Mark the Pilgrim
Member
You guys are the smartest people I know, so I thought I'd ask for some help on this topic.
I'm writing an essay on having a property right in one's own body and would greatly appreciate any resources, thoughts and tips on the subject. It's a broad essay, so feel free to contribute ideas!
Thanks for your time!
julie42
Member
Here are the main things that come to mind:
Slavery and people's perceptions of it: Why was it acceptable at one time to own another person when we find it appalling now? Is self-ownership a relatively new concept?
Women's bodies: Why do so many people have objections to a woman not wanting to get pregnant? Does having a uterus mean you have to use it? Why is birth control being debated in the U.S. mostly by men right now, as if they have more of a right to make the decisions about a woman's body than she does?
Paul
Member
You could also discuss issues regarding genetic patenting. Not everything in that category is applicable to your topic, but there certainly is an overlap concerning gene patents of DNA sequences that are makers or predispose for certain diseases (e.g. there's been some debate regarding a patent over a gene related to breast cancer). This might be a bit of a stretch as it's not that people don't have self ownership but that companies can monopolize a market by owning something that is a part of a person.
Elemenope
Moderator
From a philosophical point-of-view a great deal has been discussed on exactly what the consequences are of being embodied. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (which I mentioned on another recent thread), is perhaps the most important philosopher to be familiar with for any issues dealing with the body and our experiential relationship to it. It's hard to pick a text for this, as his own stance on these matters changed dramatically over the development of his ideas, but anything after the 1950s is going to have a lot of discussion about bodies and their consequences. Michel Foucault is also very important because he touches on the ways in which our bodies are manipulated (socially, psychologically) for social ends. Either Discipline and Punish or The History of Sexuality are good texts from him to explore those issues.
For my part, the body is most interesting because it is has a dyadic relationship to our willful consciousness; it is the primary tool by which humans influence their environment, and the tool upon which all other tools depend--it is literally the source and conduit of all human power in every conceptual sense of that word. It is also an inescapable prison, the surface upon which everything thing that can possibly happen to us happens to us contacts, and there is no significant escape from that fact. That power/prison dyad mirrors closely prevalent thinking about how we treat bodies; putative rights to remain unmolested and have freedom of action are directly in recognition of the fact that whatever we are is inescapably tied to our bodies and only given meaning because of our bodies.
Hence our interests in maintaining control of our bodies are extremely potent. There is no reason that I can see why this can't extend into a legal or property interest in the same.
Noelle
Member
Check out the HeLa cell controversy. Rebecca Skloot wrote an excellent book on it called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A poor black woman in 1951 goes to the doc for a pelvic exam. He gives her cervical cancer tumor to a researcher who begs cells off everyone in his work on cloning techniques. Her cells take off and become an essential tool in medical research. She never gave her consent and her family never received compensation or recognition. Now days you sign something saying who has rights to your body parts even when they're cut off.
Jabster
Member
On a related subject, my better half is writing an essay on the ethics of creating a market (could be price regulated by the government or a more free market) for anything from blood donation to organ donation. My starter for ten was that I don't think I have a problem for blood donation (maybe problems with that it's no longer seen as a civic duty) but organ donation would almost inevitably full on the poor and more likely the third world ... but, but, but if you enable a parent to give their children a chance in life that they would not otherwise have isn't that their choice not ours?
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