I agree that privacy is a strained framework if it is treated merely as a protected private sphere confronting another rights-holder. But I am not sure Thomson's thought experiments are best understood as ingenious illustrations of privacy. Their deeper move is to analyze the content of the competing right: even if the fetus is a person with a right to life, does that right include an enforceable claim to the use of one particular person's organs?
That does not make bodily autonomy absolute. It instead denies that “has a right to life” by itself entails "ha... (read more)
I agree that privacy is a strained framework if it is treated merely as a protected private sphere confronting another rights-holder. But I am not sure Thomson's thought experiments are best understood as ingenious illustrations of privacy. Their deeper move is to analyze the content of the competing right: even if the fetus is a person with a right to life, does that right include an enforceable claim to the use of one particular person's organs?
That does not make bodily autonomy absolute. It instead denies that “has a right to life” by itself entails "ha... (read more)