tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1442827238174603755.post9073191710914667869..comments2023-09-11T08:30:08.843-07:00Comments on Life Training Institute Blog: Natural Rights v. Concocted Rights [Jay]SKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01905606527143286458noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1442827238174603755.post-34666371650972023702007-07-18T13:04:00.000-07:002007-07-18T13:04:00.000-07:00Can you give us the link to your blog, Jay? I'd li...Can you give us the link to your blog, Jay? I'd like to check both out on a daily basis.Josh B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01935312402091845351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1442827238174603755.post-43182667108523834832007-07-17T19:35:00.000-07:002007-07-17T19:35:00.000-07:00I do love a good rights talk. Jay, I think you ar...I do love a good rights talk. Jay, I think you are on to something here (as you well know i think.) Today, I got into a discussion with a young man arguing that the Right to Privacy was a natural right (which i would generally agree with), and that as such the right to an abortion properly fell in with this "natural right" under a broad interpretation of the ninth amendment. <BR/><BR/>I found this to be an interesting tact, but by no means satisfying. If in fact we grant the position that by it being a woman's body and her choice, the act of abortion is an act of privacy falling within a natural rights framework this does not guarantee a right to an abortion, but in fact undermines the very right to privacy that they are making an appeal to. <BR/><BR/>The nature of our natural rights and the hiearchy inherent in their makeup requires this to be the case. For example, in speaking of a right to privacy this right is in fact meaningless without a right to liberty coupled with it, which one might argue is the higher order right. Privacy would be considered a sub-group of the right to liberty. The simple argument being that privacy is a an element of liberty a person exercises in some part of their life seperate from the state. As liberty is properly understood as the freedom to live your life as you best see fit so long as it does not deny another's natural rights, privacy would be one component of that liberty, much like a right to engage in social relationships as you see fit would be an aspect of that liberty. <BR/><BR/>Now as stated above we have liberty only in so far as that liberty does not infringe on the natural rights of another person. Of all the means that one person might violate another person's liberty, the greatest of these would be to forsake another person's right to life. Now I wish there to be no mistaking the fact that by a person I do mean a human life and not some condition begining at an arbitrary point in the timeline of human existance (this is an issue that has been more than fully addressed in other posts.) <BR/><BR/>It is important we recognize that there exists a natural right that supercedes our natural right to liberty, that being a right to life. In fact, this should make intuitive sense as any description of "natural rights" that does not honor a right to life is in fact meaningless. To what end do I appeal to my natural right of liberty, or privacy for that matter, if a right to life is not first guaranteed? It would be the same as asserting that you have a right to privacy in your personal life, but that I may come in and shoot you if i so choose. That is non-sensical. I have not violated your right to privacy as I have not stopped you from performing a specific act, but have rather taken the generalist position and stopped you from existing further in all acts whether private or public. <BR/><BR/>This is an important distinction, I think, because even if by judicial decree a court defines abortion under a right to privacy, the very outcome of this case is to undermind the very right to privacy that you are appealing to as you have now elminated a right to life as the backbone of your system. Since a right to privacy, presupposes a right to life that is protected already, any effort to argue for a specific act (ie. abortion) as a right to privacy does not logically hold under a system of rights when the abortion itself is a violation of the first right on which the system is built.<BR/><BR/>I think that made sense...but then again, I haven't eaten in 10 hours. It may have also be terribly pointless.Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11058137792648149857noreply@blogger.com