Good, you've added some content. Let us play...
"A rational case" cannot be made for parents deciding how their children should live or die, while holding 'the right to life' as the highest priority principle.
Well, rational or no, I will agree that no logically consistent case can be made for parents deciding how their child should die, IF the right to life is the highest principle.
Although it is one of the highest principles, certainly one of the first chosen, it is not unqualified. Principles related to quality of life can supercede this. I will address that point in a moment.
'The right to life' is the idea that ALL people have the right to choose how THEY want to live THEIR life (or not live it).
Parents choosing how their child should die is in direct conflict with allowing the child to choose this action on their own.
First of all right to life is the idea that people have the right to live, period. How they live, and so under what conditions they can choose to die, is about right to choose QUALITY of life.
As you go on to correctly point out, allowing parents to make such decisions conflicts with the right to life (and quality of life) decision of the child. And of course so is any gov'tal decision regarding same.
Preventing a minor from killing themselves until they are 18 (or whenever 'adult' status is reached) only delays their personal choice.
Preventing a minor from living, removes their personal choice completely.
The rational decision is simply to delay rather then to entirely remove.
On the first premise, if a child wants to die and you prevent it, you have removed their choice. You can call it removing it to a later date if you want, but its the same thing, removing.
On the second premise, you switch from the child making a decision, to someone else. That second premise should have been stated "Not preventing a minor from killing themself..." in order to remain consistent. And the ending to that statement cannot be "removes their personal choice completely".
This can be cleaned up by either making it a discussion of someone else's decision for the child, or the child choosing for themself. The mix and match produces nothing useful, though it sounds good.
Thus the rational claim is undercut.
For this post "the government" is used to refer to the proper authorities (judge, police, social workers . )
This as ever, means nothing. Your argument still lies all ahead of you. Who are these authorities, and who determines what makes an individual "proper" as an authority?
I think you noticed where this was heading and offered some tantalizing commentary...
A dependency on majority rule is not required.
Okay, leaving aside the problems that raises, the fact is that our gov'ts are democracies which rely on majority rule.
Legitimate attempts for preserving life are those attempts that have been shown to be legitimate methods. The easiest and most productive method of showing something to be valid so far is the scientific method.
The first sentence is a tautology. The second is a statement I happen to agree with when "something" is defined as "a theory regarding natural phenomena".
It appears what you are trying to say is that the only valid concern is extension of physical life. And so the only valid healthcare choice or methods are those which have had scientific evidence, or some other form of testing, showing their utility to extend physical life.
That, unfortunately, is advancing your own personal belief system as if that would be the will of the majority... in other words the gov't. Which is of course what I was trying to get at in the beginning. If you can see that parents (two people) might not find certain methods "valid", then it is possible for a community, and in fact a majority, to find them "invalid". And in this case I mean not just valid in potential for extending life, but valid as desirable for extending life.
I do not say that the government is the majority. If that's how it runs in your neck of the woods, and you don't like it, I suggest you work to change it.
Last time I checked, Canada has a gov't based on majority rule... including Ontario. Then again I guess you do have a Queen and that is sooooooo rational. Just kidding.
How the government works is not a fundamental part of my position. Only the existence of a governemnt (judges, social workers, police...) is required for my position.
As stated, gov't is critical to your position. And as such its nature becomes critical. For example, if the gov't is comprised only of a panel of religious scholars, with a single figure as pre-eminent tie breaker, a lot of different determinations for what counts as valid will fall out of that system.
Your point was to produce a system which promoted equality, by imposing decisions on a child, beyond the potentially flawed attempts at such by two individuals known as "parents". As that system relied on a third entity known as "gov't", its nature is unavoidable. Otherwise I could just say, it's the parents... a very local gov't.
As soon as a few parents are punished for using invalid methods, all other parents will soon catch on as to how they are required to act. This is how all laws gain effectiveness, I do not suggest anywhere that my position should be any different.
You mean like the increases in female castration in Africa, after laws were put in place there? Like the laws which said parents couldn't teach their children Xianity in ancient Rome, or Protestantism in Catholic Europe?
What history has shown is that personal belief systems tend to get carried through, despite laws on books. What happens is that whatever undesirable behavior was hoping to be eradicated, merely moves underground.
Laws are good for preventing certain kinds of activities, but have never ended belief systems and their practices. That usually requires social movements, not legal ones. Either that or genocide.
My method inherently advances equality, rationality and reality.
I'm not seeing any of those three being advanced.
By definition the child is not being treated equally under your system. It is being prevented from choice until reaching age of majority and then allowed equality.
You have used a tautology, then assertions of your definitions as the only way of conceiving the world, followed by a surprising declaration that the nature of the prime protecting force is not crucial... none of which is rational.
And I have seen no discussion of reality as you suggest our gov'ts are not based on majority, and laws punishing parents will simply make them come around to your way of thinking.
As much as you like "rationality" you happen to exist in a real world with a lot of people that do not necessarily hold the same view of life as you do. Some are perhaps inherently irrational. Reality thus means that you are going to have to have systems which take this into account, including the fact that to some your position is irrational.
Thank you for adding sufficient verbiage.
h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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