A Dialogue about Bodily Rights
Student: I have a moral right to do whatever I want with my body!
Teacher: Whatever you want?
S: Yes!
T: You believe that you have an absolute right to use your body in whatever way you desire?
S: Yes.
T: Suppose that you like your neighbor’s new car and you desire to possess it. Do you thus have a right to use your body to steal it?
S: My body?
T: Yes. Your hands, feet, brain, etc.
S: Well, no, I don’t have that right.
T: Suppose that you desire to injure someone who annoys you. Do you, therefore, have a right to use your fists to strike the annoying person?
S: Of course not!
T: Do you see that you have just admitted two cases in which you don’t have a moral right to do whatever you want with your body?
S: I guess so.
T: So you don’t have an absolute moral right to do whatever you want with your body?
S: I guess not.
T: There are limits to what one is permitted to do with one’s body?
S: Yes.
T: I encourage you to think about what those limits are and then consider how you might revise your position about your use of your body. For example, let’s grant that we have a prima facie right to bodily autonomy.
S: Yes, let’s grant that assumption.
T: Does this right outweigh other rights?
S: Such as?
T: Suppose we humans have the moral rights not to be harmed and not to be killed unjustly.
S: Yes.
T: And suppose we have the rights to freedom of thought and speech and to the possession of private property. For instance, if I were to seize your iPhone without your consent and keep it, I would be violating your right to possess and use your property.
S: Correct.
T: Does the right to bodily autonomy override these rights?
S: Maybe not.
T: Another question to consider is whether moral rights stand in relations of more important, less important, and equally important to one another. We seem to be assuming that they do stand in such relations. Why think so?
S: I don’t know. It looks like this topic is more complicated than I had initially assumed.