I don't quite have that position; I don't assert that a fetus necessarily has a right to life. My position is that since the woman's bodily autonomy would trump the fetus' rights if it had them, the question of whether the fetus has rights is irrelevant to the question of abortion.
I'm sorry, but this is a stance that I find illogical. I actually think its the opposite (the autonomy is irrelevant to the discussion). Nowhere in the consideration of our moral intuitions do we ever place the autonomy of one individual above the life of another. If this principle was accepted, then like I said before if would be acceptable to kick a refugee out of a country knowing that they will die, or for parents to shoot their children simply because the children are using the parent's resources. The only reputable philosopher who argues in this way is Judith Jarvis Thompson, and her argument is a whole new discussion.
A problem with your analogy: the mother has other options available, such as giving full custody to the father or handing the child off to Children's Aid.
Yes but that process takes time. Paperwork needs to be signed. A suitable foster must be found. This time (in which care shifts from the parents to someone else) is analogous to the 9 months a pregnant women must gestate her child. I see no considerable moral difference between the scenarios. In any case, even if the parents did not have an option available (they lived in the middle of nowhere, or the mother was single) it still would not be permissible to take the child out into the backyard and shoot her. If you assume that the fetus has a right to life, and yet permit abortion anyway, I see no problem with permitting the above.
A child is diagnosed with leukaemia. Without a bone marrow donation, he'll certainly die in a few months; with a bone marrow donation, he could live until old age.
A wide search is made and the only matching donor that can be found is the child's mother.
... but the mother doesn't want to do the bone marrow donation. Would it be legally acceptable for her to refuse to donate?
Yes. Absolutely yes, regardless of her reasons.
You are confusing the principle of rights. This example is not analogous to abortion. Take note of what I said before.
It is of a greater imperative to protect already present rights from violation than to restore already violated rights. You cannot restore a right in order by violating an already intact one.
In the case of the bone marrow example, the child's right to life has already been violated (she will die if left naturally due to a disease). The government cannot violate the mother's already intact right of autonomy (by forcing her to give up her bone marrow) in order to restore the child's already violated right to life (i.e transplant the bone marrow). The same with abortion. When a fetus enters the mother without her consent, then her right of autonomy has already been violated (and the state has a duty to punish that violator). However the mother cannot restore her right of autonomy if it means violating another's right (i.e the fetus' right to life). The government has a much stronger mandate to protect intact rights than to restore violated ones. I cannot restore my rights by disrupting someone else. When this principle is taken into account, the organ donation example weakens your argument. There is also a moral difference between doing harm and allowing harm. In the bone marrow example, the mother is allowing harm to happen (but since she is not responsible for the leukemia she has no obligation here to assist). In the act of abortion, the mother (or rather the doctor) is doing harm, by killing the fetus.
I will give you another example. Generally it is assumed that citizens have a right of property (i.e I can own certain things, and have control over them). Lets say, that person A steals a great sum of money from person B. This means that person B's right of property has been violated by person A. Thus the government must step in and punish person A for violating that right. What the government doesn't have to do is
restore the money that person B lost (i.e restore the right). If Person B for example goes out and steals the same amount of money she lost from Person C, the government would not care that she is trying to restore her lost money, but it would persecute person B for violating person C's right of property. The government exists primarily to protect the rights of citizens (that is its strongest mandate). It does not exist to restore already violated rights (although the government can do that, but it is a weaker mandate).
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