The autonomy argument is flawed.

It relies on 2 things to be true: a fetus has no more of a relevant relationship to its mother than a stranger.

That a woman's right to do with her body as see she fits, is absolute.

Consider a final example. In 2004, Melissa Rowland was prosecuted for refusing an emergency caesarian section to save the lives of her unborn twins. According to the hospital staff, Rowland refused the C-section because of the scar it would leave on her body. She stated she preferred to “lose one of the babies than be cut like that.” Nevertheless, emergency room doctors and nurses repeatedly tried to persuade Rowland to have the C-section, but she insisted on going outside for a smoke instead. She finally yielded to their demands, but by then it was too late: One baby died and the other required intense medical intervention to survive. The surviving twin, like his mother, tested positive for cocaine. The medical examiner’s report stated that had Rowland consented to the surgery when doctors originally urged her to, the baby would have survived.8 Rowland was subsequently charged with murder. Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women said she was “aghast” that Rowland was criminally charged. She’s got a point. If unborn humans have no legitimate claims on their mothers’ bodies, why not let a drug addict mom avoid the scar?

During our debate at U.C. Davis in June 2006, Dr. Meredith Williams, who performs some abortions, more or less claimed that women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy. However, during the cross-examination, she backed off that claim when I pressed her with this thought experiment from Dr. Rich Poupard:

 Let’s say a woman has intractable nausea and vomiting and insists on taking thalidomide to help her symptoms. After having explained the horrific risks of birth defects that have arisen due to this medication, she still insists on taking it based on the fact that the fetus has no right to her body anyway. After being refused thalidomide from her physician, she acquires some and takes it, resulting in her child developing no arms. Do you believe that she did anything wrong? Would you excuse her actions based on her right to bodily autonomy? The fetus after all is an uninvited guest, and has no right even to life,let alone an environment free from pathogens.7

To play devil's advocate, those excerpts are from a pro-life website, but the facts of the story remain true.

And honestly, I opted to not directly address your point of autonomy, because if you read into my original post, you'd know my stance on that, which is that all rules of exceptions, which is in directly conflict with the idea that autonomy reigns absolute.

Cheers.