But most of what it does it does without my conscious intervention, will, or action. Including passing along infections, excreting, dropping skin flakes, hair and other pollutants/litter wherever I go.
Does this mean I need to re-establish ownership with every replacement of cells in my body?
And what does it mean to own? Is it property? Is it the Lockean commingling of my labor with my body that makes it mine? Does that mean the work of birthing and raising me makes me my parent's property until I pay it back?
Is it the Hobbesian granting of ownership license as a citizen of the polity?
In my limited legal view I would agree that certain ownership rights attach to one's personhood; I don't care to start a list of those rights bc it's rather arbitrary especially considering the abortion issue.
I like to think so. Within the past few months, I appointed family members to have my medical power of attorney, and outlined my wishes in writing. Hospitals will never impose care for any adult where it clearly, and in writing, is not wanted.
But as we all know, there are plenty of people who want to tell women what to do with their reproductive organs. Hopefully one day we will have all of our rights back again.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2024 05:06PM by summer.
Who or what is the “you” that is the subject of your question? Is it the soul or some other independent ‘self’ that is attached to or associated with some physical body? Does that association imply that the soul owns the body to which it is attached or associated?
Modern neuroscience, and biology generally, insists that ‘you’ are nothing more than your body and/or brain. Does your brain have ownership rights over your body? Does you body have ownership rights over itself?
The lesson here is that your very question requires an entity separate from your body that has rights over the body. Thus all of the arguments for a woman’s right to control her body require commitment to the idea of a soul of some sort that is independent of the object of ownership.
COMMENT: Consciousness of itself does not provide a grounding for ownership rights or claims. So, in "non-religious parlance" you need minimally a conscious self; that is, a centered, cognitive agent able to claim that it has ownership rights over its body, which rights should be acknowledged and protected. Otherwise, the title of this thread is meaningless.
It is noteworthy that science, for all its virtues, has nothing to say about either consciousness, the conscious self, or human rights. So, you can attempt to sack "religious parlance" all you want, but you are still left to explain the matter of human rights in non-religious parlance. And science will not be much help. But then, go ahead and give it a second try!
Henry, you have a ghawd-given talent for making everything boring. You make sweeping statements and impose requirements on others, while not really debating at all. There are many countries (including France where I live) which are not religious (or even anti-religious) but which still have a moral outlook. All you have to do is look.
"Henry, you have a ghawd-given talent for making everything boring. You make sweeping statements and impose requirements on others, while not really debating at all."
COMMENT: If this were true, you and others would be able to respond to me substantively! The debate is stifled for this reason, and this reason alone. Just as here. And as some sort of defense mechanism, you want to make it about me, and my obscurant "talents." It's boring because YOU apparently do not understand the point I am making, and are not willing to read more carefully, and think a bit deeper, about what is being said. _______________________________________
"There are many countries (including France where I live) which are not religious (or even anti-religious) but which still have a moral outlook. All you have to do is look.
COMMENT: Nobody has denied this. Human beings have a moral sense, which often functions reasonably well in societies, like France. But, by raising this fact you miss the point. Nobody in France, or elsewhere is *morally* compelled to moral action by anything more fundamental that their own personal moral sense. (And the law) 'Morality' however, implies a higher authority than that; it implies a transcendental reason (God), or some rational explanation (science or logic), as to why the moral act is morally required, as opposed to merely acting out of one's own self-interest.
You can see this problem on a pragmatic level by witnessing the moral havoc in our current political and social environment. People argue passionately about morality but have nowhere to turn besides their personal intuitions for any definitive secular answer.
Finally, nothing I say here on RfM is original. It all comes from debates identified in the professional literature of the topic being presented, of which I am thoroughly familiar.
Corporations have the same rights as a person. Do they have a soul?
COMMENT: You're joking right? Any rights a corporation might have are "legal" rights granted by the instantiation of human laws. Thus, if your analogy holds, no woman has a right to control her own body unless government grants her that right. Obvious, this misses the point entirely.
To quote Mao: "power grows out of the barrel of a gun". Judging from US foreign policy, that must be true.
Do you have something else in mind? Something like rights coming from God? Sure, that works if there is a God. It might work if Plato's laws of form apply to a kind of divine law that we strive to discover. But what exactly makes Mao wrong?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2024 02:40PM by bradley.
COMMENT: To my way of thinking, all rights are social and/or politically generated, and thus alienable, not God-given and inalienable. As we have seen, the government giveth, and then taketh away.
Notwithstanding, members of society have a moral sense as to what rights 'ought' to be established and decreed as inalienable, e.g. the right of a woman over her own body. As for any transcendental basis for our moral sense on this issue and others, I have no idea, but I reject the idea that such rights are from God. _____________________________
To quote Mao: "power grows out of the barrel of a gun". Judging from US foreign policy, that must be true.
Do you have something else in mind? Something like rights coming from God? Sure, that works if there is a God. It might work if Plato's laws of form apply to a kind of divine law that we strive to discover. But what exactly makes Mao wrong?
COMMENT: See above. As you suggest, maybe there is some Platonic reality (a secular God!) that encompasses our moral sense in some universal way. I hope so, but if we don't have access to such a reality, why bother postulating it. Of what help is it in making moral judgments?
Monty Python may have had it right: "Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
A representative republic or similar such system allows the majority to decide what the law will be. The shift away from draconian cannabis laws is a dramatic example. The world didn't fall apart.
This ties into Mormonism. Everything is really a belief system, including law and politics. Mormonism is actually true - if you believe it. But there's the rub. What if you simply can't believe it when you are stuck in a milieu that requires you to believe?
No we don't own our bodies, and it's a crime against freedom. The government isn't meant to be a nanny state, that's what all the trumpers and GOP people insist. But just try to leave the earth on your own terms and you'll be behind bars quicker than quick.
So no, neither women no men, no human, has full autonomy over their bodies, in the US at least, and it's a shame.
I think personal sovereignty is a matter of being part of the 'in' crowd.
You can do whatever you want if you identify with a protected group. If you say you are a victim, you have special rights. Same if you are transgender or an illegal alien. I stopped identifying as White just this year. That should help.
Gender politics or avoiding them doesn't help when what you want more than anything is to exit earth in peace and freedom on your own terms. But we're not allowed to do that, we aren't sovereign over our bodies. It would be an extreme act of sovereignty (not to mention humaneness and kindness) if we were allowed to end our lives without the fear of failure landing us in jail.
If we were free over our own bodies we'd be allowed to continue keeping them alive or mercifully ceasing to live w/o repercussions.
It is absolutely insane that we have brains inside our bodies that are all ours, but even when the pain is too much, we are forced, locked into them, till a "reasonable" old age, and typically after a horrible disease. If we had autonomy, we could go with dignity for whatever reason and at whatever time that was relevant to us.