If you drink and drive and cause a car crash that requires you give a blood transfusion is it murder to refuse? I think hardly anyone would say that, because society has decided the right of bodily autonomy is paramount. I don't see abortion as any different from refusing to save someone you hurt in a car crash you caused.
In the United States a warrant is sufficient for a compulsory blood test to check blood alcohol levels. If we accept that proving guilt in court is an appropriate reason to violate bodily autonomy than so too would saving the life of someone who's been endangered by your actions.
Morally however, I also do think it's wrong to not give the blood transfusion because the burden is small and the cost of not doing so is large. Whether it rises to the level of murder is a tougher question that I think would depend on intent.
Do you think a suicidal pilot has the right to stop flying a plane mid-flight even if she knows that no one else on the plane will be capable of landing it?
> If we accept that proving guilt in court is an appropriate reason to violate bodily autonomy than so too would saving the life of someone who's been endangered by your actions.
But we haven't decided that saving the life of someone who's been endangered by your actions is an appropriate reason to violate bodily autonomy. That's the whole point, society has decided that you can refuse to give the transfusion, even it leads to a death you essentially caused.
Society has already decided that proving guilt in a drunk driving case is a sufficient reason to violate bodily autonomy. I argue that saving a life is far more important than proving guilt for a fairly petty crime, therefore by the already accepted standard, it would be permissible to force the transfusion for this purpose.
> Do you think a suicidal pilot has the right to stop flying a plane mid-flight
Interesting example, but I don't think such a pilot whould cares about rights.
The better question might be - what could you do to force such a pilot to fly the plane, and it appears that you could only plead - they would not be afraid of being shot (which is illegal anyway), and torture is very clearly illegal.
I agree it would be difficult to force a pilot to fly a plane, in this way it's not quite analogous. However, imagine if by some miracle the plane is landed without the pilots help– passenger happens to be a pilot, stewardess talked over the radio how to execute a crash landing etc. Should the pilot be charged with any crime upon safely reaching the ground?
On the contrary, I think it would be very popular to say that someone who directly caused the crash out of negligence should be required to give blood to save the victim.
Your version is actually pretty similar to a normal pregnancy (the woman brought about the pregnancy through her actions and now has to decide whether its morally okay to stop the babies' use of her body).
I think it's very hard to justify abortion along these lines and might be easier just to try to show that the fetus is non-human and doesn't have rights.
In this _particular_ case, I think it would indeed be considered vehicular homicide if you drove drunk and killed someone. If you could and did save them by giving a blood transfusion, then you would likely still be guilty of some crime for hitting them in the first place, but not homicide.
But that doesn't change anything - even if this person is a criminal, you still would not be allowed to use their blood for a transfusion without their concent. No additional crimes would result from the refusal itself.
Most people believe you are obligated to provide basic care (food, water, shelter). Anything above that is not an obligation and not murder. That is not to say you shouldn't go above that, but just that it is not murder if you don't provide anything above the basics.
