George Rebane

The nonsense claims that Republicans want to ‘deny women the right to their bodies’, or even more egregiously to ‘deny women healthcare’ completely swamps any reasonable discussion of the abortion issue – its legalization and its funding by government or private means.  The issue seems to always come back to what a woman can do with her own body, a concept perhaps more sacred to the conservative than to the secular humanist liberal.  Here’s my take on it.

The question ‘what rights does a woman have to the disposition of her own body?’ needs first to delineate what we are talking about.  What are the boundaries of a woman’s body given that at times it is a container for what can reasonably – clinically, philosophically, spiritually, religiously, and legally – be argued to contain a separate and distinct body in every sense of the word.  Courts are today considering fetal homicide – the intentional and purposeful killing of a fetus – as murder, even though the pregnant woman (the container) suffered no long-term physical harm (more here).

Given such starkly real considerations, the entire question of a woman’s decision to kill what nature has built her to nurture and protect comes up for serious consideration that should not (cannot?) be dismissed on the basis of political ideology or of ‘primitive religious traditions’.  Most certainly it should not be misrepresented and pandered to those voters with disabled reasoning machinery.

The simple reality is that we have an unsolved ‘two bodies problem’ here.  Without denial, we all know there’s a kid in there, another body inside the body of the woman who demands the right to dispose of that smaller body for which she is a natural receptacle.

Exit Question: So then, when does ‘a woman’s right to healthcare’ turn into fetal homicide or simply pre-meditated murder?