I would suggest all of those laws don't violate bodily autonomy because you're still making a choice under the laws being presented. If you can perform liposuction on yourself, reverse your own vasectomy and remove your own cancer then you'd be welcome to do so.... but if your Government shuts all the hospitals they haven't interfered with your bodily autonomy - the fact you had a choice one day and then don't have it the next day is not an infringement on something about your person.

Let us say I run an ice cream stall and you come every day and pick chocolate ice cream. If I stop stocking chocolate ice cream, even if you've come every day and you've chosen it every day for twenty years - that's still my choice as the person selling the ice cream. It may affect you, you may be very unhappy about it, but the removal of a choice is not the same as infringing on your bodily autonomy. You can pick another ice cream flavour or you can go to a different vendor... but at no point has the lack of choice impacted on your person.

What you're suggesting is that bodily autonomy covers the right to elicit help from others to co-opt them into doing things you want or need them to do. I think that's partly true but it relies on the choice being available and those people wanting to help. Let's say I want to get drunk in Saudi Arabia, should I be allowed to make that choice? It's my bodily autonomy, I believe in getting drunk, I enjoy it. I might be able to find people who will help me do this - but such a decision happens within the legal framework in which it operates. It might be irresponsible of me.

I agree with you. I'm entirely pro-choice until about 24 weeks and then I think it gets a little more complicated legally and philosophically and should be dealt with on a case by case basis - but I still don't think it's a bodily autonomy issue. Bodily autonomy, by my definition is about the non-interference with the State against your personhood not about the freedom to choose anything you like. I might have osteoporosis and decide the best thing for my bones is to go and live on the moon. Given that NASA fly people there on the regular, should I be allowed to insist that I go there? Should it be part funded by the Government because the choice is available?

Choosing what you do with your own body may involve having sex, that sex may result in pregnancy. Now the choices are limited by the legal framework operating in individual States. Presumably the idea of limiting such choices is to bring people further in line with Christian values and to make sexual encounters part of a family system rather a liberal hobby. Once you are pregnant, your bodily autonomy remains yours. If the State does not interfere then you will continue to have a baby, if you invite the state to interfere then you may no longer be pregnant, if the state refuses to interfere then we have a disconnect between what pregnant people want and what the state is prepared to provide.

The same thing may happen with the lung-cancer patient who needs a transplant but refuses to stop smoking, or the patient who needs a gastric band but cannot stop binge eating - in these cases the State (via medical personnel) is invited to interfere but refuse to act. They are removing choices but they aren't infringing on the bodily rights of anyone. We can argue about the ethics of such a decision but they have pushed the freedom to choose back to the individual.

I think we're talking about two interpretations of the words 'bodily autonomy' - for you it includes the right to choose and enlist others, for me it is about the right to refuse to allow the Government to do anything to my body without my consent. This disconnect is fine.... and you've articulated your position very well - so we'll see what other readers think when they weigh up our comments.

That's what the comments section is for. Thanks for popping along and adding value to it. Much appreciated :o)