BODILY AUTONOMY AND CHOICE

Choice is an essential part of bodily autonomy, a key tenant of reproductive justice, and an essential element to achieving reproductive freedom. However, people who are young, disabled, LGBTQIA+, Black or brown, and otherwise marginalized are often left to deal with the emotional, physical, financial, and emotional consequences of decisions that someone else has made for them. It’s within our rights to have options and make a choice. Reproductive rights are human rights: in denying someone’s choice, their human right to their own bodily autonomy is denied, which has profound implications for their overall well-being.

No one can tell me about my body better than me. We may be young but we understand. We know what we are going through and how it’s affecting us; we know what we are feeling and what we need. Yet, Parental control implies that young people are incapable of making these choices for themselves, thus reinforcing the assumption that we do not know our own bodies and removing our power to choose.