Re:On Committing Suicide
by tzs on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @12:45PM
(#23703538)
>By and large, I believe this is due to the “absolute” nature of our current social strife. Take the question:
>> Why can’t I be anti-vaccine and pro-choice?
> You would suspect everyone would agree that we “own” our bodies. If that were true, then you would effectively have to be pro-choice AND support people’s right to choose what to put in their bodies;
That's only true if you believe that ownership of something means you are the sole determiner of what can or cannot be done with it, regardless of how that affects others.
One could agree that we "own" our bodies but still be in favor of mandatory vaccination of people who do not have a medical reason to avoid it on the grounds that losing herd immunity could cause widespread harm.
Similarly, one could agree with body ownership but be anti-abortion because they believe that the fetus is a person and being aborted harms that person.
For most things short of actual slavery, the body ownership argument is pretty weak. It really just sets the default rule for cases where there are no other people involved, but once you get societies more complex than very small isolated groups of people there are almost always other people involved.
>> Why can’t I be anti-vaccine and pro-choice?
> You would suspect everyone would agree that we “own” our bodies. If that were true, then you would effectively have to be pro-choice AND support people’s right to choose what to put in their bodies;
That's only true if you believe that ownership of something means you are the sole determiner of what can or cannot be done with it, regardless of how that affects others.
One could agree that we "own" our bodies but still be in favor of mandatory vaccination of people who do not have a medical reason to avoid it on the grounds that losing herd immunity could cause widespread harm.
Similarly, one could agree with body ownership but be anti-abortion because they believe that the fetus is a person and being aborted harms that person.
For most things short of actual slavery, the body ownership argument is pretty weak. It really just sets the default rule for cases where there are no other people involved, but once you get societies more complex than very small isolated groups of people there are almost always other people involved.