I was having a conversation a few days ago in which an interesting question was brought up: do people have a right to reproduce? I was unable to come up with a definitive answer for this question, so I thought I'd post it and see what everyone else's thoughts are. The context was a debate over the idea of compulsory, but reversible, sterilization for all citizens as a social policy.
On the "yes" side, I believe involuntary human sterilization is generally regarded as an atrocity, from what I know of it occurring under the Nazi regime and scattered incidents of punitive sterilization, and certainly it (and its potential abuses) seem like pretty bad things. However, I cannot really come up with a convincing reason why this should be so. The ability to bring life into the world is probably one of the largest responsibilities a human being can have, after all, and as such, the unrestrained proliferation of this ability has the potential to cause a great deal of suffering - we have only to look to the innumerable cases of single mothers, broken families, etc to see the misery that it can and does cause. I'm not sure why such a huge responsibility should be regarded as an inherent human right.
Say we implemented a policy that all males were to be sterilized at birth. Then, according to some set of criteria, when the individual is deemed "fit" to reproduce, the sterilization could be reversed. This criteria could range from the mild to the Orwellian - it could be a simple age restriction (based on when a person is on average "settled" enough to have a child), it could be a combination of age, financial situation, and marital status, or it could be done on a case-by-case review basis. This final option, in my mind, would be the most ideal setup, although obviously it is also the most prone to abuse.
On a larger scale, it is also easy to see the advantages of involuntary sterilization. I'm positive that the following ideas are considered...shall we say "taboo," but again, I'm not certain why. If we were able, as a society, to choose who among us could reproduce, we could in effect reinstate natural selection without inviting the pain of death back into our lives. I promise, I'm not a neo-Nazi, but if we're totally honest with ourselves, and assuming that my previous idea that we do not have an inherent right to reproduce is correct, can we really argue against a eugenics process? We could ensure humanity's survival by tailoring each generation to be stronger, faster, and smarter than the one before; and what would we really lose?
The main objection that I can see is the simple "we shouldn't be playing God" objection, which, while I do agree to some extent, I see more as a plea for caution than a moral imperative.
Obviously there are immediate emotional responses to such an idea, and I'm not suggesting that it is any way likely or feasible for this to be introduced as a serious proposal. There are also simpler, less Orwellian ways to achieve a similar result, like, say, a free, easy, 100% effective contraceptive; I'm sure the majority of "undesirable" pregnancies are probably also unwanted. Free abortions would probably also achieve a similar result - the book Freakonomics proposes that the legalization of abortion was responsible for the crime drop in the 1990s. I'm just curious as to the actual ethics of this particular concept.
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This may be just a minor point about the words you're using, but what you're proposing is unnatural selection, not natural selection.
Abortion's a medical procedure, so I'm guessing that it's "free" in Canada, in the sense that people wouldn't be charged when they got the service. We still have unwanted pregnancies. But then, people DO get charged for birth control.
Well, yes, I suppose so. It is unnatural in the sense that we would choose on our own rather than allowing Nature to choose. However, I would certainly say that in this case, unnatural selection would be far preferable to natural selection; Nature (often) selects by killing off its undesirables in often painful ways, while we could simply not allow undesirables to reproduce. Whether unnatural selection is preferable to no selection at all is, of course, up for debate.
You're right though, and word choice is certainly important here; I had to remind myself of this several times while writing this post, as the wrong word choice (or even the right one - there's no really PC way to present these concepts) could easily be interpreted in such a way that I could find an angry mob at my doorstep when I go home. Fortunately, my blog isn't very popular.
I think you'd need to separate "reproduce" from "parent".
I'm not aware that anyone orders people to be sterilized or to use birth control.
On the other hand, you don't have a right to parent children. Courts can terminate your parental rights in the best interest of the child.
I'm guessing that the laws in the States are similar.
It is a privilege to reproduce and we ALL know privileges can be taken away! There should be some form of assessment to establish if a person is -- permitted -- to reproduce.
It is not entirely necessary, depending on your view, to separate "reproduce" from "parent". You could, for instance, take an extremely limiting stance and prevent people who may produce physically handicapped, mentally handicapped, or at-risk for-other-genetic-diseases children from having any. In that case, you are, indeed, removing the privilege of reproduction, not parenting.
Though, I think most people would consider that quite Orwellian in nature, and would rather consider limiting the "parenting" part of things, in which the distinction is quite useful.
I was the initiator of the first conversation about this topic, and the example/comparison I can't get out of my head is that if I need a license granted by some arbitrary standard to drive a car, why shouldn't I need a license for, what I see to be, the much greater responsibility of creating life and raising it appropriately? Presumably needing a license to drive a car is necessary for my safety, and the safety of others, and, I think, the most important thing is: to get a license to drive a car, one must want, to the degree of taking action, to be able to drive a car. Needing a license to have a child would also presumably better ensure the safety of the child and, even better, hopefully discourage people who "don't really" want a child from doing it by placing a formal process between them and conception.
Ben, did you post this on February 20? It just came up in my reader the other day.
I think that is because Blogger, for some obtuse reason, publishes posts with the date on which their first draft was created, instead of on the date it was ultimately published. So, Ben probably started the post on Feb. 20 as a draft and didn't deign to finish until just a few days ago.
Whoa. Working on a blog post for a full month takes dedication.
I sit on mine for a few days at most. But then, I have no standards.
I'm pretty sure he didn't "work on it" for a full month (correct me if I'm wrong, Benjamin).
He probably started it at work, suddenly got busy, saved it as a draft, and forgot about it for a month.
Saying he "worked on it" for a full month attributes him an amount of dedication that as friend, girlfriend and roommate, I have never seen on anything before, save, possibly, sleep. =P
I'm with you on this one (big surprise). It almost seems as if the simple requirement to apply for the license to reproduce would eliminate many of our problems. This would also get you around deny anyone the alleged 'right' to reproduce - ie: no unwanted pregancies.
On a side note, you also touched on another similar topic without realizing it: "Nature (often) selects by killing off its undesirables in often painful ways". Dude, we've taken away the painful deaths of the undesireables... They fill our hospitals! Bring Back The Painful Death!!!
-I'm hopeing God won't strike me down for my warped sense of 'humor' ;)!
Yeah, I noticed that too Megan - I did indeed start a draft about a month ago, presumably on Feb 20. I had trouble figuring out how to phrase it without sounding like a call for genocide (probably still didn't avoid that tone entirely), so I tabled it and promptly forgot about it. Demosthenes knows me too well.
Sorry to have missed the beginning of this conversation. I've been under the weather.
Alright, I disagree (of course) that this would be appropriate in any way. I also think that there is a fundamental error in thinking that law, in the legal sense, should be used in such a way (I will get to that in a minute).
However, I find myself in the awkward position of beginning by wondering what exactly you mean by the word "right" in the phrase "people have a right to reproduce?" I am not trying to start a war over semantics here, but I find it very difficult to understand how we have gotten the idea that human beings have rights at all. In every discussion, we need to be sure that we agree on the premises before we jump to any conclusions, otherwise we will end up just disagreeing back and forth and not being able to understand each other.
So: Where would our rights come from? They cannot be inherent in human nature or they would be universally recognized. We can say that they come from political systems, but often we rail against political systems transgressing people's "rights." Further, if they really came from political systems, people's "rights" really are only what the state says they are. If by "right" you mean something which people have a moral imperative to protect in others, you end up stuck with the problem of explaining where on Earth THAT comes from.
Sorry to dump this (difficult) question on you, but it bugs me that no one is ever willing to talk about this.
I expect, that when we work out what we mean by "rights" and where they come from, we will begin to see what it is that we really have to disagree over. This is from the philosophical school.
From a more practical point of view (I can be practical TOO), I think that the real problem of overpopulation and poor parenting will never be solved by legal action. The problem really is a moral one: Are people considering others (as in their neighbors or children) or just themselves? No amount of legislation can ever force this mindset on another.
In Ben's proposed (quite Orwellian!) method we have artificially created a situation in which we have removed the external negative repercussions for the acts of one particular type of bad moral behavior (sleeping around) suggesting that people need to earn the right to reproduce. From this removal of negative consequence, there is the expectation that somehow this will help (or encourage) people to be better parents or more responsible citizens (or they will never get the right to reproduce). What this does is it leads to a culture in which moral license is encouraged. If there is no negative consequence, why should parents discourage their children from "sexual experimentation" (I think this is pretty well described in Brave New World)? Thus, while growing up, these adolescents are not told that they need to practice self restraint, they do not learn the duty of monogamy, and so ultimately they do not learn that they have a responsibility to put others before themselves. I fail to see how this situation (painted grimly I admit) would be beneficial to anyone. It seems to me that these adolescents would grow up to be spectacularly bad parents and would have far less chance of resisting the pull towards overpopulation!
While your proposal has a certain sterile appeal, as a committee member for the NWO project on sustainable reproduction I must vote against said proposal.
Firstly, I don't see anything wrong at all in saying that the government ("State", "Authority", whatever) defines my rights. While I live here, in the United States, in Massachusetts, in Quincy, in my apartment complex, I am constrained by what they've (all) told me I can or cannot do.
To me, "rights" seem to be granted by whose house (or country, or building, etc) you live in or are staying in. In the same way that my apartment manager has the right to tell me not to hang clothes on the balcony or else suffer repercussions, I have the right to spray water on my kittens if they knock over the trash barrel, since they live in my domain.
I had a similar conversation with my mother recently about how strict Condo associations are, and how she heard of one that prevented people from having flowers on their balconies. She thought this was absurd, but I pointed out that if people didn't want to not have flowers, they would live somewhere else. Presumably they went into the lease expecting that this was a restriction and not minding it, or perhaps liking it. My point being: if you live under the rule of someone, presumably you like it, or at least can tolerate it.
This is mostly true for small scale things (housing, schooling, perhaps local government), but does get murky as you step toward bigger (state and national) authorities, hence the many dictatorships or other undesirable government solutions and their respective countries throughout the world.
Regardless, hopefully you agree with your authorities and like the rules in place, but even if you don't, you're there for a reason. The reason could suck, ie: you have no power to leave, but while you're there, you do what they say, or you get punished.
As for "inherent in human nature" rights - I think that's a moot point. Clearly nature has given us the "right" to do anything which we... can, physically or mentally, accomplish. I was always under the assumption that a "right" was a legal entitlement, though I guess it might also be a moral one. Either way, "Legal" and "Moral" are creations of the human mind which nature may have created, but probably cannot fathom.
I do not at this moment associate "moral obligation" with "right", though I'd have to think about it more to come to a better conclusion - it's merely that I haven't done so before.
My second point (after that oh-so-long first one) was about Torq's comment on the social impact of Ben's proposal. I do not think that just because we make responsibility less by automatic sterilization that we subsequently have to make moral teaching less. What I mean is, people may feel the desire to sleep around more, etc, because of the lack of consequences, but I don't think parents will stop teaching their children to be good people. I don't think there would be parents who would say, "Sure, honey, go have sex with whoever you want, don't worry about their feelings, etc, we don't have to worry because you won't get preggers!" (In fact, we'd hope that bad parents like that would be getting weeded out in the licensing process...) I think teaching and encouragement of appropriate behavior will still be present in young adults' lives. Whether it sinks in, is another thing. (: But that's true of now, too.
Human rights, in the United Nations sense, don't come from anywhere. They're recognised as being inherent: you don't get them because of anything you've done or by any accident of birth.
In fact, you could argue that they definitely don't come from any government, because your human rights are generally rights about the things the government has to do or NOT do.
The way you relate to non-government entities, like your landlord, is usually not framed as a "right" under the law. However, jurisdictions have human-rights legislation that could govern the way you relate to certain people, like your boss or landlord. You could also have rights (that are not "human rights") in your relationships with these people.
Ugh. Of course, I meant that your rights and responsibilities in the landlord-tenant relationship are not usually "human rights". Your rights there probably come from residential-tenancy legislation, but human rights could still come into it.
I really shouldn't post comments early in the morning. I'll probably want to correct this one in an hour or so.
While I agree that the idea of where human rights comes from does deserve some inspection, I am not certain that it holds any meaningful relation to this issue. It may turn out that that discussion is a prerequisite to this discussion, but until that point, I will side with Megan and propose that we simply use what she's referring to as "the United Nations sense" - something that all human beings are entitled to. Where that entitlement comes from isn't necessary to know at this stage, provided we assume that it exists (which some may not, in which case we may have to discuss it first).
I don't really think the moral implications are that big an obstacle. The main fear you seem to have is the removal of consequence from sexual promiscuity, for which I have two responses: First, we're pretty much at that stage already. With the availability of not only effective contraception but legal abortion, most people who don't want the responsibility can get out of it in some way that doesn't involve abstinence. (Honestly, one of the big reasons I happen to like this proposal is that it achieves the results of eliminating undesirable pregnancies while sidestepping the whole abortion issue - abortions would be unnecessary and therefore a pointless debate) Second, I really don't think that having a child is an appropriate way to punish someone for any kind of immoral action. In fact, tossing such a huge responsibility onto the shoulders of someone who is proven to have little respect for restraint or morality is the exact opposite of what I'd want to do; those people are the ones I specifically don't want having children.
Along the same lines as what Demosthenes was saying, I think this would actually increase the amount of morality and restraint taught to our children - on average. The people who would be reproducing after this are the people who teach thier children those things. The people who would not be allowed to reproduce are the people who would neglect thier children and allow them free rein.
I don't understand why promiscuity would come into it at all.
That appears to be completely outside this particular discussion, which is already entirely theoretical because it's impossible to implement.
The issue here is fitness to parent. I don't see what that has to do with promiscuity.
I think, but correct me if I'm wrong, that what Torq was pointing out is that there would be many effects of this particular proposal. You couldn't change something this drastic and expect not only nothing else to change, but for nothing else to change for the worse. Hopefully, this would encourage good parenting, stronger families, better environments in which to grow up, etc., but it may also result in drastic social changes such as what Torq mentioned with promiscuity and a lack of... moral order and priorities?
I don't think I'm saying this as clearly as I'd like, but oh well.
There would be huge changes. You would have to sterilize everyone at birth, then reverse the procedure after a tribunal had determined each individual's "fitness" to parent.
I suppose that instead, you could sterilize most people permanently and keep a class of breeders. These people would be responsible for providing children for adoption by people who had been determined to be fit parents.
The moral issues here would appear to be whether it's moral to sterilize people against their will and keep sexual slaves to produce children, not whether it's OK for people to sleep around. That's a minor point and not even the real issue.
I think your latter suggestion, Megan, to have designated breeders would both require a much different society than we have now to start, and also imply more change in a direction that I think we all have read in various utopian (dystopian?) books. I'm thinking particularly of The Giver and Anthem. In short, although it might prove to be a good option, I think that also complicates this argument/proposal.
But I agree that any sort of social change that would result from a change like this (ie: promiscuity) is irrelevant to the discussion. Society changes no matter what. Good ideas can provide devastating consequences, and vice versa and so on. It we ignore the social outcome, whatever it might be, we may have a clearer discussion. That discussion being, "Is it a basic human right to be able to reproduce at will and would we be violating it by requiring people to go through some sort of restrictive, multi-step process before they would be allowed to?"
Other discussion points can be raised about this topic, like whether it would ultimately be a "good" idea because of the effects it would have or a "bad" idea, but this sentence, I think, is the gist of it.
I don't think there's really a question of "is it OK for people to sleep around?" I'm pretty sure most everyone would say "no" on the basis of societal stability and health if not morality - and if not, let's assume they would and discuss that elsewhere if need be. Therefore the application of the question isn't "is it OK?" but "will involuntary sterilization lead to it?"
I am interested in the effects of this idea, even if it's not precisely "the real issue." I could have just deleted my whole post and just written the single sentence "Is involuntary sterilization OK?" but that wouldn't have been very useful.
Many people have voluntarily sterilized themselves. I'm not aware that they are less moral than other people. Is it really immoral to take action to make sure you won't have children? That doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me that the responsible choice is to only have kids if you can be a good parent.
I don't think the question is whether sterilization of a person signifies or will lead to their bad moral behavior/choices. The question, I think, is whether, as generations go on, society will lose its sense of morality because everybody's "required" sterilization may lead to a lack of necessary responsibility on the part of individuals. I believe we are not questioning individuals, but trends in the greater scheme of things. The example being used, though I'm sure there are others as well, is that people may become more promiscuous because there is no reason not to be if you're unafraid of creating life, and such "global" promiscuity may be a bad thing.
But your responsibility is to the child. We're talking about a world in which you cannot have children unless you get permission from a tribunal or a licence from the government. In that context, sexual responsibility would be more like your responsibility to not eat garbage. It's not actually responsibility at all, it's just looking out for yourself.
And I am a moron: We are actually talking about what the United Nations calls "reproductive rights". A social worker can apprehend your child at birth, but can't force you to have an abortion or get sterilized. You'd think this would have occurred to me before now.
Demosthenes: If our "rights" are determined by some governmental code, how can a government ever transgress against the "rights" of man? To use a (un)popular example, Hitler and the concentration camps. He, as the ultimate authority in his government, made it essentially a crime punishable by death to be Jewish or Gay or a Gypsy or (insert any other of a tragically long list). As no one (I am assuming) is going to suggest that the concentration camps were anything but an atrocity against human "rights," it is apparent that we really do mean something different than the condo association does.
I agree that saying that our rights are simply what nature has given us the ability to do is probably not right either. In this sense it would be considered a "right" of a strong man to steal and pillage and rape. *grins* it appears that you and I are both not Nietzscheian Anarchists.
Your point about parents probably being better than I am painting them to be is probably quite valid. Not all parents would have this hands-off attitude towards their kids sex lives, but why not? On what grounds are we (as parents) to say that it is "wrong" for our children to be casual about sex? Because that might put them in a position of not being able to have children later? I know that was not something which I would have been particularly concerned about as a youngster!
(As a side note: I don't want to suggest that something is actually right or wrong based only on it's effect on others. I have been doing some work on this subject and it seems to me that the (sometimes greater) damage is actually inflicted on the self… But more on that some other time.)
Ok, the first half of this post was written quite a bit earlier in the day and I met up with The Princess for lunch and the conversation has taken leaps ahead, and much of what I was trying to say has gone in a very different direction. At any rate the princess has informed me (over lunch) that I am an idiot. Apparently, men and women have a very different point of view on the whole “motivations for having or not having sex” and from a woman’s perspective pregnancy is not necessarily the primary concern. I hope that she will jump in here to correct me if I misrepresent her.
Yes, I am more concerned about the broad societal changes which such a move might lead to. I wanted to bring up human rights, because, quite frankly, I don't really believe in them.
Hmmm... this is getting too long, I'm going to post this and start a new thread. Apologies all around for being a poop head!
Megan: I am not sure if I understand you. You say that "sexual responsibility would be more like your responsibility to not eat garbage. It's not actually responsibility at all, it's just looking out for yourself." Can you clarify this a little bit? Don't we have a responsibility to look out for ourselves? Do you mean that this makes sexual morality (or whatever other standard will be evaluated by the tribunal) is just a part of getting what you want?
Also, and I want to be very clear on this, I am not suggesting that if someone is sterilized, voluntarily or not, they will suddenly become sex maniacs. I just see this as one less reason to avoid promiscuity meaning that overall it is more likely to occur and that individuals would thus have less experience in resisting urges which are "negative." This could result in a weakening of the resistance towards other urges, such as the urge to shake your baby to get him/her to stop crying or the urge to go out with your friends when you should really stay at home with your kids.
I want to note that the point about the pervasiveness of contraceptives really does cut the heart out of my objection. However, I think that it is also pretty apparent that "family values" have not been strengthened any by this pervasiveness. Not that this proves my point!
Sure, you have a responsibility to look out for yourself, but your responsibility to your children is the greater one. Even now, I have to look out for myself mainly because of the effect on my child, not for selfish reasons of my own. Ben has described a world where I would have NO responsibility to any children unless I'd been deemed worthy of having them.
I think most people use contraception unless they're irresponsible or trying to have kids, don't they? I just don't see a ton of baby-shaking going on. I think you're linking things that really aren't linked.
And the Princess is correct, as usual. Pregnancy isn't the primary concern. We women have taken care of that, and you guys don't even realise it. That's part of that whole "reproductive rights" thing. :)
Well, like any other societal change, there is no hard correlation. We have instead the soft indicators; increased divorce rate, pervasive conceptions of sexual morality being much looser instances in which children are willfully neglected or willfully spoiled. Of course, I am not trying to say that it is "just because contraceptives are pervasive" that would be silly. I am just pointing out a correlation and am launching into a Dystopian future.
I don't think I like the premise of your argument, Torq. I see what you're saying, but it's akin to saying that we shoudn't have cars, because then people will have less incentive to walk and will become lazier. Or that we shouldn't have heart transplants because then people will have less incentive to lead healthy lives; they will then be less likely to have experience with restraint from eating sweets, so who's to say they will have the restraint to not shake thier baby?
Does anyone else suspect that the capitalist has been struck down?
Heh, he may just have a job that doesn't allow him to post continually!
Mandal: I think I see what you are saying. You have extended my argument into absurdity by applying the ethical distinction I was making to material issues. What does a car or heart transplant have to do with strengthening someone's willpower to resist the urge to do something bad? I will grant that some people should certainly drive less and exercise more (and this may very well be an ethical obligation) but getting a heart transplant?
Here is a question: is it better (for the individual) to never commit any evil action because they are incapable of evil (not having wanton sex because he is a eunuch) or to slip up once while fighting fiendishly strong temptations?
Of course, artificially creating a situation in which you are continually in the grips of a temptation to commit some moral wrong wouldn't be any better.
Oh and to address the central question of your post: I think that it would be wrong to surgically sterilize children, on the premise that they need to earn the privilege (you don't earn rights, you just have them), to have children because this is an effort to mold future generations into what we want. Thus we are "modifying" them for our own purposes, which they cannot understand and will never have the option of agreeing or disagreeing with. We are taking the role of God (as you acknowledge) and pretending that the vision which we have for the human race is the one which is right (morally, socially, politically, economically... etc etc etc) and forcing others to comply. There is no room for disagreement or growth. This would be a step towards the ultimate fascism.
By doing so we would be presuming to judge everyone as worthy or not based on characteristics which we have predetermined, but do not really understand. Are we sure that this would work? Of course not! There would still be child abuse, just fewer children.
I have more to say but the princess has summoned me away!
Getting a heart transplant is a way for people to shirk the consequences of their actions, thus limiting a strong disincentive (death) from the action of living unhealthily. Similar to the way that sterilization would limit a strong disincentive (having a child you aren't in a position to raise) from the action of sex. The position you appear to be taking could be applied as effectively to the contraceptives currently in use, as well; are you suggesting that those are inappropriate too?
I'm not sure I agree on the principle of the "playing God" thing. We certainly do mold future generations into what we want every single day - education, for instance. We mold ourselves by learning or going to the gym, and we modify everything around us by buildings and machines. This would merely be a difference of degree, not a difference in the underlying nature of the action.
It's possible, of course, that it quite simply is an issue of degree and that this would simply be "too much," but that kind of argument requires a lot more to be convincing.
This is not a change of degree. This is a fundamental change in approach. When we say something like "we mold future generations through education" what we really mean is that we are helping them to see the world as it really is. Education is the process of showing individuals how to use the tools for thought and then providing them situations in which they can begin to use them. This is showing them a door way and encouraging them to walk through it. What you are suggesting would be done to them. Do you see the distinction.
Another way to look at this is through education we are handing down to children that which we feel has been most useful to us in our lives. We are giving to others the opportunity to participate in what we ourselves value. The type of procedure which you are suggesting would be molding children into what we want them to be, even though this may very well not be that which we actually value ourselves.
This is a material application of the distinction between education and propaganda which we discussed on my blog awhile back.
There is a very real difference between molding ourselves by going to the gym, molding the environment around us by building roads and such and molding other human beings into that which suits our will. One we do freely to ourselves, the other is our efforts to construct a world which is safer and better for both ourselves and our children, and the last is the first step in a process which turns human beings into machines.
I am being unclear... I will get back to you once my head clears up a little. I've been ill so my brain isn't working very well.
It is still molding them into what we want them to be, regardless of whether we open the door or push them through it. To use an example I recall from Tao's blog, if you want to shape a tree, you can either take a chainsaw to it, or you can tie its limbs so that it grows in the desired fashion - but both are molding them into the shape you want them to be. I think I do see where you're going, and I may be sidelined by the fact that any incarnation of education in reality does contain varying degrees of propaganda.
We would indeed be molding them into what we value - what other criteria could we use other than the things we value? It may not be what THEY value, to be sure, but anyone who has spent time around children knows that they don't have their values in the proper places ("I'M NOT GOING!", for instance).
I think we should also make a distinction as to exactly what degree of "molding" is going on here. Certainly this would be a physical molding in a way that is not normally undertaken (except for circumcision, which...is actually kind of a similar case), but how is it fundamentally different? What we'd be doing is taking away a power from a person without thier consent. Fundamentally, that's what we have to determine is right or wrong.
I am leaning towards the conclusion that it's right, for the following reason: we take away power from, or refuse to give power to children all the time, we just do it imperfectly. "Can I drive?" "Can I have another cookie?" "Can I play in the street?" Every child is made constantly impotent (no pun intended) in some way or another. We also modify them and thier behavior by means of a punishment/reward system constantly.
I also guarantee that every parent does thier best to make sure thier kid doesn't have a child prematurely - they just don't have the means to do it 100%. That is the key difference here; this is 100%. There are only two reasons to not take away 100% of a child's power: Either they have a "right" to that power by virtue of being human, or you concede that in some circumstances you want them to exercise thier own judgement to supercede your rules. I doubt anyone thinks the latter is a good reason to let thier child become pregnant.
I agree with Mr. Mandal, that this is more a change in degree than anything else.
It seems this whole debate (and I mean the recent one about education and molding) really boils down to a moral question quite similar to the main point of the blog post: how far can we go in shaping peoples' lives before we "cross the line" into something that we feel violates basic human rights?
And, although it's a moral question and I've been told in my naivety that there are, in fact, right and wrong answers to such questions (apparently I'm usually wrong), it's actually quite subjective. People will obviously vary greatly on what they believe is "too much" forcing as opposed to "guiding". I, for instance, believe education throughout grades 1 - 12 should be trilingual, or bilingual at least. I also believe in extremely strict punishment when it comes to misbehavior in children (thank God I'll never have any). There WILL be people who will disagree with me; such is the way of the world.
C'mon Meg! Me? Shot Down?! I hardly believe this is the case (or ever will be for that matter ;)!
Of course Torq was right in his assesment of my situation (too bad he can't always be so correct in his assessment of the philosophical issues!)
You guys seem to be coming along quite well in your discussion, but may be a little off track. See, I'd say we actually have very few basic human rights. I really don't think it extends very far beyond the right to life itself. We limit the other so-called rights (ie: to drive or buy a gun) based on the general assessment that granting an individual these added 'rights' may give him/her the ability to negatively impinge on another individual's right to life. -if you're 12, I don't want you to drive, because you may kill me! Once you satisfy what I deem to be an appropriate set of guidelines whereby I can grant you the right of driving without being afraid of you impinging on my right to life, I'll grant you the 'right' to drive.
Now, you have to determine whether granting a person the 'right' to procreate has the ability to negatively impinge on another person's right to life. I think we are under the assumption that, since the parent has such a massive influence in the life of a child, that the child can be seen as a weapon in the hands of the parent, in the same sense that any other tool may be seen as a weapon (Gun, Car, Knife = Tool).
Under this train of thought, it is hard to come to any other conclusion than that we should not be automatically be granted the 'right' to procreate.
The obstacle that prolongs this debate is that we really have no gauge of determining who will be a 'fit' parent. I may be a 'moral' dude, with a positive cash flow, but this only means my neighbors will be that much more surprised when my child pulls off a Columbine.
If we're talking not only about the quality of the parenting, but also about the quality of the finished product (a child who has developed and grown up into a successful member of society) The Capitalist, at the end of his recent post, has enlightened me to a snag.
Now, I'm no biologist or geneticist or whatever, but as a reasonably well-educated student, I believe mental problems (depression, anxiety, BPD, the kind that lead to Columbine-like events) are results of actually chemical imbalances in the body, which we recently as a society have chosen to remedy with medication.
This touches on a tangent to the age-old question of "nature versus nurture", as well.
Basically, we can't be sure that even good parents who have been screened and pass the hypothetical licensing requirement will produce good children.
If our intention is only to monitor parenting flaws, than this is moot, but it is something to consider if one of the ultimate goals of this proposal was to improve the quality of people raised from childhood to adulthood.
Ben's proposal touched very briefly on stricter, more Orwellian, requirements that also screen potential parents for genetic flaws that may occur in their children, but it wasn't an idea he presently explored.
*scratches head* Have we defined what a human right is? I think these are all good points, but feel that we (myself included) have sort of assumed a definition and are moving forward without clarifying.
I've been all over the place on this thing, it's a great question Mr. Mandal.
So what is a "human right" and how do we get it? Are they something given to us by the government? I think that we have moved away from this definition already, but might be wrong. Are they natural, in the sense that they are a part of our physical nature? Are they above nature, meaning that they are more moral obligations than rights? Or is there some other definition I have not even thought of?
I'm coming to the conclusion, Torq, after this conversation and some further thinking on my own that "human rights" have to be a sort of synthesis of some or all of those things. I don't think we can accurately say, "Our rights come from one place and one place alone."
I agree with The Capitalist in that I think we have very few basic rights, perhaps none granted to us by nature and birth except "the right to live and exist in the world". I do think there has to be some number of governmental, societal, moral, or personal rights that come together to form what each person thinks he or she has "the right" to do. It occurs to me now that people vary from one to the next even in the things we believe are our "rights".
I'm not sure what to think about this whole thing yet. I'm also not sure that this discussion hinges solely on whether it is our right to procreate at will or not. "Rights" of people are taken away, both justly and unjustly, all the time... what's to say the government couldn't decide "this is a good thing to do and we're doing it"? Could you ignore the bit about "rights" and boil it down into something simpler, like whether it would be "bad" or "immoral" to not allow people to reproduce at will? Or is the idea of "rights" tied into it too thoroughly?
PS. It's MY question and assertion and I'll be damned if Mandal-man gets to take credit for it! (:
Yes, I think the question of whether it is a "right" may have been misleading. I really don't think this is the place to discuss what rights are or whether we have any (although that would certainly make for an interesting discussion in another post), but for now, the question might be better phrased as "is involuntary sterilization morally acceptable?" so that we can skirt the human rights issue for the time being.
I think that the question of rights is essentially tied to the heart of your question. Look at another question in the same way. Is the involuntary execution of unwanted social groups morally acceptable? If the groups do not have a "right" to live (if life is not something which properly belongs to individuals and to take it away is a moral wrong) than sure, it is morally acceptable.
Your question is whether it is morally correct to take something away from the unborn. I am saying that that this question can only be understood if we determine first if what you are proposing we take away actually belongs to them. The question could be framed as such; "does the ability to procreate properly belong to individuals or to the state?"
Well, now that would bring us to quite murky waters. Not only does that sort of lead us toward "Does the parent have the right to decide when to have a child" versus "Does the unborn child have the right to be born", it also forces us to decide if unborn children have rights. If they do, what are they? If they don't, when do they gain them? At birth? After the legally defined last day of allowed abortion (which, by the way, varies state-to-state)? I think it complicates it to bring the unborn child into the picture, but I tend to be harsher on these issues than most people.
Capitalist: I was really just making a joke about your earlier comment, when you said God might strike you down and then disappeared. :)
In Canada and the US, any sort of surgery is unacceptable if done against the patient's will. I believe it's considered assault. I'm guessing that it's the same in other countries, too.
Megan: Good point, but we have to consider that a good reason was probably used for why forced surgery is illegal currently, and that, were this proposal to be implemented, the rules would presumably change for it.
This idea gets back to Torq's point about where rights come from. As of now, because of laws instituted by "the state", people are safe from unwanted medical operations. If "the state" is what grants our rights, they can just as easily whip that legislation away with little reason. But... if being spared unwanted surgery is a right granted by something else, it would be wrong and immoral to impinge upon that.
Dom: I'm not sure if I would agree that this makes the waters murky. I sort of think this is the only way to really look at the issue clearly. I agree, however, that this might bring up an emotional response from people which might make the discussion harder to pursue. I don't think we need to veer too far into the abortion question (that would really derail things!) but yes the two points are clearly related.
If we are discussing what is ok to do to other people than the issue of rights is unavoidable. If a person does not have a "right" to live, what is wrong with killing them? If there are no property "rights," what is wrong with theft? Of course, this is all a roundabout and inverted way of getting at the question of what morality is.
Also, Dom, props on an awesome conversation inspiring question.
Meg: I actually agree with you, it is considered assault and it should be so considered. However, where are we getting the fundamental idea that people have a "right" to not be assaulted? Just saying that it is assault because it is a law really just means that it is bad because someone else says so! Why is it bad? Were they right to call it assault or wrong?
I'm starting to feel like a one trick pony over here!
If we can all agree that people have "rights" in one sense or another, that is a beginning. If we can agree where this right comes from, that is a real step towards determining the ethics of this question. If our rights are determined by the government, or by the majority, of course there is nothing wrong with Ben's proposal. If our rights are inherent in humanity (by God or by nature) than we might have a harder time putting forward an argument that it is ok for one to take a right away from another.
Dom: EXACTLY!
Well, I will soon be fading into the dark night of the backwoods (no internet connection at home). Good luck with the conversation!
Come on now... this conversation is not even close to done! Has everyone quit and gone home or something?
Sorry, things went nuts at work. I'm still here.
Yeah, same here. I think I'll end up making a new post more specifically directed at the idea of rights when I get the chance, since that seems like a hurdle we'll have to climb over before we can speak coherently about this.
*sighs* alright... for now!
It appears that I don't have your e-mail address. Here's a link you might want to check out: http://www.engineeringthenorth.ca/
No, I have not become a recruiter, but I thought of you when I saw this campaign.
I like that one of the stated "attractions" of the NWT is that in Yellowknife in the summer, it is light enough to fish all night.
Better start packing!
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090403/world/toddler_stabbed
Very short article.
The last sentence is interesting.
Torq, keep in mind that it is the same society that allows all to give birth, that will also deem the mother in the above article to be unfit to stand trial. Without arguing a on the basis of an absolute code of morality, you must see the sort of irony in this case as it pertains to the subject of this post.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of your proposals in this post, just that I accept the true difficulty of this issue arises with the idea of an 'absolute' set of morals.
I see the irony, never fear. We live in an imperfect world, filled to the brim with imperfect people. Human behavior (as we know it) is always going to give rise to these sorts of situations and difficulties.
I agree, the first difficulty in any question of morality is whether or not morality actually exists.
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