There has been much-ado regarding a woman’s right to sexual & reproductive freedom in our Union of late. To say there is controversy is to belittle the feelings that have motivated violence and uproar from both sides. The highest court in our land has ruled, not once, but several times on the issue, and still it lingers with a foul smell. Our politicians wax and wane to pander to the ideologies of each side and, seemingly to me, fuel this debate with nonsense and non-sequiturs.
There is, however, a question or perspective that has not been addressed by the courts, the politicians or any of the followers of either side of the Abortion debate: Does a Government have the ability to determine the freedoms we may exercise upon our own corporeal bodies? This question does not rest with reproductive freedom, but rather with all freedoms to do as we will to our only, to be sure, property from cradle to grave: the self.
I put forward the argument that the jurisdiction of the state is ended at the boundaries of our skin when it comes to codifying behaviors directed at ourselves. This includes abortion, drug use, suicide, which involves exactly one physical party – the self.
The U.S. Constitution’s 5th amendment guarantees the individual not “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;” and it is this due process that seems to plague this debate. Is the unborn child deserving of life, liberty or property? Do the rights of the mother trump the rights of the unborn? Lofty questions, it is true, but are they able to be answered without answering the question, “Can the rights of self-determination be trumped by any other right?” I hold they can not.
It is clear that the self is a requirement for life, still more, that it is life itself; that the self is endowed from birth with liberty and is itself liberty; and that the self is, by its very definition the property of itself – or to put it another way, the self is fully owned, without question, by the its controller. So we can say that the self is life, is freedom and is property which can not be acted upon by external forces without undue deprivation of the entire trio.
But that is high-minded logic and perhaps subject to critical review by theorists of all walks, I’m sure. Then let us consider the real application of laws pertaining to how the self treats itself. Imagine, if you will, a wave of public outcry on the idea of self-modification – perhaps tattoos. It is clear that if one wants to exact some change to their self, no external entity may stop them. Even putting them in stocks and restricting their movement, they will be able to cause some mark upon their bodies, be it the lacerations and bruising from resisting the external control, or some other change they may affect upon their being. There is no external entity that may control what only our own minds have dominion over and no plausible way to modify the environment so that we might not act upon ourselves.
If one wanted a tattoo, there is no way to stop that from happening, regardless of how we feel about it. If one wanted 9 fingers instead of 10, there is no way to stop that from happening. We can not remove all the pigments from nature nor can we remove all things that might destroy a finger. We recognize we can not sedate the world and strap them down to stop behavior directed at the self. This is because of the natural separation of the external and internal. No external force may stop self-determination save death (which still does not mute self-determination, but rather resets the counter so as not to include the former self as a subject to its effects. As long as the self exists, there is no other state of being that can exist, for when the internal-self is no longer, there is no self to speak of – it exists only as long as it can identify itself separately from other things.)
To look at it from a capability standpoint: the state may engage in limiting our rights with regards to interaction with others, the environment around us, or other things that are not directly within the control of our own selves. However, barring a system setup to provide the basic necessities of life and ensure full control over our corporeal existence, the state has no capabilities to determine what a person might do to themselves, nor does any other externally organized institution regardless of their make up.
As long as the unborn child is contained within the skin of the mother, there is nothing external that can stop her from determining the path of her self. But to stop there would narrow and irresponsible, for all actions one can do to its self can not, and therefore should not, be subject to any external law. While an argument can be made that those in concert to enable a particular self-determined action might be held to a law as their actions have an effect on an external party, it is circular at best and ill-conceived at its worst. You may hold the knife maker responsible for the knife used to cut off a finger; however, you can not hold nature responsible for a sharp rock used for the same purpose. Because you can not hold all things responsible equally, you can not hold any external thing responsible for exacting the will of the self.
The doctor who performs a termination of pregnancy can be seen as simply another implement of the mother’s will; the same as a coat hanger or a fall down a flight of stairs. The drug salesmen is the same – the self that modifies itself can do so with or without the salesmen as the modifiers are readily found in nature, just as the gravity that pulls the pregnant woman hoping to modify her self down the flight of stairs. All action upon the self is unable to be governed by external forces – the word impossible might be used in lieu of unable.
It is clear this debate is nullified by the question that has gone unasked; and I’m sure there are plenty of reasons no one has wanted to ask it before. Unless we change the premises’ all the laws of our land are founded upon, we can not impose an external will upon the will of the internal for itself. We have not the means, and more importantly, we have not the ideology to do so.
NOTES: In thinking about this and looking for other works touching upon the subject, the use of the term “Self Determination” is usually reserved for entities made up of a collection of individuals, like States or Ethnic groups. Almost no-where, except in some psychological theories is the term “self determination” used to refer to a single individual. No where that I could find in the context of law and government has the individual self seemed to be afforded this term. Is this simply an oversight on my part? Or, is it a case of the state being a collection of individuals has failed to perceive an entity that is smaller than itself, in the same way I do not think of my heart as separate from my own being.
Very thought-provoking.