Should it be illegal for other people to tell others what they can and can not do with their body ?

@Methen,

If you mean governments, well, yes, I agree with you. But if some individual wants to tell someone what they can or can't do with their body I don't see any problem other than annoyance. Individual people can choose to ignore what others tell them.

0 Replies

@Methen,

This is way too broad. I agree with some government restrictions, and disagree with others. Consider these examples of restrictions on what you can do with your body

- I do not believe that you have the right to sell your body for dangerous medical experimentation for money.

- I do not believe that you have the right to sell your own organs. The idea of people in debt giving kidneys and livers to rich people who need them is deeply troubling.

- I am against blood sports... you don't have the right to mutilate or kill yourself for money.

These things are easy to oppose because of the social costs of allowing them.

0 Replies

@Methen,

I almost agree. Except the part about age. Children need guidance.

0 Replies

I don't think it should be illegal to tell someone to go and **** themselves.

0 Replies

@Methen,

Human cloning is illegal.

That's one thing that fits your description. Suicide bombers are another thing that also fits your description as well. Are you saying they should have the right to blow themselves up in a public space and kill anyone nearby?

What about drug smuggling? That involves someone making a decision to use their physical body to commit a crime.

Sex in public places is also something that fits into your very vague proclamation.

And on and on and on and on....

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

Quote:

Are you saying they should have the right to blow themselves up in a public space and kill anyone nearby?

You're complicating the issue. He asked if it should be illegal for someone to tell someone else what they can or can't do with their body.

Obviously committing a crime is illegal but that's a different issue entirely.

Your freedom to do as you wish with your own body does not furnish an excuse for you to harm other people. That would be doing something to someone else's body and that's not what Methen asked.

2 Replies

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:
Are you saying they should have the right to blow themselves up in a public space and kill anyone nearby?

You're complicating the issue. He asked if it should be illegal for someone to tell someone else what they can or can't do with their body.

It's easy to complicate the issue when the question is written super vague that we don't even know what exactly he's asking about. That even you are reading into it what you want. Given his posting history? He's not as deep as you try and make him out to be.

Quote:

Obviously committing a crime is illegal but that's a different issue entirely.

Your freedom to do as you wish with your own body does not furnish an excuse for you to harm other people. That would be doing something to someone else's body and that's not what Methen asked.

Bullhockey. Euthanasia is still illegal in many states and countries. So? My entire post is still valid. Buying and using illegal narcotics? Still illegal in countless states and countries.

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

Quote:

He's not as deep as you try and make him out to be.

Actually you read more into his statement than I did. I'm trying to respond to the literal meaning, which, as you can see, is rather shallow.

I didn't say your post was invalid.

But I do think there's a distinction between "doing what you wish with your own body" and doing something with your own body that affects the bodies of others. Is that not a valid distinction in your mind?

0 Replies

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Your freedom to do as you wish with your own body does not furnish an excuse for you to harm other people. That would be doing something to someone else's body and that's not what Methen asked.

I agree with this, but this isn't the difficult problem....

Do you support the right of a person to sell their own organs. Let's say that some rich person needs a heart transplant, and finds someone who is desperate enough for money to give up their own heart for a shitload of money (to make sure their family is taken care of) ....

These are two consenting adults... can one poor person choose to give up their own life to provide a healthy heart to someone with enough wealth to pay for it?

I find this practice deeply troubling. Do you feel the open market for human organs such as hearts should be legal?

3 Replies

@maxdancona,

It's the thin end of the wedge, leads to organ harvesting.

Quote:

Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families – a practice it said ended in the 1990s – it emerged at the weekend.

The admission, by the former head of the country's forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs – a charge that Israel denied and called "antisemitic".

The revelation, in a television documentary, is likely to generate anger in the Arab and Muslim world and reinforce sinister stereotypes of Israel and its attitude to Palestinians. Iran's state-run Press TV tonight reported the story, illustrated with photographs of dead or badly injured Palestinians.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathologists-harvested-organs

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

Quote:

Do you feel the open market for human organs such as hearts should be legal?

While I do support the freedom of people to take their own lives, I won't deny that your question is ethically troubling. Maybe because of all the cultural baggage and injustice surrounding who does and who doesn't have wealth in the modern world.

I can see a case (farfetched, I know) where a loved one needs a heart and a partner, family member, or friend sacrifices himself that the other may live, much like a heroic soldier might cover a grenade with his own body. But you are asking about buying the dead person's heart — why not have laws which prohibit anyone from purchasing the organs of a suicide victim for their own use? Would that be enough of a control? It would seem to me that a person's "agency" expires along with his expired body. He can make the decision to end his life but that doesn't give him the right to sell or anyone else the right to buy parts of it for personal use.

What about selling a kidney or an eye?

1 Reply

@hightor,

The OP seems to be taking an absolutist position that we can prevent anyone from doing anything with their bodies.

It is not possible to take this position without accepting a bunch of things that most of us would find immoral.

If it is illegal to tell people what they can and can not do with their bodies...

- There could be a the ultimate reality TV show where people either maim themselves or commit suicide on TV in some spectacular way (money to be given to their family). If the ad revenue isn't enough, it would make a great PPV special.

- Drug companies could give poor people $100,000 to test dangerous medical products with no concern for ethics. This would ultimately save millions of dollars to develop new therapies).

0 Replies

Sibú the primary deity in the Talamancan mythology of Costa Rica, creator of Earth and humanity, god of wisdom, values, and indigenous customs may have raised a similar question many moons ago.

It's refreshing when a 14 year old girl reprises the debate from the parental viewpoint of stifling romantic assignations.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Do you support the right of a person to sell their own organs. Let's say that some rich person needs a heart transplant, and finds someone who is desperate enough for money to give up their own heart for a shitload of money (to make sure their family is taken care of) ....

These are two consenting adults... can one poor person choose to give up their own life to provide a healthy heart to someone with enough wealth to pay for it?

I find this practice deeply troubling. Do you feel the open market for human organs such as hearts should be legal?

It's a good example because it provides an incontrovertible example of how selling (parts of) one's body at the expense of one's life is ethically problematic.

But then what if someone is just temporarily renting their body for pleasure and/or trafficking of substances and the detriment caused to them doesn't leave them totally lifeless but only subjects them to risk of injury/death/disease and/or shortens their life expectancy?

Saying that people should be free to do whatever they want with their own bodies implies that there are not market forces and other social pressures that would push them to doing so for the benefit and/or pleasure of others.

How do you stop people from exploiting others if it is those others' freedom to subject themselves to exploitation for money or otherwise?

1 Reply

@livinglava,

My argument is that a society and a government needs to draw an arbitrary line. There is not clear black and white standard.

It is completely clear to be that things like selling organs and blood sports should be illegal. I also find it easy to support tattoos, alcohol and skydiving. These are the easy cases, the things in the middle get more complicated. You have to balance freedom and individual rights with the good of society.

I support legalized prostitution, marijuana (but not meth), physician assisted suicide (but heavily regulated). These are what I consider to be the difficult cases and I respect people who disagree with me on these issues.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

It is completely clear to be that things like selling organs and blood sports should be illegal. I also find it easy to support tattoos, alcohol and skydiving. These are the easy cases, the things in the middle get more complicated. You have to balance freedom and individual rights with the good of society.

Subjective judgment can be skewed by normativity, which is cultural. Things like skydiving, bungee jumping, and alcohol get culturally normalized in a way that makes them seem more subjectively acceptable than other sports or drugs that pose similar risks but seem less normal.

Quote:

I support legalized prostitution, marijuana (but not meth), physician assisted suicide (but heavily regulated). These are what I consider to be the difficult cases and I respect people who disagree with me on these issues.

Cannabis and prostitution are examples of borderline-normal practices that are pushed toward normalcy by comparing them with other, more normalized drugs and exploitation.

Really, culture should be progressing away from sensual indulgences toward higher pleasures but it gets stuck because of backlash-psychology where rebellion against authority creates a culture of defiance and 'trumpism' (i.e. trumping authority - spelled with lower case, not referring to the president).

2 Replies

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Cannabis and prostitution are examples of borderline-normal practices that are pushed toward normalcy by comparing them with other, more normalized drugs and exploitation.

You mean like alcohol and non-procreative sex?

livinglava wrote:

Really, culture should be progressing away from sensual indulgences toward higher pleasures but it gets stuck because of backlash-psychology where rebellion against authority creates a culture of defiance and 'trumpism' (i.e. trumping authority - spelled with lower case, not referring to the president).

What are higher pleasures, and why should culture be progressing towards them?

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

livinglava wrote:

Cannabis and prostitution are examples of borderline-normal practices that are pushed toward normalcy by comparing them with other, more normalized drugs and exploitation.

You mean like alcohol and non-procreative sex?

I guess so. What's your point?

Quote:

livinglava wrote:

Really, culture should be progressing away from sensual indulgences toward higher pleasures but it gets stuck because of backlash-psychology where rebellion against authority creates a culture of defiance and 'trumpism' (i.e. trumping authority - spelled with lower case, not referring to the president).

What are higher pleasures,

Pleasures that cause/promote less harm.

Quote:

and why should culture be progressing towards them?

The same reason culture progressed beyond gladiator battles and public hangings.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

Subjective judgment can be skewed by normativity, which is cultural.

I agree with this. I would add that all judgement is subjective.

People from different cultures have made different judgements on these issues.

The rest of what you said is absolutist nonsense.

1 Reply

Should it be illegal for other people to tell others what they can and can not do with their body ?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know