‘Where negative rights are “negative” in the sense that they claim for each individual a zone of non-interference from others, positive rights are “positive” in the sense that they claim for each individual the positive assistance of others in fulfilling basic constituents of well-being like health.’
‘Negative rights are considered more essential than positive ones in protecting an individual’s autonomy.’
So when one individual’s positive right to do something is at odds with another’s negative right to protect them from something, as much as it would be ideal for both parties to have exactly what they want without harming or inconveniencing/upsetting the other, since that’s often not possible, the negative right to ‘protect’ an individual from something seems to trump the positive right for an individual to ‘do’ something in hierarchy of moral importance and most ethicists seem to agree.
For example, I think people’s ‘positive right’ to choose animal-based product or service options when there are equally suitable plant-based options that achieve all the same purposes, isn’t as important as sentient animals’ negative right to not be unnecessarily exploited and killed, and to be protected from those undesirable experiences, states or conditions. Hence the position of veganism is very clear and obvious for me, and resolves an “easy” ethical issue with a clear solution (essential negative (protective) right prevails over others’ ultimately unnecessary positive (“doing”) right).
When it comes to abortion however, I do believe that it’s a tricky situation ethically. I’m pro-choice, but I say that with difficulty, because considering both sides it’s not an easy position and I see it as much more ethically complex than the issue of unnecessary animal exploitation. That’s because I think you can make the argument that either forcing a person to undergo pregnancy, or terminating the life of an (admittedly unconscious, undeveloped) fetus, are in both cases breaching a sentient (or would-be sentient) individual’s negative (protective) right. It would seem to be a clear ethical dilemma, where neither outcome is desirable, in almost comparably important ways. However, ultimately I had to decide that protecting a woman/person from an enforced pregnancy (and the physical and life-changing, even life destroying (or killing) effects, results and experiences that can have), a person being a fully formed, conscious and sentient individual, is more tangibly important than protecting an undeveloped, unconscious “mass of cells” from being prevented from developing into a human being.
My thoughts on the matter aside… It seems like in one way the right to abortion is a positive right by claiming assistance from others to “do” something being terminate a pregnancy, while in another way it’s a negative right by “protecting” the person via preventing undesirable states and experiences that would be imposed on them by others ‘interfering’ and forcing them to undergo pregnancy, by denying them an abortion.
I’m honestly just wondering what kind right this would be considered. Positive right or negative right? Or both? Thanks :)
My view on the matter is that access to abortions falls under the umbrella of the right of bodily autonomy; specifically, protection from being medically exploited. Which by your phraseology would make it a “negative right”.
My go-to comparison is, perhaps oddly, bone marrow donation. Someone with bone cancer is likely doomed to die a horrible death, unless they can find a compatible donor who will consent to share marrow with them. For any given recipient, only a few people at best will be a viable match. Maybe only one. But that person has the absolute right to refuse. You cannot be forced to use your body for the health of another person without your consent.
Some people would say, that’s not comparable to pregnancy, and that having sex/getting pregnant is in itself, somehow, initial consent. But, at least here in Canada, they stress heavily that you can withdraw consent at any point during the procedure. They also explicitly let you know that, at a certain point in the procedure, the recipient’s bone marrow will have been irradiated, and that if the donor backs out at that point, the recipient will die, but that they’re still allowed to do so. The right to bodily autonomy means any ongoing use of one’s body requires their continued consent, even with a living, breathing human person on the scales. Morally is certainly another question, but the diagram of law and morality is not a perfect circle.
If I’m protected from being the life support of any person, surely that covers an unfinished fetus.