by

ceding our individual space

Mary Harrington:

Abortion is such a contentious issue for us because, especially in early stages of gestation, pregnancy flies full in the face of the central premise of liberal modernity: that we are separate individuals. Pregnancy confronts mothers with the fact that another human life is radically dependent on our ceding space in our own bodies. It also confronts all of us with the fact that we begin life not as separate, autonomous subjects but merged with our mothers: not quite two, but not just one either. And when so much of our moral order is predicated on individual rights, where the wishes of a mother and the needs of a dependent baby in utero seem to be in conflict, this makes the proper balance of rights acutely difficult to assess. […]

… [We] may yet discover that this slight unpersoning of slightly more babies does not, after all, create a more compassionate world. On the contrary, it will shuffle us all a few steps closer to a world where a great many other categories of individual will discover their personhood, too, is not given but in the gift of some human authority. …

… Whose interests take priority, and why? Those who advocate decriminalising late stage abortion in the name of compassion may yet find that the changes they advocated did more to free those with power, than to protect those without it.