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The Forum > Article Comments > Ethics and the limits of a Bill of Rights > Comments

Ethics and the limits of a Bill of Rights : Comments

By Amanda Fairweather, published 6/11/2009

Despite good intentions a bill of rights is mere symbolism at best, and a danger to the freedom it promises at worst.

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However the reason ‘rights’ come into the discussion is because some people who are in favour of a woman’s being able to have an abortion if she wants, want to use force - the law - to force doctors who find abortion unconscionable, to participate in the process of procuring an abortion. Since their purpose is to infringe the doctor’s right not to refer if not medically indicated, and since the doctor’s not referring to abortion where no medically indicated does not infringe the patient’s right to have an abortion, therefore the patient does not have a ‘right’ to referral to abortion by a doctor who believes abortion is not medically indicated, whether or not the doctor also believes on religious grounds that abortion is immoral.

If a woman wants an abortion, she should go to an abortion clinic, simple as that.
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 15 November 2009 5:37:34 PM
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Herman Yutic and netjunkie- the difference of being a part of someone else is simple. It is attached to the other being, and lives entirely off intravenous nutrients from the other being's blood stream- outside it separates and thus forms its own entity, and is capable of gaining most of its nutrients independently- hence why I keep bringing up fetus in fetu as a moral example. Simple. Yet you try to construct a phony comparison of a baby attached to a mother introveniously and not at all. It's getting tiresome.

Peter Hume:
1- Simple reason I haven't provided criteria to distinguish a right from those mentioned is that I'm not convinced there actually are any.

"Let’s just be clear: do you agree that a right is whatever the powerful says it is, or not?"
Personally, no (and I'm against most Bills of Rights so far). In practice, technically that's all it is anyway. A right, practiced by society is only granted by either a consensus or by an individual dictating them, and a body to enforce these rights or else they would never really exist outside of people who would never have overstepped them anyway and therefore unnecessary

Self-defense is only a single right (and the paramaters of to what extent you can use self-defense and defending what are variable)- access to information, contracting, purchasing and other elements of society are others.

As for the doctor- I would also argue that after the doctor exercises a right to deny service, does the rejected patient have a right to withhold payment for the service not being provided?
Posted by King Hazza, Sunday, 15 November 2009 6:29:15 PM
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King Hazza,
So it's anything goes for the full nine months then.
Any time, for any reason just as long as they're attached to that cord.
I've seen eighteen year olds incapable of gaining their own nutrients independently.
Can they be legally terminated?
Is a meals-on-wheels provider entitled to terminate their clients because they are no longer able to gain their own nutrients independently?
You talk about bringing up moral examples, but surely you've abandoned morality.
Pragmatism, convenience or expedience maybe, but talking about morality while justifying abortion takes a lot of chutzpah.
Posted by HermanYutic, Sunday, 15 November 2009 7:47:27 PM
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the abortion argument is simple:
if men don't like what women do with their sperm then don't give them any.
dodging responsibility and delivering judgement is just silly.

what i'd like to know is since Australia's Constitution provides for men's legislatures only,
is it proposed a Bill of Rights will contain women's sole human right to male supervision?
Posted by whistler, Monday, 16 November 2009 9:55:27 AM
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Nice try Herman- all of the other examples they are complete individuals.
The only post-birth examples of people who are not entirely individual are siamese twins and fetus in fetu- hypotheticals you dodge again and again.

You also talk about morals- I suppose bringing a child into the world of parents who wanted to kill it if they were given the choice, and are not prepared and probably not capable of raising it, thus creating another unwanted child, and lazily leaving its fate to a few "maybe this could happen" scenarios against a higher likelihood of delinquency is, apparently perfectly moral because a blob got to take a human shape and a woman who practiced irresponsible intercourse got her just deserts?
(and yes, virtually every study on child delinquency and crime point overwhelmingly to poor relationships with parents).

Which goes back to the bottom line- if anyone is so irresponsible to get pregnant when the didn't want to be, and they don't want to keep it, obviously it is in everyone's interest for them to abort.
If they had any intention to adopt it away, they would have done that.

You're starting to bore me as we have made not a single bit of progress at all. Instead of trying to say something intelligent you keep trying to fabricate strawmen which I keep tearing apart.

Bring up just ONE intelligent thing to say, and I might continue to give comprehensive replies, because I'm starting to think it's more than you deserve and I'm wasting my time.
Posted by King Hazza, Monday, 16 November 2009 11:53:03 AM
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The entire pro life argument in this thread is facile and tries to avoid the main reason why abortion is considered a right.

The nub of the issue is that a woman has the right to decide what happens to her body, and has to be afforded reasonable access to exercise her right.

The rights of any one person cannot influence the rights of another.

For example suppose I had a rare blood type, and needed a transfusion, and Joe Bloggs was the only person in the world who could provide the blood. It would be a morally correct and decent thing to do to provide the blood for transfusion, especially as there was little inconveniece and no harm.

However, there is no court in the world that would force Joe Bloggs to donate the blood.

At no point does anyone suggest that abortion is a good thing or that it should be promoted, but once having accepted that humans have the sole right over their body, this right cannot be suspended because a few religious fruit cakes wish to impose their morality on others.

As Hazza says, all your examples are for independent beings, who can be taken care of by others if the original carer walks away. This is not the case for a fetus.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 16 November 2009 12:18:13 PM
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