Rights and Obligations

[catsittingstill]

Lil_shepard's post here pointed out this interesting piece on the question of the right to life versus the right to die.

And, aside from the fact that I agree that the history of religion(s) to this point does not suggest that the value of human life is a meme derived from Christian or religious thought, something else occurred to me.

There is a difference between a right (I have the right to live in my own house, for example) and an obligation (I am not allowed to leave my house.)

One increases my freedom, the other decreases it.  One is a protection, the other a burden.

Granted, there is some kind of happy medium to be sought here.  In the case of an angst-ridden teen seeking a permanent solution to a temporary problem, one can (and I think should) argue that the teen's obligation to her friends and family is to find a better way--even if that better way is simply "get through the next few years somehow so that things have a chance to get better."

However it is obviously possible for a person's situation to become so desperate that it is clearly a cruelty to demand they continue to meet their obligations.  And some ideas about "right to life" leave no room to release people from the obligation to live as long as possible, no matter the suffering and degradation it costs them.

Those particular ideas obviously increase harm; I categorically reject their claim to be moral.

Comments

[keris]

In that article, wouldn't the "infinite value of a (human) life" imply that it is better for at least one person to live than for both to die? That has always seemed to me odd about the anti-abortion movement, if one will die whatever you do (or fail to do) then surely the other should be saved if possible.

It's similar, I think, to the train dilemma, except that in that there isn't a group of people trying to force their choice on others.

On obligation to live, my obligations have more than once stopped me from committing suicide. If however it had been suggested that I had an unconditional "obligation to live" rather than obligations I had voluntarily taken to do things (which implied that I had to stay alive to fulfil them) then I would probably have rebelled against that.

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

Tonight I viewed the film "Lake of Fire', a documentary about a*b*rti*n which relates to this issue in some respects. It is very even-handed and fair, IMHO. Regardless of which side of the issue you take, I think it is worthy of your time if you haven't seen it. (It does contain some explicit scenes of actual ab*rti*ns, but I feel they are necessary to maintain the balance of the film.)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of this film; I will have to check it out.