It has become pretty standard fare in American political rhetoric to say that “I can do what I want with my body”. Progressives on the hard left and Libertarians on the hard right both agree that humans have total sovereignty over their own bodies. Those in the middle have attempted to soften the implications of such a position by qualifying the statement so that it instead is: “You can do what you want with YOUR body, but you can’t do what you want with someone else’s body”.
And many conservatives and moderate liberals say this and feel very satisfied that they have come up with a legal philosophy that is reasonable, durable, and unimpeachable.
The problem is saying that a person can do whatever they want with their own body, except when it harms someone else, is an utterly ludicrous position that cannot be defended.
Let’s explain why.
The statement that you can do whatever you want with your own body is demonstrably false, and is based upon a corrupted view of human life and human responsibility.
The 20th Century can basically be described as a period in which 2 opposing political views played out on the battlefields (physical and intellectual) of the world. The first was hard communitarianism. Hard communitarianism came in the form of Fascism and Communism. The underlying principle is that you are fundamentally not an individual but a part of a community, and thus every aspect of your life is public and therefore subject to government fiat. This makes everything a res publica. On the other hand, is hard individualism. Hard individualism states that you are a single, sovereign, unique, atomistic individual, and your only responsibility is to not infringe on the individuality of other individuals – and thus nothing is public, and everything is a res privata.
Neither of these philosophies is very satisfying. Neither of them is coherent. Both of them presume upon axiomata that are either unstated or poorly substantiated. But there is truth in both of those positions. We are, both individuals and members of communities. We both exist as sovereign and morally responsible individual agents, as well as parts of wholes who have responsibilities and obligations to the greater societies to which we belong.
Western history, much of it anyways, has been the interplay of these two competing notions. The notion that we are both private individuals and that we have obligations to the community. Any legal philosophy that wishes to be in concert with human nature – let alone natural law – has to recognize and incorporate these competing truths.
The abortionists, and drug legalizationists, and pornographers, and, well pretty much every moral degenerate in 20th Century America’s, argument has been: my body, my choice. I can do whatever I want with my own body. If I want to smoke marijuana tablets while having sex for money and then kill the baby while drinking absinthe out of straws made from plastic, then I can do that…’cause my body my choice. You have the right to destroy yourself (and others) according to this philosophy.
The response from people in the middle is that, “OK, sure, yeah, you can destroy yourself – just make sure you aren’t harming anyone else.”
But why? Why do you have a right to destroy yourself? Because you own yourself? But you don’t. You didn’t create yourself. You didn’t feed yourself. You didn’t create your own cells and atomic structure. You’re not an island. Your mother and father and grandparents have a claim on your person. Your community, since their taxes and public services allowed you to grow up in a healthy and safe environment allowed you to live up to this point – they have a claim on you as well.
The folks in the middle made the enormous mistake of accepting the first premise: that you can do what you want with your own body, because they didn’t know where to end the argument.
And this is the crisis of Classical Liberalism in a pluralistic society (though that’s a myth).
If we lived in a society where everyone shared the same values we would know where public and private end. We would agree about what our rights and duties are because we would have a shared set of values that control where our rights meet our obligations. Earlier American societies outlawed adultery. Why? Because adultery is clearly harmful to society. It undermines the family and promotes immorality. Societies have said that they don’t want people adulterating because it causes harm.
But there’s the rub: how do we define what causes harm? You can make an argument for ANYTHING causing hard – at least if you try hard enough. And if you’re a neo-Malthusian like Bill Gates or the rest of our elites and enviro-fascists, then just existing is harmful…so there’s no way to escape the argument that you do harm.
Now, you might say, “But Luke, it’s OBVIOUS what it means to harm someone else – this is all common sense!”
Is it? Is it indeed?! The very nature of our theological and political debate right now is because we fundamentally CANNOT agree on what constitutes harm.
Moreover, why is “causes harm” the standard? Who set that? That’s just as subjective as any other standard! Maybe the standard should be things that DON’T cause harm are illegal. Or maybe purple should be illegal! If we’re being arbitrary why not be silly, too?
The problem is that we all agree that harming people is bad because natural law says so, and we live in a Christianized ethical system. But we’ve cut ourselves off from the objective moral lawgiver: God as revealed in Christ. So, while we know that harming people is wrong, we don’t appeal to God to make our position objective, and on top of that we cannot decide how to define “harm” and what kinds of harm to regulate.
But the reality is that we were never supposed to make these decisions on our own. God has given us His Word, the Old Testament Law and the New Testament Law and the whole counsel of God so that we don’t just have to make it up as we go along, but that we will have Divine Wisdom to help us craft laws that are good and right.
Because the thing is that you don’t have the right to do what you want with your own body – you aren’t even your “own”. The Progressives and Libertarians are wrong. But there are reasonable and good and objective limits to your freedom and the government cannot just define harm however it wants. The conservative and moderate liberals are wrong too!
God however does give us a standard that is objective and sensible. You have the right to do what is right, good, and pleasing to God. You do not have a right to do evil. And God decides what’s good and evil. And government has the right to forbid evil.
Of course, this requires interpretation and doesn’t solve the issue entirely because we live in a fallen world. But I would suggest that Theocracy isn’t as bad as we all think. Sure, there are evils that can be perpetrated in a theocracy. And those evils are the EXACT reason why Classical Liberalism came about. But it’s become increasingly clear over the past few decades that Classical Liberalism is, barring some massive move of God, not long for this world. It is hanged by the rope it sold. It was created to create tolerance, but its tolerance permitted multiculturalism (which is really just monoculturalism with a lot of flags) and multiculturalism eroded the theological imaginary of the West and replaced it with vapid progressive secularism, which is, incidentally, incompatible with the Classical Liberal project, because of, you know, personal liberty and conscience, and freedom from tyranny, and little stuff like that.
Yeah, theocracies go bad – check out Torquemada, or read the Martyr’s Mirror. But the funny thing is that many medievals didn’t think that the abuses of theocracy invalidated theocracy – they just wanted a good theocracy instead.
Classical Liberalism has thrived in the Anglophone world because of the unique factors of Christianity, English and Great British History, the Common Law tradition, and geographical isolation (kinda…like the Indians existed and stuff…). Classical Liberalism, after the 30 Years War and the English Civil War and the Jacobite Rebellions, was the best house on a bad street…but that house had no foundation. And now that the floodwaters are rising, the hideous, haunted, abandoned crackhouse called Theocracy might be the best refuge to weather the storm. Sure, it smells like feces, and we’re pretty sure our keys keep moving, but at least it has a foundation.
Theocracy has to explain the blood of the martyrs. Classical Liberalism has to fess up to the blood of dozens of millions of babies, and the wrecked and ruined lives of hundreds of millions through drugs, pornography, and despair.
Do I want a theocracy? Yes – if I can be the theocrat! Otherwise, no. Do I want Classical Liberalism? Yes – if our nation can regain its moral vision through Christian revival. Otherwise, no.
But all that’s a side issue, because the reality is that every form of government is, in actuality, a theocracy. It’s either a theocracy of the living and true God or a theocracy of idols. That’s because all laws are based on ethics and all ethics are is applied theology. The political is only, always, and forever theological. The real question is whether the theology is good or not.