The extremely divisive issues of abortion and gay marriage have often raised the question of whether or not the government should be legislating morality. In other words, should the government exist to protect civil rights or a certain code of conduct? When should the government make a law and when should they allow each individual citizen to decide for themselves?
Some would say that the government must protect a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body. Another faction says that the government should protect a defenseless unborn baby as it would any other citizen.
On the gay marriage side of things, some would say that we must give equal marital rights to both homosexual and heterosexual couples. This they claim is a civil right not currently being protected by the government. Others say that gay marriage is not a true marriage and therefore should not qualify for the same rights and privileges.
Opponents of both gay marriage and abortion have been accused of attempting to legislate their standard of morality instead of legislating basic human rights.
My question is this: Why aren’t people up in arms over the fact that prostitution is illegal in this country? I know that sounds like a strange question, but hear me out. A potential defense of this position might sound a bit like this:
1.) Both men and women have the basic civil right to choose what they do to their own bodies. If they choose to relieve their stress or meet a basic human desire through hiring a prostitute, that should be an individual’s own choice.
2.) Illegalizing prostitution has not caused it to stop. Instead it has likely lead to a rise in the illegal sex trade and human trafficking. Legalizing it would help bring this under government regulation so as to reduce infectious diseases and human trafficking. Though there are health risks, we take that chance in nearly all aspects of our lives. Each citizen should be given the choice of how to use their own bodies regardless of the risk.
3.) Legalizing prostitution would better the economy by providing legal jobs for those who may not otherwise be able to find work in a struggling economic recession.
Granted, I would never argue for such madness. But it does strike me as odd that we have outlawed sex for cash and legalized infanticide.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Roe v Wade Revised
Posted by Josh at 3:03 PM
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1 comments:
You make a very good point.
If you will permit me, I wanted to make a side comment about the argument of "legislating morality." I personally grow weary of the idea that "you can't legislate morality." The fact is, law and morality are inextricably linked. Take murder, for example. Murder is against the law. What that means is that the government has decided that it is wrong to commit murder. This is a moral judgment. This is legislating morality. Or take another example--speed limits. Why do we have speed limits? We as a society have decided that keeping people safe is important. Is this because we are deterministically following some Darwinian survival-of-the-species urge? If you think this, then it must suck to have a meaningless life. Or is it more likely that we realize that caring about others' safety is a good (and therefore moral) thing to do? Even "legislating basic human rights" is still a moral action. I could go on, but I think I have presented the general idea.
So let us cease to argue about "legislating morality". If we must, then let us argue, as you suggest, whose morality it is we are legislating.
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