A Problem of Self-Ownership for Reproductive Justice

Abstract

This paper raises three concerns regarding self-ownership rhetoric to describe autonomy within healthcare in general and reproductive justice in specific. First, private property and the notion of “ownership” embedded in “self-ownership,” rely on and replicate historical injustices related to the initial acquisition of property. Second, not all individuals are recognized as selves with equal access to self-ownership. Third, self-ownership only justifies negative liberties. To fully protect healthcare access and reproductive care in specific, we must also be able to make claims on others to respect, protect, and fulfill our positive rights. As much as nondomination remains an urgent demand for reproductive rights, it does not go far enough to ensure reproductive justice.

Clinicians’ criteria for fetal moral status: viability and relationality, not sentience

“…Despite problems with the separation thesis and other related concepts such as self-ownership,18 they often play a significant role in supporting the right to bodily autonomy (at least the negative right), which is especially important in reproductive medicine. When viewed through a feminist lens, the cultural and legal significance of physical separateness enables us to appreciate how pregnancy ‘is an intimacy of the first order… for it involves an intertwinement and on-going occupation’ (p309) 19.…”

Age—not sex or gender—makes the case of Ellie Anderson Complex

“…Notably, gametes, including those already harvested and preserved, are not material goods that can be directly inherited by one’s survivors, and there are good reasons to not treat the body or its reproductive material as property 3. Nor is posthumous gamete use a medical decision that Ellie’s mother could make as a surrogate decision-maker based on Ellie’s prior values and preferences because Ellie is dead, not incapacitated.…”