#Current Events - Why was the decision Roe v. Wade important for feminists?

While I normally do a "Socratic Sunday", where I bring over a Q&A from Socratic.org that I worked on and found interesting or important, today I'm doing one that is vitally important given the hearings for the proposed new Supreme Court justice. While the question starts out by asking a rather limited question, the answer is quite expansive.

Question

Why was the decision Roe v. Wade important for feminists?

Answer

Specifically, the decision granted the ability to women to legally obtain an abortion. However, in the larger view, I believe this paragraph sums up my view: 

"When government dictates how someone should treat their body, it strips away a basic human right. It strips away a piece of our humanity. And when government dictates how some people should treats their bodies, it strips away a bit of humanity from all of us."

Analysis

There are basic human principles that collide on occasion and it's up to the Supreme Court of the US to determine how those principles should be applied. And in my view, there is no bigger principles that collide than:

• the right of a person to determine what they do with their body vs
• the right of a person to live

These two principles collide in the case of a woman who is pregnant but doesn't want to be. Can that woman legally terminate her pregnancy?

• If she does terminate the pregnancy, she has exercised her right to do what she wants with her body, but has terminated a fetus - which is arguably a life
• If she isn't allowed to terminate the pregnancy, her right to do what she wants with her body has been violated but the fetus will probably (it could be stillborn, etc in later stages of the pregnancy) survive

In Roe vs Wade, these two principles were interwoven. It states that as a fetus grows older, it becomes more and more likely that it will be a child. And so for the first trimester of gestation, abortion is legal - that is, a woman has the absolute right to terminate her pregnancy. As the fetus develops through the second and third trimesters, individual states have the right to restrict abortions.

So why is this important - and not just to feminists, but to women in particular and to humanity in general? Because it grants a person power over the use of their own body. It takes away the power of others to make determinations as to how someone uses their own body.

The right of women to make this choice for themselves has been under constant attack from those who view this debate in terms of "terminating a pregnancy = murder of the unborn fetus". Those people believe that a fetus is imbued with life at conception and that a woman is morally, ethically, and should be legally responsible for giving birth to the fetus and that after the child is born, it can be given up for adoption and the woman can have her life back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

And now I'd like to share my view on this issue - it's pragmatic and some may not agree with it and that's ok.

The decision to end a pregnancy is a big decision and is one that each and every woman needs to face in her own way and on her own terms. For government to get involved and force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is to violate that woman.

Different sides on this debate will rephrase the issues in different ways to try to emphasize their own views. And I'm about to do the same here! For me, it's about the:

• humanity of the woman, vs
• the potential life of the fetus

When government dictates how someone should treat their body, it strips away a basic human right. It strips away a piece of our humanity. And when government dictates how some people should treats their bodies, it strips away a bit of humanity from all of us.

And this stripping away of humanity is, for me, a bigger issue than ending a pregnancy. We are told by various sources that life is sacred and that therefore the life of the fetus trumps the humanity of the woman. But I don't think that way at all - the fetus has no knowledge of its life and its termination - it loses its potential to what it could possibly be. But a woman losing her humanity is done with her full knowing. That to me is the issue that should prevail.

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Questions and comments always welcome!