to engage in any sexual activity with a woman who claims the “right” to be in control of her body, must also make the deliberate choice to be responsible for his action, whether or not that action results in an unintended or undesirable consequence.
- “Should I really have sex with him/her? Do I really want to do this?”
- “How can I protect myself from getting pregnant?”
- “Why should she/he be the only one using protection?”
These are just a few of the questions people should be asking themselves in order to lead them to the personal responsibility for their actions. While certainly no birth control method (except abstinence) is 100% foolproof, the odds of avoiding a pregnancy increases exponentially if both partners agree to utilize an appropriate method of birth control.
It’s not enough for men and women to get caught up “in the moment” and just fly off and have sex with whomever you want, whenever you want, without any method of preventing a pregnancy, all under the irresponsible assumption that an abortion is just as good (or better) method of birth control than a condom, IUD, diaphragm, contraceptive pills, or (dare I say it) abstinence.
Even emergency contraceptive medications, the so-called “Plan B” type pills, aren’t the best option to prevent a pregnancy in the first place, but I predict that if the current liberal government whines and complains enough about the SCOTUS decision to push the abortion discussion back to the states, we’ll probably be seeing unrestricted access to emergency contraceptive tablets in stores, without a prescription, available to anyone, which will only serve to “legitimize” irresponsible behavior.
The Elephant In The Room
The entire reason for the need for personal responsibility is clearly to be able to enjoy life without consequences that could likely be avoided by taking proper action and responsible behavior. And in this case, the elephant in the room in the abortion debate, is the fate of the child.
We’ll touch on this next time.
Next: The Elephant In The Room
