My body, my choice" - a familiar saying in the abortion-rights community. But if pro-abortion rights political science professor Eileen McDonagh has her way, the slogan would become, "my body, my consent."

McDonagh has written a provocative and perhaps far-reaching book arguing that "choice" is no longer enough to preserve abortion rights - instead, women must be able to "consent" to a pregnancy.

Even if the fetus is human life, women should still have the right to terminate a pregnancy on the basis of consent, argues McDonagh - and further, women should receive government funding for this purpose. McDonagh hopes her argument will be used in a Supreme Court test case within the next three years.

McDonagh starts with the premise that pregnancy is not directly caused by a man, or by sexual intercourse. Instead, she says the only real cause of pregnancy is the embryo, and then the fetus. Given that the fetus is the cause of pregnancy, and given that the fetus essentially "takes over" a woman's body and blood supply for nine months, a woman should be able to consent to the use of her body by the fetus - just as a woman would have to consent to having her blood or kidney removed to save the life of her born child.

McDonagh's main impetus for writing the book was to prove that women are entitled to government funding of abortion. For this purpose, she feels the current emphasis on "choice" is not working - a stance that makes some people in the pro-choice community uncomfortable and angry.

" It's easy for the anti-abortion people to undermine choice by showing how abortion affects the fetus," said McDonagh during an interview. "I argue that what's really important is not what the fetus is - whether it's human life or not - but what it does, which is massively impose upon a woman's body. We have to switch from how abortion affects the fetus, to how pregnancy affects a woman, and gain for women the right to consent to what a fetus does to her body and liberty when it makes her pregnant."

McDonagh's argument conceding that the fetus may be a separate human entity from the woman has caused some disagreement in the pro-choice community - they feel she is playing into the hands of the anti-abortion forces. But McDonagh disagrees.

"My argument does not increase the legal status of the fetus beyond what it already is," she said. "In Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court said that the fetus is potential human life, a separate living entity from the woman, and is deserving of state protection. The pro-choice community has always been unhappy with this Supreme Court definition because it has led to such things as waiting periods, parental consent laws, and the prohibition of abortion funding. My argument simply uses the existing legal definition of the fetus. The anti-abortion groups want to argue that the fetus has the same rights as a born person, but the Constitution clearly covers only born people - so my argument does not give the fetus any rights."

But if McDonagh's argument is based on the current Supreme Court definition of the fetus which has resulted in so many restrictions, how will her argument gain government funding of abortion for women?

"My argument is based not on a right to privacy - a right to be free from government interference - but on a right to consent to what is done with your body," said McDonagh. "Given that the Supreme Court says the fetus is potential human life, the government must then give pregnant women the same protection it would give to other people whose bodies are being imposed upon by born humans. Right now the government protects us from bodily intrusion by other private parties. If a born person captures us to withdraw blood or organs - even if that person is our own child - the government will step in and apprehend that person. If a woman does not consent to bodily intrusion by the fetus, the government must help her to stop this intrusion. Right now, a fetus has legally more claim on a woman's body than born life, and this violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by denying to women the same protection of their bodies and liberty the government provides to others."

McDonagh is currently working with constitutional law scholars who are interested in using her argument in court, and she thinks there might be a test case before the Supreme Court within the next three years. "I'd like to see this argument used in the case of a woman who can't afford an abortion, but who would suffer serious health problems by continuing her pregnancy, and who wants the government to pay for her abortion," said McDonagh. "In the past the Supreme Court has used the privacy basis of abortion to argue that women are not entitled to state-funded abortions. I hope my argument based on consent will open the door to government-funded abortions." -- Jyotsna Sreenivasan