There are some words, phrases, and ideas I love. I love them because they fit in my mind like a key in a lock I've had for years, finally putting words to a soft and shapeless idea I couldn't name.
Operationalize is one of them. I love that word.
Bodily Autonomy (or bodily integrity) is another.
I first read the phrase bodily autonomy (or integrity...it was probably integrity, but my brain likes to say autonomy more) in a twitter rant about abortion rights. This smart and well informed individual was making an argument for bodily integrity, that we have laws protecting bodily integrity of one person over the well-being of another. For example, you cannot be compelled against your will to donate blood to save someone's life. Or to donate a kidney, or a piece of your liver. Because that would be insane, right? To force someone against their will and by law to donate a kidney to another person, a stranger or a family member, just because it could save their life. We don't do that in the United States because we value freedom above all else.
If you aren't a woman with a uterus.
Because if you are a woman with a uterus, you do not have the right to bodily autonomy. I mean, you do, sort of, right now. But it really depends on the state you live in, how much money you have, what your docto's religious beliefs are, who is on the supreme court and what judges and lawmakers in your area think. Because if you are a woman, and you happen to let a sperm past your complicated, expensive, and onerous system of reproductive defenses, you can lose your bodily autonomy to a pulsing packet of cells.
Forever.
I have already ranted and raved to everyone who will listen about the physical and psychological tolls of pregnancy, delivery, and do not get me started on the cost of what I hope is effective parenting. So let's look at the other side of my new proposal:
I refuse to listen to any pro-life person who has not already donated a kidney.
If you are truly pro-life, if you truly believe in saving lives, and have two functioning healthy kidneys, why on earth are you torturing some poor soul on dialysis when you could save a life?
Don't worry, I'll wait.
Because nephrectomy is major surgery? Sure. But it is a major surgery with minimal risks and less than 1% chance of future kidney failure according to the Mayo Clinic. The risks associated with the Cesarean section that saved my baby and I from complications carries far more risks than a routine kidney transplant. This is especially true in the United States, where we have a rising rate of maternal mortality, the worst record in the developed world.
So childbirth is potentially deadly, and pregnancy requires 9 months of life-altering preparation as your organs and bones shift to accommodate a human, then a painful delivery and recovery that is life-threatening in this country, followed by weeks of recovery and months of your organs, bones, and skin slowly shifting back into place. Also, you have to raise a human being. Or put them into the complicated system of foster care or adoption, where many kids go their whole lives without ever having a stable family.
But that's another rant, titled "If you are so pro-life, you better foster and/or adopt some of those children you forced to be born!"
By any measure, kidney donation is far easier, less impactful that childbirth. But we do not mandate kidney donation. Or life-saving bone marrow donation. Or even life-saving blood donation (which everyone should do, because it saves lives, is easy, you get a free cookie, and donation rates are dropping in the US). But we do not mandate that people give up their bodily integrity in any of these cases, and I can't figure out why. Are the 5-year-old children with bone cancer not as cute as a 10-week or fetus? Was my uncle who died because dialysis was too painful to endure not as important or worthwhile a person as a clump of pulsing cells? Or is it just that men have bone marrow, blood, and kidneys, and they don't want to give up their bodily autonomy?
This does not even touch on the number of abortions given to women who need them for medical reasons, who make the heart breaking choice to end a wanted pregnancy to save their own life, or prevent the suffering of their child. But you pro-life assholes don't want to talk about forcing mothers of wanted babies to slowly bleed to death and die of sepsis while their beloved child dies inside of them, do they.
Fucking assholes.
So, until we make blood donation, kidney donation, bone marrow donation, and liver donation mandatory in life-saving cases, every single pro-life politician can go fuck themselves all the way to the moon, and then suffocate silently in the cold darkness of space and leave the rest of us in peace.
/rant
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