Referring
to the notion of it being a woman's body... well, sure, after the
fact, it technically "is" - but that's after the fact, so at that point, discourse
has already devolved to rhetorical semantics. It wasn't just a woman's
body that led to that scenario, or even to the prior scenarios which in turn led to
that scenario; someone else's body was more than just involved. Someone
else's body was, in fact, required. (Barring the obviously vastly more
complicated issue of artificial insemination, which I'm not touching),
a pregnant woman's body being pregnant is the direct result of hers AND
someone else's body having a mutually-significant interaction. Arguing about the extent of that significance is, again, just superficial semantics at this point. Perhaps
more importantly even than the physical transaction, though, there would have
also been an investment of intent—and by extension, agency... and by
extension, self, identity, and purpose, and so on—both required, and in
turn provided, and in turn accepted and acknowledged, in two directions.
To change the woman's body at that point isn't just changing "her body"
- it's altering the course of multiple complex
processes, all but one of which still involve another person at that
point. There's a LOT more going on there. All of it is relevant.
To
reasonably ask the question, "What gives a man the right to aspire to
affect what a woman should do with her body," you'd also have to ask,
"What gives a woman—or anyone—the right to aspire to control the value or meaning
of a choice that a man—or anyone else—already made WITH his body?" I suppose they're
either equally ridiculous, or equally worthy of consideration. These
questions have actually already been converted into relevant scientific
notation, so to speak, in the form of, "What objective fact should be
interpreted as proof that a woman's pregnancy—a natural, normal
physiological state—is, or should be, more objectively significant than
the significantly-offset physiological state of an expectant—or simply
hopeful—father?" To date, there is no such fact, nor evidence of one, nor even reasonable suspicion of the existence of one. Human physiology being what it is, even as primitive as
we are now, we know better than to even suggest that state of mind is
anything less than a critical component of net state of being - or of a
person's overall health. Perhaps a man's investment in a pregnancy is, in a strictly mechanical
sense, "less" - but if mechanics were the deciding factor in, or even
particularly important or reasonably relevant to, matters of such
fundamental—and fundamentally subjective—scope as this, then human
rights in general make for pretty ridiculous concepts. In any case, by
the time this particular conversation is born, it always seems that
nearly everything on the table is just latent consequence of no
immediate (or clear) relevance or provenance, all of which mostly just
obfuscates the root and prevents a productive discourse on the topic at a
low enough level. The real seed (pun intended) of the algorithm is
barely even a comprehensible concept to most people, much less the
opaque and high-resolution image that it would need to be in order to
hope to grow a productive—or accurate—discourse about itself. That could
change, someday... but I think the median IQ of the world has to change
first. ;)
So
I suppose, ultimately, it's kind of a losing argument no matter
who makes it or which direction anyone takes it, at least at this point
in time - because it eventually boils down to some more fundamental
decisions about the "meaning" of various aspects of human existence (or
lack thereof, or ignorance of such options entirely, etc). Do men have
reproductive rights? Should they? Should women? Should anyone? Should
babies? What IS a baby? What are and/or what should be the rational boundaries of subjective interpretation of the differences between a single cell, a zygote, a fetus, a baby, a human...? What is a human, anyway? What's the difference
between a cell and a machine? What rational reason is there to make
arbitrary philosophical distinctions between humans made entirely of
machine-like cells, and similarly-complex objects that humans arbitrarily think of
as "just" machines? What ARE rights? How should we choose them? Are
human rights even a reasonable concept given the pragmatic compromises
necessary for and inherent in social structures? If so, should there be a
distinction between biological imperatives and human rights - and if
so, where, and why? Are large scale social structures even sustainable
when human psychology is factored into the equation? What is that
equation? I really don't think enough humans are ready to ask the
questions necessary to even begin to participate in those kinds of
conversations.
I have reasonably well-formed opinions on all of those
matters, because I've spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying
to distill and cultivate and reduce them - but even after all of that,
there's just not enough opportunity for productive iteration in so many
of those interesting directions given the current, uhh, human climate. And, naturally, all of these issues far precede any potentially-useful
discussions about such comparatively high-level concepts as abortion.
(That's also the same reason I don't generally discuss politics).
I
pretty much just accept that there are undoubtedly a countless number
of better solutions—and among those, at least one that is both knowable
and as close to "correct" as can be—to the problems that exist now,
including this one... but also, I accept that better solutions to much
of the stuff that I find most interesting will probably remain
irrelevant for at least as long as I'm alive. I mostly just like to
periodically kick around a reminder that these problems still exist,
juuust in case somebody who hasn't thought about it before, and might
never, could end up doing just that. The pot needs stirring, right?
I
think the strongest (clear) opinion I can genuinely offer on abortion
is that it's clearly a supernova-powerful concept that, in practice,
affects one of, (if not the most), fundamental of human existential
directives in both women AND men, with the potential to affect not just
the lives but the outright present and future—and permanent!—identities of both parents—completely irrespective of their personal relationships with each other—in such a
tremendous manner that it can shape the direction of the rest of their
lives, potentially in diametrically-opposite ways... and, that it wouldn't
even be a topic of interest if not for the explicit involvement and overwhelmingly-substantial investment
of BOTH parties. Men and women alike are being diagnosed with crippling PTSD following abortions in ever-increasing numbers. Regardless of anyone's stance on anything involving women's bodies, abortions can and DO affect men just as fundamentally as women, and do so with enough permanent consequence that they rationally must be considered effectively-equal participants. Following that, I definitely think that anything so
influential, and particularly anything so potentially cataclysmic, is so
far beyond even the theoretical best-case scope of any modern human
society's capacity to responsibly manage... that to do so may be—and perhaps
always should be—entirely beyond its permissible purview.
At the very least,
attempting to simplify a multi-variable system by expressing it as a
function of only one of its variables is rarely even useful -
and in any case, is never a valid solution.
