It’s About Bodily Autonomy

By Madeline Reilly

Date of Origin: April 2022 (updated in June of 2022)

Driving through upstate New York, there are signs for apple farms, advertisements for a local bar and grill, and 1-800 hotlines that claim to put you in direct contact with “the Lord and Savior himself”. Occasionally, some of those billboards feature phrases like “A heartbeat means life” or “Would you end the life of something so precious?” with the picture of a newborn swaddled and sleeping.

The topic of women having the right to choose has been a debate I’ve been churning over in my mind for years, even before I was old enough to think about sex and the relationship attached to it. Or even conceive the idea of one day having children of my own. It has been a hot-button topic I have been exposed to from daily news, podcasts, and classmates debating what aspects of feminist ideas we were ready to adopt. The question always is: Is it her right to choose?

I know the answer to that: yes. Absolutely yes. Always yes. It seems like my opinion should end there. But I think about it more often as I get older, and the realization that I would one day want to become a parent has dawned on me. But my answer stays the same. Yes. Yes, because that is my right to choose.

However, as more and more states in the U.S. have made it more difficult for women to have access to family planning or written legislation that outright criminalizes abortion entirely to the point of calling it murder. And this lack of access has made me question what the finer points of this debate are saying.

On the Pro-life side, you have the moral argument that it is morally wrong to end the life of the unborn. That argument is usually paired with the idea that life begins at conception. The issue I have with this is the timed pressure required to make this decision. Most legislation, like the ones in Florida, usually gives a woman up to 6 weeks after conception. The other factor to consider is that most tests cannot detect a pregnancy until at least three to four weeks. Timed bills and heartbeat laws give a woman very little time to decide and seek the proper medical care.

Furthermore, as of Jun 24, 2022, The Supreme Court has overturned Roe V. Wade, this has enacted some of these states to implement “trigger bans' ' These will go into effect immediately in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. In places like Idaho, Oklahoma, and 7 other states these trigger bans will go into effect 30 days after the USSC’s decision.

In Texas, the exceptions in cases such as rape and incest are no longer in place, with far-right pro-lifeactivistsNovembert. One of these activists, John Sergeo, told NPR back in November 2021 in response to a case involving a 12-year-old girl. “We are talking about innocent human life - that is not their crime, that it is not their horrendous behavior that victimized this woman.” It is here, where the core of the debate is derived and divided on: What is autonomy, and whose autonomy matters more?

For life: the fetus’s autonomy should matter; for Pro-Choice: the mother or the person whose womb is used in service of giving their body service to that life is the one whose autonomy should matter. At this level, these two sides of the coin diverge. Whose bodily autonomy is at stake is never brought to the individualistic idea of ideology and always someone else's.

One of the aspects of the Pro-life vs Pro-choice debate is that it always confuses me in terms of what people are fighting for comes in two levels of miscommunication and recognition. Having the terms “Pro-life vs Pro-choice” is a little ridiculous to me. Saying Pro-life as if the other side is full of willful extremists who want to see the human race flounder into dust. In my perspective, it should be up to personal choice and to be considered under the unique circumstances people may find themselves in. The fact that debate is a source of moral pandering on the idea that anyone is Pro-death misinterprets what is actually at stake; and that is bodily autonomy.

For me boldly autonomy has always been a factor in this debate that right-wing legislatures and those who support them try to sweep under the rug or turn against the idea of pro-choice. That the bodily independence of women is only existent to the extent that it does not interfere with the female body's ability to give birth. It is part of a larger conversation on how we treat women's bodies and how they choose to use them; from getting tattoos to whether or not they want to be a parent.

In my own experience, I’ve been dealing with defending my autonomy. As a woman who was born with a rare heart defect, having to convince doctors that the pain I was feeling was real and not an overreaction was a struggle. Having to take control of my health to preserve it has been a battle I’ve been fighting every day. But when I think about other choices surrounding the body I think of all the things I can’t and won’t be able to physically do.

I was coming back from an OBGYN appointment where I had just been prescribed a more effective form of birth control. My doctor had to find a more effective avenue for me that didn’t involve too many hormones. But it was also an opportunity for her to explain the risks that I specifically would have to endure if I were to one day have children. I've known the hypothetical risks for a long time. Having been born with a heart defect that causes immense pressure on my lungs and heart to pump blood to the rest of my body, let alone supporting another body would not be impossible but it would be painful and life-threatening. The list of things that could go wrong is long and so I have to consider the reality that if I were to one day become pregnant it could lead to complications like preeclampsia, stroke, cardiac arrest, or even be fatal.

But that's where I have solace in the possibility of options and creating my own. As someone who struggles with these health issues, I need to know that amongst everything I can choose what is right for me and only me. That I have a say in what I not only want but need.

Part of the idea of choice is having doors that we can open without being sure we want to walk through them, it’s good to have the option just in case. So it is ridiculous to me, or in the case of anyone else, that choosing our bodies over other people, over other people’s morals is considered selfish.

Other people have other reasons: gender equality, sexual liberation, and the right to just choose all come back to our bodies. If we are to give in and say nothing we not only lose the autonomy over the female body but grant the choices that other people, trans people, the elderly, and the disabled have in making decisions about their health. We close those doors for them and close the doors on ourselves. And by allowing the governing from a room full of less than ten people onto millions of people, is sending a message that we can’t achieve anything.

So let me make the message clear: no one can govern our bodies.