CONTEMPORARY  FAITH

3. "MY BODY, MY CHOICE".

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We hear this phrase in various cultural settings, but what exactly do these four words mean? These words have to do with the right to abortion, the use of recreational drugs, marriage rights, surrogacy, assisted suicide, sex work, voluntary amputation or gender change surgery, to name a few of the issues. main concerns that concern the individual, but on which religions and governments wish to impose their mandates. For each of the questions there are four words that define our belief about our rights: "My body, my choice." How you react to those words determines which side of those debates you are on. However, that is the point: there are not a lot of small debates, there is only one big debate that is discussed on multiple fronts, but, they find their home in a field of philosophy: bioethics. Within the bioethics community, there is a small contingency that supports a person's right to choose what to do with their body in each of those examples. Transhumanists are part of that contingency. If you are in favor of abortion or think that gender reassignment surgery is an option that everyone should have, you agree with trans-humanism on at least one issue. Many current political arguments are skirmishes and turf battles in what is a movement towards what we might call somatic rights. In some cases, the law is clear, as it is with marriage rights or drug use, and the arguments are about whether to remove, amend, or change the law. Other cases are so ambiguous that the law is struggling to define itself, such as surrogacy and voluntary amputation. And sooner or later (I've given up on guessing deadlines), instead of just arguing about what we're allowed to do with the body we're born with, there will be debates about our rights to choose what kind of body we have. By looking at the futuristic ideas of genetic engineering and robotic prosthetic technology, we can understand how transhumanism maximizes the “my body, my choice” mantra.

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We have many laws about what you cannot do with your body. On the other hand, think about how many different things can be defended with "It's my body, I'll do what I want!" Why do we say that? The answer seems painfully obvious: because we are the only ones who know what it is like to have our bodies and it is probably the only thing we really have. No one can take your body without also taking their own life, which turns out to be a great way to put your money where your mouth is when you are a philosopher. However, like any good philosopher, my job is to examine the painfully obvious. In part, because if everything is so obvious, why do all the legislators, religious leaders and idiots with a megaphone think they have the right to tell you or me what to do with our bodies? Let's say we live in the future and I have the option of having a robot body and genetically modifying my brain to make me smarter, kinder, and happier. I suppose a lot of people would be very upset if I were walking around with a glorious, gleaming body made of hitherto unheard of alloys with a genetically modified brain. It would be a magnificent testament to science and engineering. I'd be happier, healthier, and smarter. So what possible justification would the world's paternalists have for telling me that I can't modify my body?

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There are three answers:

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• Answer one: "Your life is too important to me to let you ruin it, let me set some ground rules to make sure you don't make a decision that you regret later." Paternalistic legislators paint themselves as bearing the burden of responsibility for our lives. We don't know what is good for us, but they do.

• Answer two: "What about the children?" Somewhere out there there is a person with a permanent frown on his face, whom children are afraid of, who has already discovered how my robot body will hurt children. I imagine it will imply something like "makes a bad impression."

• Answer three: "It breaks with tradition and is immoral." Understand here that tradition and morality are unethical. I differentiate between morals and ethics as follows. "Thou shalt not kill" is a moral rule. "The biological mother must carry and raise the child, anything else is strange and wrong," says tradition. “Prohibiting consensual marriage between adults of the same sex is unethical because it infringes on the life, liberty and happiness of those people based on sexual preference” is ethical. See that "why?" Only in ethics do you have a logical reason that follows the normative statement. Morality and tradition depend on the authority of some figure (imagined or not) or history (exact or not).

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In each case, the real right to his body is transferred to some third party, be it paternalists, hypothetical children or an irrational authority. Transhumanists and like-minded bioethicists recognize that somatic rights are individual rights. That means that unless someone else is hurt directly, you should be able to do what you want and be able to decide about your baby's life. I find it amazing that despite all of our amendments that protect freedom of religion, assembly and press, we lack an amendment that protects freedom of bodily self-determination for both genders.

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A rough and ready version of what freedom of bodily self-determination might look like has three key principles:

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1. "My body, my choice" means that if what you do only affects your body, you must have the right to do so. Point point. That includes allowing someone to do something to your body. Then:

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2. If you want us to do something to your body (for example, surgery to change your body or allow someone to pay you for doing something with your body), then you should be entitled to do so.

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3. If you don't want something to happen to your body (for example, for your body to get pregnant or to keep functioning at all costs (both in terms of money and dignity)), then you should have that right as a universal good.

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Because you have the right to do something, you are also responsible for the results of that decision. For example, if you choose to use drugs, you are responsible for the decisions you make while under the influence of those drugs. If you choose to modify your body and later regret the decision, it is no one else's fault but yours. These simple concepts have a major impact not only on current laws on issues such as abortion, infant sex assignment surgery, and assisted suicide, but also on possible futures related to technologies such as genetic enhancement, anti-aging medicine. , drugs to improve cognition, designer babies, prosthetic augmentation and cybernetics. As technology advances, we will have more and more ways to choose what to do with our bodies.

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As body politics continues to generate controversy, it is important that those on the side of choice and freedom of bodily determination recognize where their allies are. Liberal transhumanists and bioethicists, yes, but also feminists, advocates of marriage rights, advocates of sex workers, who would end the war on drugs, libertarians, and the LGBT community. These groups are rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is important that we value our basic biological freedoms and protect our somatic rights.

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That means defending bodily problems in favor of the right to decide now, in the present. And for those who are in favor of abortion on some issues (for example, gay marriage and abortion) but against the right to choose on others (assisted suicide and genetic engineering), they had better reevaluate why they have positions. contradictory.

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References:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/your-body-your-choice-fight-for-your-somatic-rights

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https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a46566/reproductive-rights-books/

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