However, opinion polls are consistently anti-abortion on other grounds in the province, so shouldn\’t they be allowed self-determination? Is this another kind of imperialism? Not if you believe individual women have an inalienable right over their own bodies.
Leave aside the particular point she\’s talking about and look at the particular point she\’s making.
We have an inalienable right to our own bodies and it\’s not far from that to Mill\’s point that we have an inalienable right to the produce of it. Which means that the taxation of our labour to fund the desires of the majority is a form of imperialism: we should be free to opt in or out of the system, just as Polly is arguing that women should be free or not to have an abortion, as they wish.
Funny how those inalienable rights are alienable when it comes to drugs or assisted suicide.
That’s arguable – try enforcing it!
All our rights are qualified, except for the prohibition of torture – and TPTB are trying to erode that, too.
Polly is a power-worshipper. So it’s OK for women to murder their bairns, OK for the state apparat to bully the populace and OK for an Uncle Joe to bully the apparat.
Surely if she were a power-worshipper, she’d share your belief that it’s OK for powerful men to tell women what they can do with their bodies…?
It is apparently OK for powerful women to tell everyone what they can do with their own bodies, it would seem.
Tell the conscripts of WW1 and WW2 etc that they have an inaliable right to their bodies.
As a subject of the Crown, Tim, you have an inalienable right to the square root of fuck all.
Discuss.
Easy discussion: you’re talking bollocks.
While there are still a few “British subjects” about, it’s a narrow and technical term that refers to people born in India and Ireland before 1949 who don’t have Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan or Irish citizenship.
People holding UK passports are British citizens, not subjects.
“your belief that it’s OK for powerful men to tell women what they can do with their bodies…?” You talking to me, son? Watch your lip.
She’s right, she just can’t follow her own argument through its course. If our control of our bodies should extend to being able to alter its state, e.g. reproductive state, then how can this control not extend to other states, e.g. using drugs to alter your mental state.
We currently have the bizarre situation whereby you can legally purchase a drug that may end another’s life (the morning-after pill can be abortifacient) but you cannot take recreational drugs of which the worst risk of is ending your own.
A little consistency would be a fine thing.