philosophy argumentative essay- The Right to Die

An argument for the return of our humanity

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Journey with me into a land of possibilities: imagine, if you will, that you are in bad condition, really bad condition, due to no fault of your own: a life or death situation. You happened to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time; a place you actually didn’t have any say about being at in the first place. You are bleeding, mangled, in unspeakable pain, perhaps even lost a limb or two. Fortuitous for you, you are in America! You are in the hands of an educated, legally acknowledged medical provider that has the knowledge, ability, and has sworn to provide medical care to all. Presumptively, this person has the skills to save your life. But, they don’t. You are just left there: cold, naked, and bleeding; you are left there to die. You have been “deemed unviable” and therefore they are not required to administer health care – let alone any life-saving medical care (Smith).

Not in the USA, you may say; that’s not legal under our noble constitution! Our agencies of humanity preach respect for all life; our progressive, understanding, “all lives matter” government would not allow such a thing. That simply does not happen in one of the most advanced medical systems in the world! Think again.

On February 25, 2019, the United States Senate voted “to block consideration of a measure” that would enable legal charges to be brought against any medical professional that does nothing to help a child that was born alive after a failed abortion (DeBonis & Sonmez, 2019). This is the U. S. A.; this is the “land of unlimited possibilities” where brand new babies are abandoned to die (H., n.d.). The bill, S.311 - Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act presented by Senator Ben Sasse, did not receive the required “60 votes to proceed” (DeBonis & Sonmez, 2019; 116th Congress, 2019). The bill reads as follows: “Any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care” (116th Congress, 2019). This bill outlined the “requirements for health care practitioners,” the expectation of “reporting of violations,” and the possible penalties that violators could face (116th Congress, 2019). If one examines the social contract that is the constitutional rights given citizens of the United States to life, the philosophical and psychological necessities to maintain human dignity and what it means to be human, and the natural rights that humanity expects humans to give other humans, then one will come to the conclusion that the bill, S.311 - Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act needs to pass, but also should be seen as ethically fundamental to maintaining the social construct of our nation.

The obligation of the humans living within the borders of the United States of America to deem unjust and punish acts of murder by neglect is philosophically universal. The basic right to life is recognized as given to all citizens of the United States via its very own Constitution. Article 14, section 1of the Bill of Rights states that “all persons born . . . in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty . . . nor deny to any person . . . equal protection of the laws” (Constitution). This makes the abandonment of newly born babies by anyone, let alone educated and legally acknowledged medical providers, an ethical and legal degradation of the society of the United States of America and an offense to all who are living under the social contract that is the USA. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that an individual’s “moral and/or political obligation” to the society that they are a populous of is often regulated by an agreement, written and/or oral, known as the theoretical “social contract” (Friend, n.d.). This is such a fundamental understanding of societies that the legendary philosopher Socrates argued in support of why this is so. He proclaimed that the laws of the land in which one resides is the contractual agreement that the person accepts by the mere fact that the person has chosen to be living within that land (Plato, n.d., p. 42- 47). Socrates staked his own life on this obligation to the society that one is born into, educated by, protected within, or is otherwise chosen to be a part of by the act of living within it (Plato, n.d., p. 40- 47). In the writings by Plato in Socrates’ Defense (n.d.), Socrates said “But wrong-doing and defiance of one's superiors, whether god or man, that I know to be evil and shameful” (p. 26, Line 29b). Socrates is stating that acts of social disobedience are unjust and unethical. These acts of “wrong-doing and defiance of one's superiors” are still considered ethically questionable, and often punishable, even with in our modern society. The United States was founded within this principle of social obligation. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence (1776), in which the social contractual agreement that the United States of America is based, reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” John Locke, a famous philosopher of the seventeenth century whose views on politics and ethics were radical in his time and yet has become “commonplace and widely accepted,” declared in his Second Treatise of Government (1821) that the reason mankind unites “into common-wealths [sic] and [puts] themselves under government" (p. 6, sect. 124) is for the preservation of their lives, liberty, wealth, and general well-being (Connoly, n.d.; p. 7, sect. 95-98). Even within the USA, it doesn’t take but the mere effort of looking around and listening to the people to realize that the individuals that reside within its borders expect protection and provisions from the government they are under. John Stuart Mills, a distinguished philosopher of the nineteenth century, eloquently defended the utilitarianism way of life. This predominantly atheistic view preached a political orientation that rejected the concept of social contract and believed that laws and policies should be based upon the happiness of the individual. Even within this mindset, there is an expectation that the individual owes obedience to its society especially when it comes to the conduct between the individuals within said society. In On Liberty, he wrote “... every one [sic] who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest” (p. 69). He is acknowledging that actions of anyone within a society are morally right or wrong dependent upon their effects “towards the rest” (pg. 69) and he goes on to acknowledge that it is “necessary that general rules should for the most part be observed” (pg. 71). Even under this individualistic way of doing society, it is understood that, “as soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it” and the offender “may then be justly punished” (Mills,1859, p. 69). The act of refusing medical care is a socially and legally recognized act of injury to a member of the society known as the United States, and even Mills acknowledges that such infractions are not acceptable. To be a human, that can be happy within a society, is to know and accept that there are crimes that should be and will be punished.

The obligation of the humans living within the borders of the United States of America to reject murder by neglect is a philosophically universal necessity, if they are to maintain their human dignity. Human dignity, as explained by Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is “a foundational commitment to human value or human status” that is discussed and debated in several fields of intellectual conversations (Bos, n.d., par. 1). Philosophical attitudes toward human dignity underscore the distinctive uniqueness that is a living persons and that this solidary fact calls for definite, inflexible, ethical criterion (Bos, n.d., sec. b.i., par. 2). John Stuart Mills, in his utilitarian perception of a society, his live and let live ideology, validated the justice in valuing human life. Mills expresses this sentiment for individuals to act when injustice has occurred when he states “acts, of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable [sic] sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind” (1859, p. 52). Mills argued that every individual has the ability to make a choice and this is a basic aspect to being human. Within this ability to choose, Mills explains that “all human beings have this sense [of dignity] in one form or another, and how strongly a person has it is roughly proportional to how well endowed he is with the higher faculties” (Mills, 1861, p. 6). The rational, reasonable human acknowledges the dignity within every human and should respond accordingly by deliberately choosing to be happy within the actions that do no harm to others. Mills asserts that one’s choice and dignity should never be taken away from them unless that liberty infringes on the liberty to life and dignity of another human being (Mills, 1861). This sentiment is echoed even within the existentialist philosophy of the twentieth century French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre. In his lecture titled “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” he declared that “Man simply is” claiming that mankind exists to create his purpose (1946, p. 3). He defends the existentialist theory as being the only theory “compatible with the dignity of man” explaining that existentialism denies the “kinds of materialism [that] leads one to treat every man including oneself as an object” and promotes the power and humanity within the absolute freedom and responsibility of choice (1946, p. 9). Even within this only me and only now philosophy, the most important aspect of personal integrity and the backbone of being human is authenticity; the obligation of each and every person to rationally, judiciously, and logically analyze the social circumstances and hold themselves accountable for the choices made in the situations. Sartre would acknowledge that each and every one of us is responsible for the irrational justification of murder by abandonment; “one thing which permits him to have life is the deed” (1946, p. 8). He pulls no punches in outlining the position of an individual that refuses this responsibility: “Since we have defined the situation of man as one of free choice, without excuse and without help, any man who takes refuge behind the excuse of his passions, or by inventing some deterministic doctrine, is a self-deceiver” (Sartre, 1946, p. 10). Another influential twentieth century political philosopher John Rawls wrote in his first book, A Theory of Justice (1971), about his conception of how a proper society could go about “defining the fundamental terms of their association” as he renovated the social-contract idea (Rawls, pg. 207; Richardson, n.d.). His writings explain the fundamental necessity that individuals must maintain their humanity, must recognize that human life is valuable within itself, and that the ideal social structure must “accept certain moral principles” while setting aside all of the preconceived ideas and expectations that one would have with their society (Rawls, 1971, pg. 211). The first of the “two principles of justice” that he purposes as necessary asserts “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others” (Rawls, 1971, pg. 213). What human doesn’t recognize their liberty to life? In America, the human infants that have survived an abortion procedure don’t have that liberty.

The obligation of the humans living within the borders of the United States of America to uphold the natural rights of humans and to give that same natural right to other humans is a philosophically universal. Socrates championed “living well and finely and justly” as being the truest state of being human, and recognized the sanctity of life in all even when some harm or suffrage is perceived as received from the other (Plato, n.d., p. 42-43). The founding fathers of the United States believed that life is a right that is unquestionable: “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . all men . . . are endowed . . . with certain unalienable Rights . . . Life” (Declaration of Independence, 1776). Locke asserted that natural law obligates all of humanity to a standard of respect for all human life; “no one ought to harm another in his life” (Locke, 1821, p. 1). Mills defended life, particularly new human life, as being “the most responsible actions in the range of human life” (1859, p. 99) that an adult can take on, and declared that it would take a mindset that is completely void of morality to make choices without “paying [any] regard to others” (1861, p. 23). Sartre’s perspective on life culminates on the individual’s ability to live, to choose, and to do. It would be unthinkable to Sartre that someone would strip another human being of the opportunity to find his own purpose; “life is nothing until it is lived” (1946, p. 10). Rawls’ justice is grounded in blind fairness. Life’s value is an elemental part of the nature of being human; every individual instinctively values his own life. “The intuitive idea is that since everyone's well-being depends upon a scheme of cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life,” is his way of saying that living in a mindset of togetherness is the only way for the individual to truly live a good life (1971, p.210). In the mist of everything that these great minds cannot agree on, the significance of the life of any individual human is a prevalent notion that is undeniable.

On February 26, 2019, Denise Grady for the New York Times and Anna North for Vox.com reported on some of the ongoing claims by the antagonist of the bill that Senator Sasse authored, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. They explained that two of the reoccurring rebuttals are that this bill is needless “because a similar law already exists” and that “infants are rarely born alive after abortion procedures, and if they are, doctors do not kill them.”

The law that they are pointing to is based upon the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 that was signed into law by President George W. Bush. This bill set out to amend the federal document “1U.S.C.” to include the parameters of what is acknowledged as “words denoting number, gender, and so forth” to include “born-alive infant” and to define what is meant by “born-alive infant” in order to give recognition of the social status of these children born within the United States (107th Congress; United). This bill clearly states that “nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being `born alive' as defined in this section” (107th Congress). The bill merely declared what is legally recognized as a “human being,” a “person”. This bill however did not carry any legal disciplinary action upon medical providers who do not administer proper care nor did it detail what type of treatments would be expected. The expectation was that it was not needed. There are others laws and regulations that are supposed to be the guidelines as to what should, or could, happen to those that are responsible for ending the life of another human being. Even the ethical promise of educated physicians caries no weight in the favor of life. The modern version of the Physician's Oath no longer contains any “promise by the physician to “do no harm” or never give a “lethal medicine” as it was in the original Hippocratic Oath” (Hajar, 2017). Every decision that a physician makes, acts upon, is responsible for and is supposed to fall under the signed consent of the patient (Hajar, 2017). Yet, year after year the continual manipulation of legal jargon has allowed some medical providers to disregard the expectations that most Americans have regarding the physician's oath and legally get away with murder. The dying infant does not have the ability to consent: physically or legally. According to American law, that right is left to the parents. There are laws and agencies that are supposed to intervene when the parent or guardian is deliberately or passively allowing harm to come to any child. And yet, our society condones the murder of the innocent in the name of convince. The medical providers that are present at the time of an infant that is born alive and choosing to set the child aside knowing that they will pass away without any medical intervention is not only allowed to do so, but is socially defended by some to be an acceptable action. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is necessary not because there aren’t already legal provisions for such protections; the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is necessary because there needs to be stronger parameters placed upon individuals who breach the laws that protect life.

The claim that failed abortions resulting in an infant that is born alive happen so infrequently and that it is not an act of killing that these doctors are doing by their neglect are valid enough to warrant the disposal of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is defended by Denise Grady specifically.

Sartre -- “There is no such thing as a cowardly temperament ... A coward is defined by the deed that he has done.” “there cannot be any other truth than this, I think, therefore I am, which is the absolute truth of consciousness as it attains to itself.”

The bill S.311 - Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act presented by Senator Ben Sasse should not need to be necessary. The basic understanding that there is a natural value within

did not receive the required “60 votes to proceed” (DeBonis & Sonmez, 2019; 116th Congress, 2019). The bill reads as follows: “Any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care” (116th Congress, 2019). If one examines the constitutional rights given citizens of the United States to life, the philosophical and psychological expectations of what it means to be human, and the natural rights that humanity expects humans to give other humans, then one will come to the conclusion that this bill needed to not only pass but is ethically fundamental to maintaining the social construct of our nation.

Conclusion

a) Restate the importance of your issue

b) Paint a picture of the world depicting what would happen if your argument is (or is not) implemented ..Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill..During all that time, mankind have been learning by •experience what sorts of consequences actions are apt to have, this being something on which all the morality of life depends, as well as all the prudence...p 16

REFERENCES

107th Congress (2001-2002). Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 (H.R.2175). (2002, August 05). Retrieved March 20, 2019, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/2175