"To him, a woman’s claim to bodily autonomy or self-determination doesn't merit even cursory consideration."
That strikes me as a superficial understanding of the matter. This point-of-view is so limited and shallow and is so commonly held, one marvels at how little thought has gone into it. But, it is critical to understand, so I thought I'd take some time to point out the fallacies and present a fuller understanding of the matter...
The Beast's thinking starts out pretty offensive, with the view that those that are pro-life are trying to strip women of their autonomy, when nothing could be further from the truth. If you actually engage in a discussion with a pro-life thinker, you'll find they believe that a woman's autonomy exists long before a child exists in her womb. Autonomy exists at the moment a woman agrees to have sex, and the man also has autonomy and responsibility at that point.
Prior to copulating the man and the woman both have the autonomy to decide if they wish to engage in sexual relations with the other or not. But, unfortunately, the pro-abortion crowd prefers to see that as a simple choice of "Does this person excite me enough that I want to share 10 minutes of pleasure with him (or her)?" It distills the autonomy to something animal, something purely sensual, something without any consequence beyond the possibility that the encounter may not be as pleasurable as anticipated.
But, the pro-life view of autonomy is something far greater. First, it assumes that we aren't animals. When animals are in heat, they mate. The get an urge, they follow it. They may or may not end up pregnant, if they do end up pregnant they have offspring. But they make no choice, they are slaves to their instincts and nothing more. As human beings we actually have a choice. We are capable of understanding and choosing to procreate or not to procreate. Where animals have an instinctual urge and no capacity to deviate from the drive, we can choose. By limiting the choice to pleasure or not, we become no better than animals; you have an itch, scratch it.
But we can recognize that sex for the human being isn't simply an urge that we must satisfy. It has consequence beyond the pleasure of the act. It has emotional consequences. It has the potential to bring forth new life. It has carries the risk of disease. And you can't separate those consequences from that act. I'm sure some will argue, "Yes I can have sex and not fall in love." But that does not separate the emotion from the act, instead it attaches emotional ambivalence, disrespect, or isolation to the act.
As a pro-life advocate, I want not just women but men as well to assert their autonomy. I want them to assert their uniquely human ability to think, to understand, and make intelligent, reasoned choices that take into account all the consequences. Not to simply act as animals rutting out of instinct, or irrational beings focused so much on one factor (personal pleasure) that we ignore the other inherent consequences.
We can look at the hundreds of thousands of babies legally aborted each year in this country and see that half the time people are not thinking at all, they are having "unprotected" sex in circumstances where pro-creation is not desired. The other half that are having sex and not desiring offspring may be putting a little more thought in to it, but they are ignoring the failure rate (which is premised on correct usage) and not willing to accept the consequence of their choice should they misuse their contraception or experience a failure.
Of course, those statistics are disturbing in and of themselves. Half the abortions are performed on women that were using contraception? And an equal number not using contraception also aborted a child? If birth control were actually reliable, you'd expect there to be far less need for abortion among the "protected". If people were actually thinking about consequences you'd expect the opposite. If people were thinking and birth control were reliable you'd expect significantly less than 1 million abortions per year. But the numbers suggest birth control doesn't work and people aren't thinking...
An intelligent, rational man or woman should recognize that the choice to have sex is more than simply the choice to enjoy a fleeting pleasure. It's a decision to risk an enormous change in one's life. It is taking a risk that you will create a new life, a new responsibility. Rational autonomy is taking control of one's life and saying, "I could end up creating a child and I am ready for that responsibility and I have everything in place to be able to handle that responsibility." Or it is saying, "I'm not ready for that possibility, so I better choose another path."
It's not just the woman's responsibility. Men must take that decision seriously, too. If you aren't ready to be a father, you aren't ready for sex. If you don't have everything in place to be able to give a new life the home, parents and resources it needs, you aren't ready for sex.
That's what marriage used to be about. Two people saying, "I'm ready for the possibility of children. Together we are going to create the environment that will give the new life we choose to create the best opportunity."
That is true autonomy. Knowing where you are, where you can go, and making the choices that will get you where you want to be. Not letting your emotions or hormones or temporal lusts direct your actions and lead you into circumstances you did not desire for yourself. Being human and autonomous means using the intellect, the conscience, the self-awareness that separates us from animals to control our own lives.
And if that doesn't make it clear that the pro-life attitude is not trying to deny women their autonomy and is, in fact, trying to give it back to them, think again.
The man that is in favor of birth control and abortion, he is the one that doesn't care about women. He cares about the body parts he can use for his pleasure and trying to make sure that he can make use of those parts and not have to deal with "complications".
I know the rally cry when the pill came into being was that it would allow women to have what men had: consequence free sex.
How sad a testimony that is to what we are as human beings. Immoral, irresponsible men would use women for their own pleasure, lacking any concern for the other person they were using for pleasure and lacking any responsibility for caring for a new life if it were created. And rather than demand maturity, responsibility, ethics, or morality of men, we fight for the right for everyone to be irresponsible and disrespectful? Is that what we have become as human beings?
I've got two teenage daughters. I was a teenage and young adult male recently enough to remember the culture, thoughts and attitudes boys and young "men" have. I recognize that what was locker room conversation, whispered and a bit scandalous then is now on TV, in movies and in music as if it is nothing to be ashamed of; women as sex objects, "consequence free sex", "friends with benefits", "hooking up", you would hear stuff like that in locker rooms, in private conversations of boys, but now you can't turn on the TV without your 8 year old seeing that as permissible public discussion and endorsed as a good way to approach life.
It chills me to think that my daughters are now the object of that disrespectful, uncaring wanton and desire. And that our society is now saying, "It's OK. Just use protection." And, I know full well, boys understand what girls really want. And they use those desires for love, attention, fitting in, coupled with the "safety" of birth control and the "safety net" of abortion to manipulate them into "expressing their love." But contraceptives don't protect their hearts, their emotions are left exposed. And "safe" sex is a lie, you can get diseases and the facts prove pregnancies happen, frequently. And, to be fair on the emotional harm, men can be hurt the same way. Maybe it doesn't happen as often, or maybe men are just too "manly" to admit it, but they can feel used and abandoned when sex causes a (entirely normal) sense of emotional connection where one didn't really exist.
Choosing to have an abortion is not autonomy. It's finding yourself in a situation you never wanted to be in and allowing unplanned circumstances and external factors to force you to choose between two undesirable outcomes. No woman really wants an abortion. She wants to have not gotten pregnant in the first place so she could control her life. Faced with the choice of an unwanted pregnancy that will force her to change her plans or taking a human life, she chooses what seems to be the least objectionable at a time fraught with stress and emotion. But it is taking a human life. We rationalize it away, but it's mental gymnastics to soothe our conscience that justly resists the taking of innocent life.
Autonomy is knowing what you want in life, understanding the consequences of choices and how they might affect what you really want in life, and making intelligent, rational decisions ordered toward your plan. Not just making on the spot choices without serious consideration.
Of course, someone in the pro-abortion crowd will ask, "What about the victim of rape or incest? Or where carrying the baby to term will kill the mother?" Valid questions that do complicate the matter.
I don't want to dismiss those valid questions. They deserve consideration and a response, which I will offer up in a subsequent post.
