‘Where negative rights are “negative” in the sense that they claim for each individual a zone of non-interference from others, positive rights are “positive” in the sense that they claim for each individual the positive assistance of others in fulfilling basic constituents of well-being like health.’
‘Negative rights are considered more essential than positive ones in protecting an individual’s autonomy.’
So when one individual’s positive right to do something is at odds with another’s negative right to protect them from something, as much as it would be ideal for both parties to have exactly what they want without harming or inconveniencing/upsetting the other, since that’s often not possible, the negative right to ‘protect’ an individual from something seems to trump the positive right for an individual to ‘do’ something in hierarchy of moral importance and most ethicists seem to agree.
For example, I think people’s ‘positive right’ to choose animal-based product or service options when there are equally suitable plant-based options that achieve all the same purposes, isn’t as important as sentient animals’ negative right to not be unnecessarily exploited and killed, and to be protected from those undesirable experiences, states or conditions. Hence the position of veganism is very clear and obvious for me, and resolves an “easy” ethical issue with a clear solution (essential negative (protective) right prevails over others’ ultimately unnecessary positive (“doing”) right).
When it comes to abortion however, I do believe that it’s a tricky situation ethically. I’m pro-choice, but I say that with difficulty, because considering both sides it’s not an easy position and I see it as much more ethically complex than the issue of unnecessary animal exploitation. That’s because I think you can make the argument that either forcing a person to undergo pregnancy, or terminating the life of an (admittedly unconscious, undeveloped) fetus, are in both cases breaching a sentient (or would-be sentient) individual’s negative (protective) right. It would seem to be a clear ethical dilemma, where neither outcome is desirable, in almost comparably important ways. However, ultimately I had to decide that protecting a woman/person from an enforced pregnancy (and the physical and life-changing, even life destroying (or killing) effects, results and experiences that can have), a person being a fully formed, conscious and sentient individual, is more tangibly important than protecting an undeveloped, unconscious “mass of cells” from being prevented from developing into a human being.
My thoughts on the matter aside… It seems like in one way the right to abortion is a positive right by claiming assistance from others to “do” something being terminate a pregnancy, while in another way it’s a negative right by “protecting” the person via preventing undesirable states and experiences that would be imposed on them by others ‘interfering’ and forcing them to undergo pregnancy, by denying them an abortion.
I’m honestly just wondering what kind right this would be considered. Positive right or negative right? Or both? Thanks :)
When it comes to abortion however, I do believe that it’s a tricky situation ethically. I’m pro-choice, but I say that with difficulty, because considering both sides it’s not an easy position and I see it as much more ethically complex than the issue of unnecessary animal exploitation. That’s because I think you can make the argument that either forcing a person to undergo pregnancy, or terminating the life of an (admittedly unconscious, undeveloped) fetus, are in both cases breaching a sentient (or would-be sentient) individual’s negative (protective) right.
I’m going to answer this, because if we remove the ethical dilemma you have everything else is meaningless.
The right to bodily autonomy is essentially absolute in most people’s moral compass, let’s give an example: imagine a fully grown adult was in a car accident, completely out of his control, he lost a lot of blood and his kidneys were damaged, you are a match to him, and he will 100% die unless you donate blood and one kidney, in that scenario: should the government be able to force you to donate your kidney and blood?
There is no question that the person will die if you don’t, there is no doubt the person is a human being, there’s no doubt you’ll survive the procedure and live a normal life afterwards, yet the vast majority of people would agree that the government should not be able to force you, because we recognise that a person’s right to their own body triumphs over other people’s right to that person’s body. Applying the same logic to a Fetus is straightforward, even if it was a person, it wouldn’t have a higher right to your body than you do, there’s no moral dilemma there just like there isn’t one in the kidney situation.
In the unlikely event that you think the government should in fact be able to force you to donate your kidney, it means you value life above bodily autonomy, the logical next step is that as long as it saves more than one life it’s okay for the government to kill you, e.g. if your heart and lungs are compatible with two people who will die without them, then it should kill you to get them because obviously saving two lives is better than saving one.
That’s an interesting take. Unfortunately, brains are considered ‘fully developed’ at 24 weeks of pregnancy. Since most abortions are done well before that, the analogy doesn’t quite match. A more apt analogy would be to give your kidney to a brain dead person who may never recover/survive and if they don’t recover but do survive even with your best attempts then you are responsible for them for the rest of their lives.
Because an abortion, most frequently embryos not fetuses, are unable to support themselves as beings. A similar situation would be how unplugging a machine keeping someone alive isn’t considered murder because they would otherwise be dead. Except instead of a machine it’s a person. And they are being forced to not only support this person for 9 months but the rest of their lives, regardless of if the person is capable emotionally/physically/financially.
It should also be noted: in 2001, Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale University argued, citing their research and earlier studies, that children who are unwanted or whose parents cannot support them are likelier to become criminals.
Yes, my entire point is that even if it was a human being, no questions asked, fully developed, with 100% chance of dying and 100% chance of you surviving, still the vast majority of people would agree the government can’t take your kidney, which means that on a case where there’s debate whether it’s even a human being, when it’s debate whether its alive or not, and where there’s questions as to whether it will even survive, the argument becomes that much stronger. Bodily autonomy is one of the rights out society considers most valuable.
I’m against forced birth, but have to point out that there is the argument, whether realistic or not, that the parent can always give the baby to the foster care system once it’s born, so their obligation would be limited to 9 months total.
Personally what I take issue with is the inconsistency of forced-birth laws in the absence of comparable forced-labor laws. In a world of ideal policy, maybe we as a society might agree that a person should be obligated to sacrifice their time and health for the sake of preserving or creating human life. But then it shouldn’t be applied only to adult women who had consensual sex. Why shouldn’t non-pregnant people be forced to tend a farm for 9 months to produce food for those who are starving, or to spend 9 months working 80-hour weeks at an emergency call center with no pay?
I suspect the answer is that the rights themselves are not the issue here, but rather the motivation to punish women who have consensual sex.
the parent can always give the baby to the foster care system once it’s born, so their obligation would be limited to 9 months total.
That argument entirely overlooks the physical and mental changes that accompany pregnancy that persist well after the baby is delivered. Forcing the child bearing person to give up 9 months of their life for something they don’t want or won’t keep is awful alone, but the possible complications and life long issue that can come with it should make it unreasonable to force someone to go through that unwillingly.
As you surmises, this is about power and punishment, not rights. Rights are just a convenient smokescreen for the autocratic control of women.
Thank you! This is a great response. The only thing I would add as a response is that the laws are not only punishing women who have consensual sex, just those who have had a penis in them in general. Proving it wasn’t consensual is a long and arduous process which can lead to career, legal, and social issues even if found true in court.
It’s only complicated because of people different spiritual beliefs, which really shouldn’t affect anyone outside of themselves.
If you take it from a scientific point of view, when a fetus has no brain or thoughts or feelings or sentience, there is nothing to protect or give rights to.
The mother on the other hand clearly should have a right over their own body.
I’m of the belief that separating out rights into different groups allows societies or governments a way to weasel out of protecting certain groups because it’s not socially or politically advantageous. Reading through the information on positive or negative rights, it seems that’s a pretty common concern. Also looks as if that’s the entire point since it stems from legal philosophy. Bodily autonomy of the mother is an absolute right. Abortion is an absolute right. Only a woman and her doctor should be involved in medical decisions.
It’s not separating them out to groups because it’s a fun thing to do, it’s a literal function of how rights work. Negative rights are things they can’t take away and positive rights are things they have to give you. Both positive and negative rights can be absolute rights, but whether or not they are something that can’t be taken or must be given is important in how they are implemented in any system of government.
For me it’s a basic question of who gets to make your medical decisions, you, or someone else.
It isn’t a person yet it’s not a baby and it is “human” only by DNA. At that point it is indistinguishable from an embryo of a dolphin or other mammal. It can’t even think yet, but for some reason people think of is special enough to be worth denying you your body autonomy.
The right to abortion itself is a negative right; it should prevent a woman from being forced to keep a pregnancy against her will.
However, it must (in the moral sense) be followed by a positive right: the right to medical assistance to terminate the pregnancy.
Think of it this way, any negative right can become a positive right if someone gives it to you. A positive right can’t exist without it.
The 2nd Amendment states that you have the right to keep and bear arms. This means that you can own and utilize a gun for self defense, which is a negative right. It can be made a positive right if the government provides everyone with a a gun for this purpose, but the right to self defense is different from the right to be given the means to accomplish it. Meanwhile the right to vote is something that can’t exist without the government providing it. For $20 I can make a gun with supplies from Home Depot. With $1,000,000 I can’t vote without an existing government system.
Abortion is a function of the right of bodily autonomy and freedom of religion. It’s not the right to have the government “un-pregnant” you on demand, but the right to decide what biological functions you wish to perform. The primary argument against it is based in religious morality, which violates the 1st Amendment’s separation of church and state. The government cannot establish an official religion and impose a specific religious doctrine on you. Since it is something that require you to seek it out and implement it is a negative right.
The real reason abortion is such a delicate political issue is that its true morality is based in religion. If you believe that the soul (a religious concept) begins at or before conception, it is murder which makes it inherently evil. If you believe that the soul becomes a person at viability or birth, it is simply a regulatory restriction like a highway having a speed limit of 60 vs 65 mph. The inability of either side to acknowledge that personal religious beliefs determine whether or not it is literal murder makes a lot of the back and forth shouting an exercise in futility. At the end of the day “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise.” Saying you can’t do something because someone else’s religion forbids it is a direct violation of that, but ignoring that to some people it is literally murder makes it harder to have honest debates on it. At least having a basic awareness of why the other side is so rabidly opposed to it is very useful in breaking through the emotional arguments that dominate the discussion over the fundamental factors of what is and is not an actual right.
Negative right. It’s freedom from interference. It’s not a positive right in that it is not compelling anyone to have or to perform an abortion, only preventing uninvolved parties from interfering in the decision.
In the academic sense of the term, negative rights include the right to not have things done to you (e.g., to not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law).
Positive rights include the right for you to do something, generally as against others (e.g., the right to have food, healthcare, or education be provided to you by other people).
I’m not sure it is useful to try to categorize abortion rights, for similar reasons why it would be difficult to categorize the right to try and grab the only parachute on a crashing plane. Even if it causes injury or death to others, our general tendency is to treat positive acts of genuine self-preservation as a negative right, if only in the sense that we would never enforce a rule that prohibits the person from trying.
A funky brain teaser on the topic might be whose right of life prevails when a perfectly healthy person turns out to be the only match for 5 patients with failing organs, one needing a new heart, another needing a new intact liver, etc., who are each about to die if we don’t kill the healthy person and harvest their organs for transplant. And would the answer change if this wouldn’t kill the healthy person, but severely decrease their quality of life - such as involuntarily taking one of their lungs and one of their kidneys?
IMO whether abortion turns out to be a negative or a positive right depends on the laws in the country in question. In the US the legal status of abortion is currently up to the states. In the couple states where abortion is explicitly a legal right you have a positive right to an abortion. That is, the state will ensure you have access to one.
In most states it’s a negative right—the state guarantees that if you pursue an abortion you’ll be protected from people who might want to hurt you for doing it. Sort of like being protected from religious persecution is a negative right in many places.
So, to me whether abortion is a positive or negative right (or not a right at all) depends on the legal jurisdiction.
Once you assign rights to the unborn, you very quickly end up in an “no abortion except to save the life or health of the mother or prevent unnecessary suffering of a non-viable fetus”.
And this is exactly why most jurisdictions have limits on abortion.
In my country, elective abortions are only legally allowed up to 24 weeks of gestation and the doctors only perform it up to 22 weeks.
Above that, there needs to be a serious medical situation that falls in the exceptional categories.
Practically speaking, it’s mostly an ethics discussion. The vast majority of abortions take place within the first 12 weeks, most even within 8 weeks.
In my country, elective abortions are only legally allowed up to 24 weeks of gestation and the doctors only perform it up to 22 weeks.
because at 24 weeks- assuming advanced medical care is available- there’s a reasonable chance that child could survive outside it’s mother’s womb. it’s 50/50 at that point. no doctors- even the US- are performing abortions on fetus’s that are past 24 weeks, unless there is something very, very wrong. (ie the fetus has died, and it needs to be removed.)
and generally, that’s about five months, so it’s plenty of time to figure your shit out.
I would argue, however, that given the nature of it, that abortions should be available- and without restriction. People don’t suddenly decide to end a pregnancy half way through without VERY good reasons. for doing so; and slapping vague and arbitrary rules around it is stupid. Politicians cannot account for every situation, and the laws are far more likely to hurt the people being regulated than they are to hurt the fetus.
One could also argue that legally allowing unrestricted abortions past 24 weeks is counterproductive, since it galvanizes the pro-life movement. Look at any rally and most protestors are showing pictures of very late term abortions. I remember being in school as a teenager and the pro-life activists coming to our classroom to graphically describe partial-birth abortions that suck out the brains of babies. I was pro-life for the next ten years or so.
Obviously, that’s not representative at all of what a normal abortion looks like. But it’s much less galvanizing to show a 6-8 week old bunch of unrecognizable bodily fluids, which is much more representative of the average abortion.
A clear timeline also puts a healthy pressure on pregnant women to make a difficult decision earlier, when everything is easier, less impactful and less risky, instead of postponing it.
I’m not an expert, but the happy balance seems to be with easy accessibility up to 12 weeks and progressive restrictions after that.
This was also the gist of the original Roe v Wade, which established a trimester framework.
This was also the gist of the original Roe v Wade, which established a trimester framework.
if we’re being honest… that’s bad medicine. And ultimately… we should not have other people’s religion dictating what healthcare is available. period.
As for the rest…. no system of laws can be flexible enough to account for every situation and any attempt to do so is more likely to deprive people of healthcare. because some people believe weird things. Hell. Their own
immutable word of godscripture contains instructions on how to do it. you know. The same scriptures many insist can’t possibly be wrong and therefore, the world is only 6k years old, and that dino bones were planted and didn’t actually exist… or something.To be fair, all it says is that if your wife is pregnant with another man’s baby, you should sweep the church floor, put that dust and dirt in some water, and make her drink it. Then the Lord decides (if there was enough germs in the potion to endanger the fetus.)
So it really doesn’t say “How” to abort a pregnancy, just how to punish your whore wife.
Are you implying that Roe v Wade is religious? Cause you aren’t making much sense.
Predicating laws on abstract generalizations of biology is bad law making- and bad medicine. That aspect of RvW makes no sense. Its an arbitrary line drawn by people whose sole qualification is… totally unrelated.
The rest is just a rant about why abortion shouldn’t be regulated beyond any other routine healthcare procedure, in response to the rest.
Everyone’s pregnancy is different and unique, as are their situations. It’s impossible to accommodate everyone’s needs (or beliefs.) so they shouldn’t even try.
In the Us, the most ardent pushing pro-life do so because of their Christian beliefs. Many of the same are Young Earth Creationists (this is mostly a fundamentalist evangelical thing). These sorts are so confident in the absolute accuracy of the Bible, that when confronted with fossils of dinosaurs; assume they’ve been planted by whomever to deceive man.
We should not have our healthcare tied to such. Neither should we have our constitutionally separated government beholden to their beliefs.
Nonya damn business
Right to the point
Is the right to abortion belief based to MY belief system?! … again. no. It’s an intrinsic right of autonomy. Until you can prove ‘the soul’ this isn’t even academic.
as far as im aware, no one is legally compelled to perform an abortion
thats practically the sole determinator
My view on the matter is that access to abortions falls under the umbrella of the right of bodily autonomy; specifically, protection from being medically exploited. Which by your phraseology would make it a “negative right”.
My go-to comparison is, perhaps oddly, bone marrow donation. Someone with bone cancer is likely doomed to die a horrible death, unless they can find a compatible donor who will consent to share marrow with them. For any given recipient, only a few people at best will be a viable match. Maybe only one. But that person has the absolute right to refuse. You cannot be forced to use your body for the health of another person without your consent.
Some people would say, that’s not comparable to pregnancy, and that having sex/getting pregnant is in itself, somehow, initial consent. But, at least here in Canada, they stress heavily that you can withdraw consent at any point during the procedure. They also explicitly let you know that, at a certain point in the procedure, the recipient’s bone marrow will have been irradiated, and that if the donor backs out at that point, the recipient will die, but that they’re still allowed to do so. The right to bodily autonomy means any ongoing use of one’s body requires their continued consent, even with a living, breathing human person on the scales. Morally is certainly another question, but the diagram of law and morality is not a perfect circle.
If I’m protected from being the life support of any person, surely that covers an unfinished fetus.
the right to abortion is just a subset of bodily autonomy: noone should be able to make decisions or take actions upon your body except you/with your consent.
you can survive with half a liver, and livers regenerate. you can also donate significant amounts of your blood, and even more plasma, without ill effect. these things are lifesaving, but despite that, you cannot be forced to do so against your will.
abortion is no different. just because it can’t survive without you doesn’t mean it gets priority over your own bodily autonomy.
