Having engaged in this debate at blogs all over the internets, most recently at Media Girl, I feel the need to put forth a basic primer on why women have a fundamental right to terminate pregnancies if they choose. So let's start with the basics.

At the cornerstone of western philosophy, morality, and jurisprudence is the concept of individual sovereignty. It is the notion that free individuals have the fundamental right to self determination, the right to go about their lives and choose their courses of action without interference.

Because all individuals are imbued with that fundamental right, it is a fundamental principle that your right to to swing your arms ends at the tip of my nose. In other words, you are free to do whatever you want, so long as it doesn't hurt others.

Those who are against a woman's right to choose recognize this. They argue that once conception occurs a sovereign individual has been created that has its own right to existence. Unfortunately, they stop there. The anti-choice position is that a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body ends at the moment her action causes harm to the sovereign individual in her uterus. Thus, not only does a woman not have a right to terminate her pregnancy, but she also doesn't have the right to engage in any behavior that could harm the sovereign individual inside her. Hence you see supporters of this position also urging incarceration of pregnant women who drink or use drugs.

However, this notion that a sovereign individual is created at conception is fundamentally flawed. Even conceding, for the sake of argument, that human life begins at conception, it does not follow that this new life is imbued with a fundamental sovereignty, a right to life, at that moment. Indeed, very basic precepts of western philosophy, morality, and jurisprudence indicate that this fundamental right to life does not begin a conception.

Inherent to individual sovereignty is the recognition that an individual has domain over their own body. A corrollary to the principle that "your right to swing your arms ends at the tip of my nose" is the concept of consent. Your arms can only have contact with the tip of my nose if I give my consent. An individual is not required to give up any part of their body without consent. Thus, your right to life ends at the moment you require the use of my kidney to live. I may choose to donate my kidney, or the temporary use of it, to you but the law cannot require me to do so. No individual has a greater right to my own body than me. At the moment you have a greater right over my body than I do, I am enslaved.

Thus, even conceding for the sake of argument that life begins at conception, the right to life only begins at the moment an individual can survive without the biology of another sovereign individual. While i can donate my blood and organs for the use of another, they cannot be taken from me, or used by another, without my consent. To insist otherwise is to deny my sovereignty.

Continuing a pregnancy to term must therefore be voluntary. For so long as the fetus is dependent on the biology of a woman in order to survive, it has no independent right to life. The giving of her own biology is a wonderous gift that a woman gives to an emerging life. But it is a gift that must always be given voluntarily, with the consent of the woman. To deny a woman the right to withdraw her consent, to deny her the right to maintain her bodily sovereignty and keep her biology only to herself, is to enslave her.

Those who would deny a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy deny that woman's sovereign right to control her own body.