‘Where negative rights are “negative” in the sense that they claim for each individual a zone of non-interference from others, positive rights are “positive” in the sense that they claim for each individual the positive assistance of others in fulfilling basic constituents of well-being like health.’
‘Negative rights are considered more essential than positive ones in protecting an individual’s autonomy.’
So when one individual’s positive right to do something is at odds with another’s negative right to protect them from something, as much as it would be ideal for both parties to have exactly what they want without harming or inconveniencing/upsetting the other, since that’s often not possible, the negative right to ‘protect’ an individual from something seems to trump the positive right for an individual to ‘do’ something in hierarchy of moral importance and most ethicists seem to agree.
For example, I think people’s ‘positive right’ to choose animal-based product or service options when there are equally suitable plant-based options that achieve all the same purposes, isn’t as important as sentient animals’ negative right to not be unnecessarily exploited and killed, and to be protected from those undesirable experiences, states or conditions. Hence the position of veganism is very clear and obvious for me, and resolves an “easy” ethical issue with a clear solution (essential negative (protective) right prevails over others’ ultimately unnecessary positive (“doing”) right).
When it comes to abortion however, I do believe that it’s a tricky situation ethically. I’m pro-choice, but I say that with difficulty, because considering both sides it’s not an easy position and I see it as much more ethically complex than the issue of unnecessary animal exploitation. That’s because I think you can make the argument that either forcing a person to undergo pregnancy, or terminating the life of an (admittedly unconscious, undeveloped) fetus, are in both cases breaching a sentient (or would-be sentient) individual’s negative (protective) right. It would seem to be a clear ethical dilemma, where neither outcome is desirable, in almost comparably important ways. However, ultimately I had to decide that protecting a woman/person from an enforced pregnancy (and the physical and life-changing, even life destroying (or killing) effects, results and experiences that can have), a person being a fully formed, conscious and sentient individual, is more tangibly important than protecting an undeveloped, unconscious “mass of cells” from being prevented from developing into a human being.
My thoughts on the matter aside… It seems like in one way the right to abortion is a positive right by claiming assistance from others to “do” something being terminate a pregnancy, while in another way it’s a negative right by “protecting” the person via preventing undesirable states and experiences that would be imposed on them by others ‘interfering’ and forcing them to undergo pregnancy, by denying them an abortion.
I’m honestly just wondering what kind right this would be considered. Positive right or negative right? Or both? Thanks :)
Think of it this way, any negative right can become a positive right if someone gives it to you. A positive right can’t exist without it.
The 2nd Amendment states that you have the right to keep and bear arms. This means that you can own and utilize a gun for self defense, which is a negative right. It can be made a positive right if the government provides everyone with a a gun for this purpose, but the right to self defense is different from the right to be given the means to accomplish it. Meanwhile the right to vote is something that can’t exist without the government providing it. For $20 I can make a gun with supplies from Home Depot. With $1,000,000 I can’t vote without an existing government system.
Abortion is a function of the right of bodily autonomy and freedom of religion. It’s not the right to have the government “un-pregnant” you on demand, but the right to decide what biological functions you wish to perform. The primary argument against it is based in religious morality, which violates the 1st Amendment’s separation of church and state. The government cannot establish an official religion and impose a specific religious doctrine on you. Since it is something that require you to seek it out and implement it is a negative right.
The real reason abortion is such a delicate political issue is that its true morality is based in religion. If you believe that the soul (a religious concept) begins at or before conception, it is murder which makes it inherently evil. If you believe that the soul becomes a person at viability or birth, it is simply a regulatory restriction like a highway having a speed limit of 60 vs 65 mph. The inability of either side to acknowledge that personal religious beliefs determine whether or not it is literal murder makes a lot of the back and forth shouting an exercise in futility. At the end of the day “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise.” Saying you can’t do something because someone else’s religion forbids it is a direct violation of that, but ignoring that to some people it is literally murder makes it harder to have honest debates on it. At least having a basic awareness of why the other side is so rabidly opposed to it is very useful in breaking through the emotional arguments that dominate the discussion over the fundamental factors of what is and is not an actual right.
Abortion is not a religious issue. It is merely correlated with religious beliefs. Many religions have no position on abortion, and even the Bible holds no clear position on it, it’s presence in Christianity is a secular synthesis.
SCOTUS also reaffirmed in every single pro-choice case (e.g Roe v Wade Casey v. PlannedParenthood ) that the government has a right to regulate abortion in general just not in certain cases. At no point was it ever considered to be enforcing religious beliefs. This has never been considered a religious issue by any but the most retarded people.