It bugs me when opponents deliberately talk past each other in an attempt to confuse listeners and avoid the real issues. It's distracting, and doesn't actually further the discussion. Of course often times the purpose of such misstatements isn't to encourage legitimate debate, but simply to generate soundbites and make indirect ad hominem attacks on your opponent.
Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in the debate about abortion, and it's typically the pro-choice crowd that misstates the arguments of the pro-lifers. For example:
Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League), derided McCorvey's motion as a "sad anti-choice publicity stunt" in a June 17 statement.Where to begin?"Instead of leaving private medical decisions up to a woman and her doctor, anti-choice forces want the government to decide," Michelman said in the statement. "This case shows the extreme lengths to which they will go to overturn our constitutional right to choose."
1. Pro-lifers don't get away with labeling their opponents as "pro-death" or "anti-life", or even "pro-abortion".
2. Michelman states that the position of pro-life advocates is that the government should be involved in people's private medical decisions, when that isn't the crux of the matter at all. To an opponent of abortion, the critical issue is that a fetus is a human being, and as such should not be killed without a cause more substantial than mere convenience. It has nothing to do with a lack of respect for the privacy of the mother, or with a desire to interfere with her private medical decisions. To a pro-lifer, the decisions to have an abortion isn't private, because it necessarily involves another person: the unborn baby.
3. Both sides in the debate label their opponents as "extreme"; that's pretty typical for politics these days.
4. Michelman states that there is a Constitutional right to an abortion, but that's precisely the question that is at issue here. The Supreme Court created that right by its interpretation of the Constitution, and that interpretation is at the center of the controversy. To assert that such a right is guaranteed by the Constitution and to then use that right as an argument in favor of the interpretation that created the right is disingenuous and deceptive.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that we have much more biological information available than we had 30 years ago, there is no legitimate debate about the facts of abortion being held in America. The pro-choice side has little incentive to engage in actual debate as long as their position is entrenched in law; their motivation is to maintain the status quo, and they know that recent polls have shown they would lose the debate if they were forced to make substantial arguments.
I don't care to get into the particular debate about the permissability of abortion, but I do find a constitutional right to privacy, which some would deny. It inheres in the Ninth Amendment:
"The enumeration in this Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
I submit the people retain a right to privacy.
(I know this was not the basis of Roe vs. Wade, which I'm not defending here. The Supreme Court has rarely referred to this amendment; I suspect they know that a full recognition of its implications would void the bulk of U.S. law, and well it should.)
You misunderstand the crux of the issue, as I just explained. It isn't a matter of privacy to pro-lifers, any more than any other homocide is.
I didn't misunderstand at all. I was simply appending a thought concerning an issue that often comes up in this debate. Some advocates of abortion prohibition do explicitly deny a constitutional right to privacy.
As far as the abortion debate goes, I piss off adherents to both sides of the issue, a not uncommon experience with me.
I don't think there's a right to privacy, any more than I think there's a right to vote.
The only privacy-related rights I can conceive of are those that my be derived from strong property rights: you don't have the right to come into my house, and so indirectly I have privacy there. Same reasoning can be used for medical records.
Lawyer-client privilege is a restriction recognized by society, but not based on any inherent right; it's just good policy.
Abortion would fall under medical privacy, if it was purely a medical issue that concerned no-one but the mother, however that is the point that pro-lifers refuse to concede.
To be clear, I consider what are styled constitutional rights to be formal recognition of rights inherent in our births, not grants.
I agree with you no one has a right to vote; much misunderstanding of the nature of rights arises from the belief that we do. A long discussion arises from a consideration of natural and legal rights, which are often confused. Many labor under the error that a legal right, once granted, is forever. They do not understand that should a legal right be rescinded by subsequent legislation, no one's natural rights would be violated thereby.
I admire your honesty in being up front with your contempt for privacy. I would at least have a clear idea why I would not wish to vote for you should you run for political office in a constiuency where I vote. Most politicians hide their true views from the electorate.
Your tactic of dismissing privacy from the issue of abortion is an interesting twist; your faction should gain much traction with it.
I agree that there's a distinction between natural rights and grants from society, which is why I generally call such grants "powers" (using the distinctive terms from the Constitution).
Voting is a power granted by society, as is privacy.
On the contrary, natural rights include such things as the rights to life, liberty of movement, possession of property, &c.
I don't have contempt for privacy at all! You and I both have the right to use and possess our property to the exclusion of everyone else, and a great deal of privacy can be derived from that right. You can't come into my home and look around, you can't read my mail, you can't tap my phone, you can't run medical tests on my body, &c.
The reason I dismiss the privacy issue as it relates to abortion is that I believe there is another life involved, that is separate and independent from the mother, even though by circumstance it happens to depend on the mother for survival. There are many analogous situations in which a human is wholly dependent on another for support, and in none of those cases do we find it acceptable for the supporter to take action to kill the dependent.
Privacy is not the issue any more than privacy would be important if I decided to kill my born children in my house. House or body, both are private property, but the child's right to life trumps my property rights. Similarly, a starving man who comes across an orchard is justified in eating someone else's property to sustain his life, although he may then be indebted to the owner of the orchard and should make every effort to repay him.
If you believe that an unborn child is a human life, then privacy is irrelevent. If it's not a human life, then privacy is still irrelevent, because abortion is no different than any other operation, and everyone concedes that medical privacy is good. So raising the privacy issue is a meaningless red herring (and a quite successful one).
Bunk. Privacy is a natural right, subsumed under "Liberty."
I'm glad to see you don't approve of drug testing.
Well, no... liberty really has nothing to do with privacy. The right to liberty prevents you from hindering my activities and movements, insofar as they don't infringe on you. Liberty would include freedom of speech, thought, religion, &c., but really has nothing to do with privacy.
The right private property balances the right to liberty by delineating exactly how far your liberty goes: to goes right up to the edge of my property, and no farther.
As far as drug testing, you'll have to be more specific. For example, I think that private corporations should be allowed to perform any drug tests they want as a condition of employment -- anyone who doesn't want to be tested doesn't have to apply for a job there.
Public institutions will need to discover a policy of their own, for the enforcement of such laws as exist. In general, if you aren't acting dangerously then I don't think it's relevent whether or not you have drugs in your system; if you are acting dengerously, then it's also irrelevent; the dangerous acts alone are justification for taking you off the street.
Again, there is no such think as a right to privacy, except as can be derived from the right to private property. But, I think quite a lot of privacy is available through that derivation.
I agree on the property component of the right to privacy, but I still find it to inhere in the rights of liberty, which include a freedom from interference as well as a right to action, with the usual caveats about one's nose.
My comment on drug testing was tongue in cheek, in response to your mentioning medical testing in your previous post, and I was unaware of your actual position on the issue. I haven't come to a final decision on this one, as I see the point, which I have heard before, about testing as a condition of employment, and it has much to recommend it. I still find it a disrespectful indignity, and as I find drug prohibition to be unconstitutional under the Ninth amendment, I support all obstacles to its enforecement. I'm so radical in that position that I believe the alcohol prohibition amendment to have been unconstitutional. I don't believe one can constitutionally amend our freedoms away, as paradoxical as that may appear to some. Otherwise, the right to self-defense is in peril: a movement to repeal the second amendment would put all our lives at risk.
A logical consequence of allowing employers to do this would be to accept the propostion that it would be all right for employers to make a search of your home to ensure you aren't receiving stolen goods. Can't be hiring thieves, now can we?
Of course, I grew up in a time when adults were more given to respecting each other's choices, and thought that minding their own business was a virtue. Those days are gone, I fear, thanks to my benighted generation, the aptly named Baby Boom. I am cognizant of the fact that our Constitutional prohibitions concern government actions, not private ones; I submit that the more citizens choose to accept those limitations upon themselves, the more civilized our interactions will be.
First of all, it's impossible for a Constitutional amendment to be unconstitutional. You may think it's bad policy, or even immoral, but by definition it cannot be unconstitutional.
As far as drug testing for employment, I think that anyone who runs a company should be allowed to hire and fire anyone, dependent solely on the contractual obligations that both parties agree to. If don't want to hire blacks, or people with 11 fingers, or people named Michael, or people who refuse a drug test, it should be entirely my prerogative. Companies with stupid hiring policies will be uncompetitive, and will weed themselves out. The government has no business interfering, other than to enforce contracts once they are agreed to.
Liberty is precisely the right to operate free from interference -- but me knowing things about you doesn't interfere with you, other than the mere fact that you may not like it. Unless I take action, your liberty has not been infringed.
Regardless, there is certainly no legal recognition of a "right" to privacy between individuals, even though the Supreme Court has created such a "right" between idividuals and the government. The Constitution places no demands on any citizen, only on the government.
Actually, one could argue that the 6th Amendment does place obligations on the citizenry -- we may be obligated to serve on juries. In addition, we are commanded to "enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial", so if you don't enjoy exercising that right you might be in trouble.
As I said, it seems paradoxical to deny the permissability of amending the Constituion in such a way as to do away with freedoms heretofore enjoyed by the people. Literally, you are correct that it is impossible to for an amendment to be unconstitutional. Amendments such as the Sixteenth and the Eighteenth run counter to the spirit of liberty with which it was written. Enough such amendments will make it a national disgrace, rather than the glory it should be.
I'm surprised by the contempt for liberty expressed by so many of my fellow citizens. If this goes on long enough, this will cease to be a nation worth defending.