Dmitri: ouch. you have been entirely owned by EG, who has destroyed your every argument. Furthermore, how you are maintaining that a woman has some sort of legal requirement to breastfeed, and/or that an infant is incapable of surviving without its biological mother, is beyond me, as those contentions are clearly simply not true. Obviously children survive without their biological mothers all the time, and no woman is required by law to breastfeed. Duh.

furthermore, the law (as well as just about everyone in the world but you) perceives a vast difference between a person’s body and a person’s possessions. It is NEVER legal in any other circumstances to forcibly use a person’s body against their will. I don’t know why there should be an exception for women, that they should be forcibly used against their will when pregnant. It’s unethical and, yes, misogynistic.

If I go out drinking with my friends and leave my door open, I might come home to find an uninvited guest. Even if that guest does not do any of the things a pregnancy does, such as commandeering my entire body and limiting my ability to take my medicines, I am well within my rights to call the cops and have that person thrown out of my home. Even though I was the one who left the door open. Even if the fellow has nowhere else to go. Even if temperatures are below freezing out and he will die.

Why on earth would I have fewer rights over my body than over my apartment?

Breastfeeding is not now and has never been mandatory. One can use formula. One can hire a wet-nurse. One can feed the kid on animal milk (not ideal, but it’s been done). One can give the infant up for adoption. Where do you live that breastfeeding is mandatory?

Second, why do you treat your body as “yourself?” I thought your brain was yourself. For instance, if you are disabled, are you yourself broken? I know many people who would take issue with that.

That’s nice for you. My brain is part of my body, not some ethereal spirit floating around out there in space. I am an atheist–I see no reason to believe that there is any part of me besides my body. I have asthma, which means the part of myself that deals with respiring is indeed broken. That’s OK–I’m fortunate enough to have health insurance and to be able to provide myself with what I need to be functional. If somebody punches me in the arm, they hit me. If I push a baby out through my vagina, I have given birth. If I lose a hand in an industrial accident, then I have lost a piece of myself. These are hardly eccentric views.You are free to construct your identity as you wish, but you don’t get to inflict that construction on everybody else.

Risk of death due to pregnancy is minimal (less than 1%), even though it’s higher in the US than in other countries, so the medical excuse isn’t particularly applicable. Furthermore, I support abortion in medical cases, so that argument is moot anyway.

I didn’t make an argument about life-threatening cases. The fact is that pregnancy wreaks havoc on a woman’s body even when it is a wanted pregnancy. She has to go off medications–for those of us who have to take meds to control chronic illnesses, that’s a serious issue. Her digestive system is thrown into disarray–morning sickness. Her skin is distended, sometimes permanently, sometimes painfully. The need to urinate becomes more insistent, more frequent. Various nutrients are leached out of her system. I repeat, there is no other situation in which donating one’s body is mandatory, even temporarily, and I see no reason to make an exception in this case.

I guess I fail to see the difference between “inside my body feeding off my gastric juices” and “outside my body eating food from my pantry.”

Again, your pantry is property. Women’s bodies are not property. I can see how someone might make this mistake, given thousands of years of human history in which women are regarded as a form of property, but you can’t expect feminists to accept such a thing. You honestly can’t see a distinction between being physiologically bound to another entity whose presence throws your entire body in disarray entirely for its own benefit, and money worries? Think about rape. Rape is using somebody else’s body for your purposes against her/his will. Do you not see the difference between rape, a crime against a person, and crimes against property? If not, we have wildly different values.

Third, please refrain from ad-hominem attacks.

I made no ad hominem attacks. An ad hominem attack would be if I had said “Why should we listen to you? You’re ugly!” I characterized your position as fundamentally misogynist, and extrapolated to suggest that you yourself are a misogynist. That’s a very different sort of thing.

in the case of a car crash, there are other people to provide organs to the person dying.

Indeed. That is a fundamental difference, is it not? The fact is, you are not required by law to donate anything to injured party. You are not being tried because of your failure to donate organs–after all, lots of people on the street refuse to do that every day. You are being tried for causing a car crash. Further, your analogy is faulty, in that it assumes no injury to the first driver. If you are driving a car, and you cause a car crash, and you yourself are hurt, you still receive all the medical treatment you need to restore yourself to your healthiest condition (provided, of course, that you have health insurance). So why should a woman with an unintended pregnancy be denied the medical care she needs?

(apologies for double-posting–I screwed up the tags)

Indeed. That is a fundamental difference, is it not? The fact is, you are not required by law to donate anything to injured party. Not a red blood cell. You are not being tried because of your failure to donate organs–after all, lots of people on the street refuse to do that every day. You are being tried for causing a car crash. Further, your analogy is faulty. If you are driving a car, and you cause a car crash, and you yourself are hurt, you still receive all the medical treatment you need to restore yourself to your healthiest condition (provided, of course, that you have health insurance). So why should a woman with an unintended pregnancy be denied the medical care she needs?