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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (81457)	7/28/2009 3:43:44 PM
From: one_less	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Rights originate from the concept of what is naturally fair and good, as in 'that seems right', then we have a tendency to codify the issue not just for the individual creature but under consideration of what seems rational as nature may have intended in the wholistic sense of the word. There are occasionally legal rights that get squeezed into society that violate that premise but they usually don't last the test of time when they do. When I pluck an apple and eat it, no rational being says, 'oh poor apple.' The artist who thought it was beautiful enough to paint might say 'awww shucks,' or the fella that owned the tree might be ticked off and chase me down a road (that actually happened when I was a kid) but the apple's rights weren't violated. When we cut the wheat nobody complains but when we clear cut the forest to build an Armada which is just gonna get sunk in the north sea along with the treasure of the world... ehh I digress. If it were the only apple tree and some knucklehead chopped it down to get firewood for his barbeque, rendering apple's extinct, we'd probably say that wasn't right. Plants and most animals have a natural course of competing, eating, and being eaten that furthers their ability to thrive on the planet in a good way. We seem to have the natural ability and sense to manage that nature, even though we often mess it up. Like we did with aborting most of the girl babies in China, India, etc and now for the first time in World history we have 100millon extra young men ... ehh there I go again. A zygote on its own, frozen, or in a test tube, may be completely human but not consciously aware of any personhood, and something intentional might need to occur to put it in a condition that we could say is 'potential'. That seems like a huge stretch if we are claiming some obligation there. However pregnancy is not a zygote on its own. It is a condition and asking what is right under a condition is a question no different than any other rights question, what seems rational as nature may have intended things.

To: Solon who wrote (81457)	8/5/2009 2:50:21 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The right to be counted as people would certainly suggest they have a right to life. "The right to be counted as people", can mean the right to be considered to have the rights (or at least an important subset of the rights) that people are generally recognized to have. If that's what you mean that yes it would suggest a right to life. It could also be the right to be considered a person. Which many would accept as indirectly implying a right to life. The counting in the census is a totally different type of "to be counted". Its not about what someone is considered or rights rights they have or are considered to have, its a literal counting, as in adding up numbers (well technically many censuses involved estimation and not 100% pure counting, but that's not really a relevant point in this discussion). How can you tell a particular class of persons that their "RIGHTS" are impractical. I drew the distinction between issues of morals and rights and purely practical issues. That's not for any particular class of persons, but rather for all persons. How can you say that a zygote is a human person while permitting a mother to live an unhealthy lifestyle? First a secondary point - There in most cases there is some uncertainty about what is significantly unhealthy, or how unhealthy it is. There are some clear and extreme cases, but most will not be. More importantly the totalitarian government that would be needed to enforce healthy lifestyles on everyone would be generally harmful, likely harmful to the child as well, at least after he or she is born. We do indeed let the mother endanger the health and safety of her two year old to a certain extent. Its nearly impossible to not do so, esp. without (but even with) a surveillance police state. Then there is the complication that at first the woman may not even know she is pregnant, and later on other people may not. So would it not be perfectly reasonable to tranquilize the mother and feed her (and thus her fetus) intravenously? Even if you don't consider the rights of the mother at all (and it would be unjust not to do so), keeping the mother tranquilized is unlikely to be health for her child.