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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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Abortion is important, but constitutional amendments are difficult so let’s make it count: bodily autonomy. This includes abortion but also assisted suicide, personal drug use, tattoos, gender reassignment, and much more.
I feel like that could backfire. The antivax movement would use it to try and kill off all compulsory vaccinations leading to a resurgence in otherwise rare diseases. ERs would hesitate to perform lifesaving operations without consent over fear of being sued later.
Then there is the question of who makes bodily autonomy decisions for children and people unable to make decisions for themselves. If parents, you could see an increase in religiously motivated mutilations. If the state…
A few years ago I would have said the courts would impose sanity over these extremes but that no longer applies.
People already do medically unnecessary genital mutiliaton to babies (circumcision). Parents have autonomy over their children until they reach the age of reason, or they become legally adults. I think pregnancy would have to create legal adulthood.
ER and Good Samaritan laws already indicate that when unresponsive, consent to save a life is implied. You can do CPR on an unresponsive person without repercussions.
For the vaccines, people should definitely be free not to do it, but then they are not admitted to public school. They are quarantined when they go to a hospital. They cant travel on airplanes or public transit. Just like you’re free to get face tattoos but some people might not want to look at you. Should we outlaw face tattoos? No, that should be unconstitutional. I don’t have a face tattoo and I don’t think anybody should, but I would fight for their freedom to make their own choice. It doesn’t have to be a good decision, it just has to be their own decision.
Of course there are details to hash out and decide in the courts, but that is the case with all good rights, even freedom of speech.
You are more optimistic than I am. I worry a particularly “slanted” Supreme Court might interpret school vaccine requirements, quarantine, etc. as coercive violations of bodily autonomy.
Maybe if the amendment had a limited public heath exception and some protections for doctors. But the wording would be tricky.
After what China allegedly did during Covid, I think we should think very carefully about the specific conditions of a legalized and forced quarantine.
Yeah, that’s why any exception would have to be narrow and carefully worded and I’m not even sure it would be possible.
Both risks are pretty bad. Make the protections too strong and people will abuse the privilege. Too weak and governments will abuse the exceptions.
Eh, maybe I’m overthinking it. Even the first amendment is understood not to protect certain kinds of speech. Although sometimes I wonder if those exceptions could survive if directly challenged in our modern situation…
Well in the fears you’re describing I’d rather err to too much freedom. Like in most situations if somebody doesn’t want a vaccine, doesn’t want to wear a helmet, doesn’t want to whatever it doesn’t impact me in any way. And I don’t want them trying to legislate the specific grey zone that makes abortion illegal. It’s clear as can be. If it’s not your body, it’s not your choice. If it is your body, it is your choice.
Sometimes those choices have consequences sure. Like wearing a helmet can be a condition for riding a motorcycle on a federally funded road. Just like having a license or wearing a seat belt. Being vaccinated can be a condition for sharing a confined space with others in public. There could be tax breaks for being vaccinated, for example. But I believe very strongly in bodily autonomy, with almost no exceptions.
The biggest thing to spell out would be about parental control over children. Parents want full control but I don’t even think they should have it. That would be heteronomy. I think bodily autonomy rights should protect babies from medically unwarranted circumcision. I think babies and children should be protected from unwanted tattoos too. Just like kids are protected from child abuse. There can’t be a minimum age for this human right, you have the right when you are old enough to express it. There are children who want to get vaccinated without parental consent and that should be allowed.
Wait, do we actually ban tattoos somewhere in this country?
In South Carolina it’s illegal to tattoo above the neck.
(E) It is unlawful for a tattoo artist to tattoo any part of the head, face, or neck of another person.
https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c034.php
Oh for fuck's sake. Up to a year of imprisonment?!
I guess nobody has been prosecuted for tattooing eyebrows or permanent makeup yet.