The right to bodily autonomy is one of the most fundamental human rights a person can have. Your life is your own, to do with as you choose. It does not belong to another person, or government; and such a right supersedes any religious doctrine, political campaign, or national need. Many have learnt this when it comes to women’s bodies; capturing the sentiment through the iconic words of ‘my body, my choice’. Such words are held aloft in protests, yelled in streets, and demanded in the highest courts in the land. But few extend them to men and boys. Men and boys, whose body and life is not their own, as hundreds of millions have to sign it away to the government, to shield a nation in times of war; a life not sacrosanct, but simply cannon fodder to by shot at, more meat for the military machine. The military draft claimed tens of millions of male lives in the 20th century, in both world wars, and more recently in Vietnam. We’ve heard the stories, men and boys whose numbers were called up, shipped away to die in the most horrific circumstances one can imagine. And the mechanism of such a hellish thing still exists today. Every young man in America must sign up to Selective Service when he turns eighteen, and whilst this was something many could refuse… this may soon not be an option either. A Bill has been passed in the House of Representatives, that makes registration to Selective Service for young men automatic, in a change that somehow has made their lack of bodily autonomy even worse. So who will stand against such a bill? Who will expand the belief of autonomy to boys and men? Who truly believes: my body, my choice?

2024-06-28