Originally Posted by
Darkside2009
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As a society we have banned lots of practices, speeding, drunk driving, foot-binding, abortions by unqualified people, human sacrifice, the list is endless.
We have banned those practices because we deem it of great benefit to our society as a whole and to each individual within it.
Now some individuals might wish to climb in their car when drunk, and drive over the speed limit back to where they live. We denigrate such practices and penalise the individual caught engaging in them. Is it a curtailment of the individual's choice? Absolutely. Should it be? Of course, because that curtailment of the individual right to drive as and when they please, ensures the rights of everyone else to walk, or drive home in safety, without some drunk crashing in to us in his car
We make human sacrifice illegal, we curtail the choice of those who might wish to perform such rituals, by deciding that to allow it, would impinge on the right to life of the person to be sacrificed.
As a society, we make such balancing acts all the time, between the rights of the individual versus the rights of society, always have done and always will do.
Homosexuality was once a hanging offence in the UK, attitudes changed, homosexuals were no longer hanged, they were given a prison sentence.(Oscar Wilde, served two years), attitudes changed again and society decided that homosexual acts performed in private between consenting adults should not be illegal. It was left to individual choice.
However, we still ban homosexual acts between adult and child no matter if they are performed in private or public. As a society we do so to protect the right to the child to live an innocent life, free from molestation or predatory behaviour, until such time as they reach adulthood, and can make an informed decision for themselves as to where their sexual inclinations lie.
Of those who break this law we heap odium and abuse. Yes it has curtailed the right of the paedophile to engage in sex with whomever he/she wishes. We regard it as a greater good that the right of the child is protected from interference by the adult.
To give another example, you may exercise your choice to park your car on your lawn, that does not give you a right to park your car on your neighbour's lawn and impinge his right to enjoy his garden
As an individual, your rights end where mine begins. In the exercise of your right, you do not have carte-blanche to impose upon mine.
As a society, we allow branding of our livestock, but we don't permit branding of our children.
Yes, the attitude of society can and does change over time. It changes because like-minded people have banded together and agitated, and educated for that change. They continued that agitation until such time as the law was changed.
You are doubtless aware of the actions taken against the Suffragettes, force-feeding them when they went on hunger strike etc, but the result of their actions was a change in the law, and votes for women.
Women were no longer considered a chattel of their husbands or Fathers to dispose of as they wished. If they had not organised, educated and agitated votes for women would not have come about. They forced society to stop, think, and rationalise its position. That rationalisation decided there was no valid reason why women should not have the vote.
There are few if any, that would wish to return the law to the state it was previously. There may well have been individuals within the Suffragette movement that we would find, personally obnoxious, and who used inflammatory language in order to try and get their point across.
That does not and did not denigrate from the message, that votes for women was the fair and decent choice to arrive at.
We are meeting on a site that once would have been deemed illegal, times have changed, laws have changed. What might have been an acceptable practice at one time has in the light of increased human knowledge become less acceptable, and the reasons for prolonging it, less rational.
Your right to circumcise ends where my foreskin begins. By all means make choices and decisions for yourselves, but don't impinge upon the choices for your children to make, they have rights too.
Those advocates for a change in the law in San Francisco, are seeking to give the individual the choice for themselves, once they reach the age of eighteen, and are able to make an informed choice, as to what modifications they make to their own bodies.
As of the time of writing, I understand that they have gained enough people in support to trigger a ballot on the motion. It seems to me an entirely reasonable proposition and I wish them every success.
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