‘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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Abortion is not a religious issue. It is merely correlated with religious beliefs. Many religions have no position on abortion, and even the Bible holds no clear position on it, it’s presence in Christianity is a secular synthesis.
SCOTUS also reaffirmed in every single pro-choice case (e.g Roe v Wade Casey v. PlannedParenthood ) that the government has a right to regulate abortion in general just not in certain cases. At no point was it ever considered to be enforcing religious beliefs. This has never been considered a religious issue by any but the most retarded people.
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.
I don’t believe any state has a law that says that abortions must be provided to you. The legal right ammendments that activists are trying pass are simply to bar the state from restricting abortions.
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
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.
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.
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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.
The issue when discussing abortion is that there is no generally accepted point in which a blastocyst/zygote/foetus becomes a fully-fledged, sentient being. Some argue that the point of conception instills personhood; others make arguments based upon how developed a foetus is and if it has differentiated sensory organs; some make an arbitrary distinction based on the elapsing of time; and others still agree that personhood is conveyed only once a baby is born and survives labour.
Those arguing this point have a tendency to become entrenched in their opinions, be it because of religious or cultural norms, or even just the basic human condition of stubbornness. This creates permanent rifts between people who share FAR more in common than they differ.
My personal opinion is a technocratic one - I don’t believe that this decision should be made by anyone other than relevant medical professional(s) and the pregnant person. That means that legislatively (or constitutionally), I’m advocating for no legal restrictions on abortions whatsoever and empowering health professionals to determine what is reasonable or safe.
This position is often (intentionally) misunderstood as not believing that the unborn have rights as well - they absolutely do. I’m a child protection caseworker and we regularly work with pregnant people who show signs there may be risk of harm after birth (issues like substance abuse, mental health issues, domestic violence, disability without sufficient support etc.) in order to preserve the best start to life that an unborn child can have. I just don’t accept that there are any circumstances under which the right of an unborn child trumps professional medical opinions. Doctors are best placed to determine when and if an abortion is appropriate or necessary.
Each individual maintains the right to not have an abortion forced on them, but then gains the right to engage in an abortion if it’s medically safe and sound.
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If the fetus can survive on it’s own, it’s a person. If it can’t survive on it’s own, it’s a parasite. Parasites on a living host have no rights.
But if it can survive on it’s own, it’s not aborted. Were it legal to remove the fetus at that point, then it’s a delivery. It can survive on it’s own without being attached to the another’s body, so they would deliver it early.
