[This article is a transcript of “We value autonomy more” courtesy of volunteer Ben Tomlin. If you’re interested in volunteering to transcribe more of our content, please complete our volunteer survey.]
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“I’ve yet to hear a good counterargument to the need for bodily autonomy when weighed against the value of life. In ALL other ways, we value autonomy more.” I don’t think that’s true. You don’t even have to look outside the abortion debate to see that it’s not true.
The overwhelming majority, nearly all, countries have some kind of gestational limit on abortion, and the vast majority of people, including most Americans, think there should be some kind of gestational limit on abortion, and if you think there should be a gestational limit on abortion, say you think it should be banned after 15 weeks or restricted after 24 weeks, or whatever you think the limit should be, then it implies that after that point, you think that those fetuses, like fetuses over 24 weeks, should have the right to use their mother’s bodies.
Gestational limits on abortion mean, internationally and domestically, millions of instances where we think that the fetus’s right to not be killed outweighs the woman’s right to refuse the use of her body, and, personally, I don’t think that is weird at all because fetuses are our biological children. They are human beings. We all had to go through that vulnerable life stage in order to exist as we are now.
Our mothers should have had the right to not be killed when they were in the uteruses of our grandmothers. We should have had the right to not be killed when we were in our mother’s uteruses. And if we get pregnant and we have children, they should have the right to not be killed, too. It should be a universal right.
Better arguments start here.
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This article was originally published on August 19, 2026 at secularprolife.org.