A Problem of Self-Ownership for Reproductive Justice

This paper raises three concerns regarding self-ownership rhetoric to describe autonomy within healthcare in general and reproductive justice in specific. First, private property and the notion of "ownership" embedded in "self-ownership," rely on and replicate historical injustices related to the initial acquisition of property. Second, not all individuals are recognized as selves with equal access to self-ownership. Third, self-ownership only justifies negative liberties. To fully protect healthcare access and reproductive care in specific, we must also be able to make claims on others to respect, protect, and fulfill our positive rights. As much as nondomination remains an urgent demand for reproductive rights, it does not go far enough to ensure reproductive justice.

Self-ownership, relational dignity, and organ sales

Material property has traditionally been conceived of as separable from its owner and thus alienable in an exchange. So it seems that you could sell your watch or even your kidney because it can be removed from your wrist or abdomen and transferred to another. However, if we are each identical to a living human animal, self-ownership is impossible for self-separation is impossible. We thus cannot sell our parts if we don't own the whole that they compose. It would be incoherent to own all of your body's parts but not the whole body; and it would be arbitrary to own some but not all of your removable parts. These metaphysical obstacles to organ sales do not apply to the selling of the organs of the deceased. The human being goes out of existence at death and is not identical to the body's remains. Any objections to selling the organs of the deceased must instead be due to dignity rather than metaphysical or conceptual considerations. But the remains lack the intrinsic dignity of the human being, instead possessing, at best, relational dignity. Relational dignity would not provide sufficient reason to prohibit life-saving sales.