Personal Autonomy Part Two-On Society And Oxymorons-possible trigger for suicidal ideation.

Some of you may remember way back in the day that I blogged about personal autonomy and personal responsibility. The thrust of that post was about owning yourself, your choices and your decisions.

I'm not about to change my mind here but this post is going to be more about when those choices are less than palatable to wider society.

Can we have limited personal autonomy? I don't think we can. Personal autonomy cannot be a gift we give when it suits us. Like equality, it isn't something to bestow. It just is. So why limit it?

Argument one: we have to limit it or there will be paedophiles and murderers etc running wild with no limits.

Er, no. The flip side is personal responsibility. And owning yourself and your choices does not exclude you from living with a moral code, from knowing right and wrong and living within the law. It also presupposes that we're all just looking for an excuse to murder and abuse children. No. Just no. 

Argument two: There will be times when your choices will impact on others so we have to limit it.

Ah, no. There cannot be a halfway house on personal autonomy. My body, my life, my choices, my rules.

If I decide to terminate a pregnancy it may well impact on other people. My family, the other party in the pregnancy. It may impact on friends because they may be struggling to conceive.

Should I be sorry for my decision? More importantly, should I be taking all of that into account before I decide?

Hells no. My body my choice.

I may decide to end my life. This would definitely impact on others. People would try and stop me. They would question my mental ability to make the decision. They would heap pressure on me to see that life was worth living.

And I understand that. I'd do it myself. I have spent many a night talking people down from the ledge as it were. This is because as a society we believe that we are here to live. Biology means we are here to procreate, watch our children grow. Grow old watching the legacy that is the generations we're leaving behind.

But.

That decision is still mine.

Mine alone.

If you believe that we have the right to choose our clothes, our partners, whether or not we reproduce. If you believe we have the right to choose who we are then you cannot attempt to take away my right to choose when my life ends.

Personal autonomy doesn't work like that.