“If you don’t have freedom over your own body, none of the rest of it matters.”
Melissa Hortman made a very good point.
In the U.S., likely many associate this quote with questions about abortion. And that sure is also an aspect. But let’s first take a look at the issue at large.
That is the issue of cases, when someone didn’t or doesn’t have freedom over their own body. E.g. slavery – that was usually a case, where humans got treated like cattle. In Europe, during feudalism something similar existed until the end of the 18th century, called serfdom. And the list of cases goes on. Even getting punched, limits or violates a person’s freedom, when this person didn’t specifically agree to take part e.g. in a proper boxing match. And when the case is, that children receive corporal punishment in schools, which is still legal in some parts of the U.S., even worse.
So, quite a range of cases, where modern states usually agree, that every individual is their own person, who shouldn’t be subject to arbitrary limitations of their freedoms and rights by other persons – and that where the state i.e. imprisoning someone is concerned, it must have proper standards.
This means, for the State (police, courts, lawmakers) to get to forcefully enter a flat of an individual, or to arrest the person, there needs to be a “probable cause”. The threshold of when even a razzia may occur, such tends to vary a bit among countries, respectively among jurisdictions. But generally, a state which doesn’t take liberties, such state respects the liberties of all individuals, and even offers (legal) protection for these liberties (as in: “If not even the state gets to enslave civilians to build a pyramid for the head of state, then so shall no one else.”).
Due to the aforementioned, I perceive the modern State to be way more of a care-taker, than some patriarch authority of old, ruling about every matter of public and private matters. In example, if a restaurant offers one, two, or three bathrooms, even from the side of the state, I would say that it is their business, as long as there is some provision as agreed by the license to run a restaurant. Whereas some notion of that some council of elders decides how many bathrooms there have to be in every restaurant (such as Republicans apparently saying two), such notion seems quite absurd to me. That said, it would be nice, if restaurants would be more accessible to persons with a handicap, in particular in wheelchair, including accessible sanitary facility. But instead of forcing everyone to rebuild their restaurants, the “caretaking” involves rather to take a look at minimum inside-area requirements for new buildings with commercial use, where also e.g. an area for changing diapers is practical, such as at a shopping mall, or at train stations.
And as such modern state, with deep-rooted respect for individual liberties, when it comes to the topic of abortion, the main question is, at which point is an unborn considered an individual person, who comes with rights and freedoms, an abortion would infringe upon.
Like, when Catholics are asked, many seem to be like: “Even sperm is sacred, as it serves procreation, and that’s why masturbation is sinful, as it doesn’t serve procreation.” (a stance, which seem to be largely based on a passage in the Bible about Onan, where it may have been merely about the fact, that someone had to clean the floor afterwards). And when Rabbis are asked, they seem to say, that the soul enters the body with the first breath – that is, with birth, as the child didn’t breath itself in the womb.
Talking about this topic further, it even comes to stem-cell research being mentioned. That is the research, where some are basically dissecting human embryonic stem cells – at a stage such as 4 days after fertilization, at which point the human egg and sperm, have turned into around 100 cells.
Personally, I find it difficult to view these 100 cells as an individual. And where I am like: “Now it starts to get interesting.”, is around the 6th week, when the heart starts beating, and around the 8th week of pregnancy, when there starts to be electrical activity in the brain area.
In such context, to me it seems plausible, that professional medical assistance is available, when a girl or woman wants to abort a pregnancy, within a number of weeks since the pregnancy started. In Germany, this comes with a mandatory interview.
That said, it would be nice, if the situation would not occur, that someone wants to abort their pregnancy. Meaning, use of contraceptives, would help reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, to begin with. Or if it is about a couple, who despite employment can’t afford or find a bigger flat, they would need for a family life – some support and politics, which actually would help the couple, would make way more sense, than an abortion.
But generally, for the public, parliament, king, pope, or whoever, to say that they have complete authority over what is expected of the couple, in regard to them having consensually mixed their bodies with each other, in my view, that is overstepping a boundary into private matters of the couple.
Meanwhile, traditional values don’t need to get cast aside. But instead of wanting to uphold these values by restrictions, it would already help quite a lot, when there would be some help for young families to get a foothold in these crazy markets, where not everyone has like their own clan-corporation ship to live on – and such support perhaps even to an extent that both don’t have to work full time all the time, just to be able to afford rent and food.