Lindsay Harold #fundie lindsays-logic.blogspot.com
[From a post dedicated to "demolishing pro-choice arguments"]
The last argument, and the one which is perhaps the most sinister, is that an unborn child is indeed a living human person, but that it has no right to live off of its mother. The mother's right to bodily autonomy, they say, is absolute and no child has the right to use its mother's body for shelter or sustenance. They view the child as a parasite, feeding from the mother, and this gives her every right to kill it in their opinion. What a twisted view.
The thing is, a woman's body is designed to bear children and the existence of a child within her womb is not at all like a parasite taking from its host. Further, a woman has a responsibility to her child. A mother cannot refuse to feed her child after it is born. She cannot leave a newborn out in the cold to die. The child has an inalienable right to live. When you create a child, you have the unavoidable responsibility for taking care of that life. Outside the womb, this means you must feed and shelter that child. It means the same thing before birth. The difference is, before birth the options are more limited as to where that care can take place. The unborn child needs the protection of the mother's womb just as babies who have been born need clothing and milk. A mother cannot refuse to meet the needs in the latter case, so why should she be allowed to neglect the needs in the former case? The child's rights have not changed. The mother's responsibility has not changed. Birth changes only the location of the baby - not its status as a human being and not its right to live.