🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 5A4E@deneva.sdd.trw.com, shla@spf.trw.com (Sheila Wallace) writes:
> In article <l2jhouINNpft@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> jdr@starflight.Corp.Sun.COM writes:
> >We need to make a major push on the media and politicians that there is a third
> >position distinct from pro-life and pro-choice, which holds that:
> >
> >(1) The state has a natural right to regulate the reproductive behavior of its
> >citizens, and may, under certain circumstances, need to either compel women to
> >bear children or to refrain from doing so. Therefore, women must not be accorded
> >a constitutional right to choose whether or not to bear children.
> >
> Where does the state get this 'natural right'?  This is like saying
> that the state has the 'natural right' to kill anyone, to end any life.  
> Or prolong it.  For any reason.  
> 
> The state has no more right to mandate my reproductive behavior than
> it does to mandate my living or dying.
> 
> It is one thing for the state to persuade women to bear children or to
> refrain from doing so.  But the state does not have the right to decide 
> for me.
> 
> Sheila
> 
> -- 
> Sheila Wallace		(shla@spf.trw.com)
> TRW, One Space Park, R2/2162, Redondo Beach, CA 90278


No, not for any reason. For only one reason -- survival.

The theory of the "natural rights of the state" is based on the simple premise that
the state (read "society") has the natural right to do what it has to do to survive,
that is, to have future generations.

We evolved the way we did because "the state" -- in the form of village elders,
backed up by a consensus of the members of the tribe -- regulated the reproductive
behavior of those members, often in quite draconian ways. Those that did so survived
to have descendants. Those that did not died out. Over the course of many tens of
thousands of years, it led to us having the physical, mental, and social attributes
that we have.

Since the discovery of herding, farming, and political entities larger than the
village, we have departed from that pattern, and are now being confronted with the
disastrous consequences. We have not escaped from the necessity to regulate our
reproduction. You may argue that that can be done entirely through persuasion, but
I am afraid that recent history indicates that everyone is not equally receptive to
such persuasion, and that it only takes a few who resist it to bring about disaster.

No system of compulsion can work if it is not based on a consensus of the members of
society. Most have to comply voluntarily. But they may not do so unless they feel
that those who do not will be compelled to make the same sacrifices they are willing
to make.

I don't like this situation any better than you do. But nature is not organized for
our comfort or convenience. Nothing we have achieved has enabled us to escape 
the constraints it imposes on us.

You should read the seminal paper by Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons",
first published in _Science_ in 1962.

---

starflt@uunet.uu.net, jdr@starflight.corp.sun.com
Jon Roland
Starflight Corporation, 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A,
Redwood City, CA 94063-4142, 415/361-8141