Parent’s Rights to Their “Pets”; Sorry, “Children”!

 Politics  No Responses »
Dec 112011
 

From time to time, I dip into another blog whose principle author is even more opinionated than I am (and as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing). And recently I encountered this article on the the “rights” of parents to be informed of their offspring’s sexual activities – arising from the requirement for underage girls to get what we in the UK term the “morning after” pill on prescription. Now it took a while for me to get that last point, but of course in the US, you don’t get anything on prescription without insurance; and an underage girl is going to get that on her parent’s insurance.

Or in other words, an underage girl has to ask her parent’s permission to take the morning after pill … and admit to the people she’s probably least inclined to, that she’s been fucking.

It seems that the politician’s excuse for this, is that there might be some health risks associated with underage girls taking the morning after pill despite there being no evidence to indicate so. But the suspicion is that this is pandering to the right-whingers who want to punish those teenagers who break the rules and have sex below the age of consent.

The article I mentioned of course (as it is a feminist blog) points out that this is an attack on women’s rights. I don’t disagree, but there is also something else lurking behind the support of parent’s rights over their children’s sex lives. Many of the parents who support the parent’s rights over their children’s lives would be horrified to think that they are being accused of eroding women’s rights because that is not their intention.

They believe that their right to control their children’s lives overrides any rights their children might have.

Most of us believe that there are certain rights that all people have certain human rights. Not adult human rights but human rights – so that includes both children and teenagers (who are not really children as we are talking about people with the physical maturity to impregnate, or become pregnant).

Now it is true that it may be necessary to restrict the rights of children, and to a lesser degree teenagers. But that should be a step we always take with extreme reluctance. And parental rights should not override human rights – children don’t belong to their parents, but to themselves.

Gay Rights In Danger Under Tories

 Politics  No Responses »
Apr 042010
 

Actually make that everyone’s rights is at risk under the Tories – once you start accepting that one segment of the population has less rights than others, it is a slippery slope to everyone losing their rights.

Apparently the Tory shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has declared that bed and breakfast owners should be allowed to refuse entry to gay couples for being gay. However he does not feel that hotels should be allowed to do likewise ? I believe his argument is that bed and breakfasts are more “private” than hotels in that the owner frequently shares the accommodation with the guests, and so the personal beliefs of the owners should be taken into consideration.

Rancid rhino dung. If you run a bed and breakfast, you have effectively accepted that your home is no longer a private domain, and that you have to accept that society has certain standards and beliefs that you have to abide by.

But what amazes me is that a shadow minister is foolish enough to say such things. It would not take a genius to realise that such remarks would be pounced upon as evidence that the Tories have not changed that much since they introduced Section 28 back in the 1980s. Personally I do not believe that the important Tories are that backwards, although I dare say a few relics can be found lurking at the back of the Tory cupboard.

What is more worrying is that someone who may be part of a future government could be stupid enough to say such things – whether in public or private.

Human Rights, Human Wrongs

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Oct 312009
 

Just been watching a certain episode of Battlestar Galactica involving the attempted rape of a prisoner. A machine prisoner – a “toaster”, so that’s alright isn’t it ?

Well perhaps not.

Considering the morality of a bunch of mythical rapists in a TV programme set in a mythical universe with technology that is impossible at our current understanding of science is kind of kinky, but it does cover something that we will have to consider sooner or later. Quite possibly sooner than we think.

Are people making robotic sex toys ? Quite possibly. How “intelligent” are these possible robots? Not intelligent at all according to the current state of the art. But if machine intelligence is possible (in the future), will someone ever make an intelligent sex toy ? Almost certainly.

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At what point do we start to consider whether it is right to use an intelligent sex toy that has decided it doesn’t want to ? Before it is possible, or after it has happened ? I would say we need to consider such things now before they happen.

To me it is perfectly plain that anything that is sufficiently intelligent to understand what is happening and to express a wish that it not take place, is entitled to have their wishes respected. Or to put it another way, anyone who is capable of ‘raping’ a machine is not the kind of person many would feel safe around.

We are used to the idea that we need to respect the rights of other humans and that anyone that does not is sick in some way. But are those rights given because the subject is human or because they are sapient (by which I mean intelligent to the level of humans) ? Not an easy question to answer because almost by definition, the terms are current interchangeable. But that may not always be the case.

At present, either an intelligent machine or an intelligent alien presumably has no rights on this planet – it is perfectly legal to rob, kill, or rape them. This is analogous to the situation in the past where some people were under the impression that some segments of the human race were less deserving of rights than others. Whilst denying non-human sapients rights is not racist, it still feels wrong.

Of course such an entity would have to respect our rights in addition to us respecting their rights. Perhaps that should be the condition of full sapient rights – the ability to respect the rights of others.

I say full sapient rights because there are another category of rights that we need to consider and be aware of – sentient rights. For more information on this, see the very worthwhile Great Ape Project.