Why Isn’t My Body Mine?

Imagining other possible futures.

A few days ago, still in shock over the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, I said to Marc, now I have more rights to my property than I do to my own body. Then I penned this little parable for my Facebook:

Suppose a man plants a seed in my front yard, and it takes root, and it starts to grow. Suppose I did not give consent or permission for this planting. In my front yard, I have every right to pull it up, or let it grow, or do as I see fit, because it’s on my property. But if this situation unfolds as deeply personally as to be inside my body, in my own flesh and blood and organs, I am denied the right to make this decision — because my body is not considered to be my own. Explain to me again how I am considered equal to any man, under the law?

I didn’t expect it to be shared so many times, though I was happy to contribute something resonant. And I have more to say:

To those who thought I was making an analogy between human embryos and garden plants, I wasn’t. I certainly don’t see them as equivalencies.

The analogy hinges on property, and the fact that I now have more rights to make decisions about the property I own than I have to make decisions about my body.

And that’s not just me — that’s everyone you know with two X chromosomes: your mom, your grandmothers, your aunts, your daughters, many of your friends, your kids’ friends, your trans and/or enby family and friends, your coworkers, teachers, elected officials, members of the armed forces, police, firefighters, doctors, astronauts, business owners, cleaning personnel, Meals on Wheels drivers and recipients, clergy, summer camp staff, landscaping professionals, restaurant servers, cashiers, bus drivers, teachers, the list is endless — people you love and rely on every day, people everywhere you go… a little over half the US population.

We double-X folk can function as full members of a free and democratic society, except…we can’t. We no longer universally own our bodies and the right to make critical decisions about our bodies. The states in which we reside are now making some of those decisions for us.

Here’s another story. This one’s not a parable, but a lighthearted thought experiment set in a sci-fi future. It’s a way of trying the shoe on the other foot.

This is a new genre for me, so bear with me:

Welcome to the year 2312. Technology-mediated healthcare has continued to grow by leaps and bounds. “Star Trek” transporter technology is used not only for transportation but also for once-complex medical procedures like organ transplants. (Need a new heart? Now it can be beamed into place!)

Paternity tests can be done by a simple bioscan as early as day 3 of gestation. Male bodies can easily be adapted to gestate an embryo to full term, like Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Alex Hesse in Junior (1994).

In this future society, just as today, everyone understands that Double-X folk have eggs, and that our eggs are sometimes floating free — available for fertilization. Everyone also understands that (like now) the only way pregnancy happens is for an XY Person to introduce sperm, and the timing has to be just right.

Gabrielle Blair’s descendants would be proud of us, just under 300 years from Right Now, for (finally) embracing the ideas in her prophetic 2018 Twitter thread about male responsibility for unwanted pregnancies.

In this future, everyone understands (not just intellectually, but in a common-sense way — like, duh) that it is an XY Person’s responsibility to ensure unwanted pregnancies don’t happen. XY has choices, including using a barrier like a condom. XY can also choose not to put sperm in there at all without express consent of the Double-X partner and a meeting of minds about how an unwanted pregnancy will be avoided.

In this future society, very few unwanted pregnancies happen. Abortion is forbidden, as specific perspectives continue to strongly influence state and federal governments and laws. But in the very rare case of an unwanted pregnancy, the XY Person takes full responsibility for creation of the pregnancy.

XY Person gestates the child to term, gives birth, breastfeeds or pumps milk for the first year, and is primary caregiver for the child throughout its life.

Sounds nutty, right? Even laughable? Bear with me….

In the even rarer case of pregnancy due to rape, incest, human trafficking or the like, Double-X folk no longer need abortion options! Identidaddy™ Corporation has established a worldwide network of Paternal Transfer Stations inside local med clinics.

Any woman impregnanted against her will can easily undergo a routine bioscan to verify paternity. Then, she sits back and listens to soothing music for a few moments while whooooosh! Beam me up, Daddy! the embryo is pulled ever so briefly into a transporter beam and securely implanted into the body of the father, anywhere on Earth.

He will carry baby to term and give birth. As birth parent, he will go on to provide the first year of essential feeding and care as described above, and will continue to care for the child until it reaches adulthood.

That just won’t do, you say, for a man to suddenly and unexpectedly find himself pregnant and needing to manage it on his own?

How well does the shoe fit on the other foot?

How often do you imagine rape and incest will take place in this future society?

How quickly will men demand the right to decide what happens inside their bodies?

Let me be ultra-clear: I love being a mom, enjoyed being pregnant, and felt strongly bonded to my babies as I fed and cared for them. Childbirth was rough, for me. Even so, I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything. They are part of the foundation for the deep and caring relationships I still have with my kids, now in their teens and twenties.

Pregnancy was my choice.

I chose it.

When Marc and I first decided to have kids, we were nearly beside ourselves with excitement when a pregnancy test came back positive. We had been married for a few years, were finishing grad school and seminary, and looked forward to starting a family. As the pregnancy progressed toward the 8 week mark, I started to have pains deep in my right side, and then I began to bleed, though only a little. I thought I was probably miscarrying, so with a heavy sense of foreboding I went to my doctor the next day.

An ultrasound revealed something considerably worse: the embryo was growing in my right fallopian tube, the slight bleeding a result of the placenta which was continuing to expand and implant in the tube wall. I quickly underwent medical treatment that destroyed the embryo (and my joy) and prevented me from having a ruptured tube and bleeding out.

Sometimes, you need an abortive procedure even when you want a baby.

Without mine, I could very likely have died that week, at age 28.

But because I had access to and moved forward with this healthcare procedure, I have lived to do good in the world, to have three wonderful kids, to be married to Marc for 26 rich and loving years, to teach college students how to be successful, to publish my research, to lead musical worship at numerous churches, to write and paint and draw and knit and grow a garden, to adopt too many dogs and cats, to keep being a daughter and a mom and a friend.

I am grateful for my life.

I am terrified that women who find themselves now — 2022 — in the situation I was in that year — 1999 — will die. I worry about this especially in the no-exceptions state in which I live. What happens when these women have life-endangering pregnancies, ectopic or otherwise?

Are you really content, US Supreme Court and lawmakers of Alabama, if these women don’t survive to live their lives, or have other children, or contribute to society, or offer their gifts to the world?

Are you really ok with preventing them from making life-saving decisions about their own bodies? Are you ok with their doctors not being able to make life-saving decisions either? Are you ok with their deaths on your hands?

Because I got skilled medical treatment when I needed it, I survived.

I had to consent to the abortive procedure that ended my ectopic pregnancy.

I chose it.

Because I was free to make a grueling but necessary choice, I am still alive, and I brought three more lives into the world.

This is what it means to be pro-choice. Pro-choice means having the freedom to make a choice, either way. This choice is intensely personal, visceral, often quite painful, not something we take lightly, and certainly not something strangers should decide for us.

Women, If we are to be full and free members of this society, must have the right to choose what happens inside our bodies.