When debates and wars and protests take place over rights, they are physical manifestations of disagreement over personhood. The poor horse that has been beaten nearly a thousand times but now takes yet another punch; dolphins being granted non-human person status in India and dolphin shows being banned, with outrage breaking out at the idea of a dolphin being considered equivalent to a human—discourse about the rights and establishment of the personhood of fetuses, pups in dog-mills, homosexual humans, etc. has left many people angry and exasperated.
But regardless of which stance is taken, there seems to be an underlying issue that does not allow for agreement: What what is a person? Who makes the cut, and perhaps more problematically, who creates the guidelines? When we get to the heart of this matter, we see that by the very way they are framed and agreed upon, rights are a muddle of construct. And not just that, but our rights, and indeed, our very personhood, stand on scarily flimsy and uncertain ground.
A simple exercise can help decide what our own personal definition of what a person is. Simply write down the qualities that define a person. Some examples include communication, intelligence, and the ability to reflect and love. Dolphins and many other non-human animals are extremely intelligent, communicate, and demonstrate the ability to reflect and show what some might call love. Thinking even more critically, define what each of these qualities mean. What constitutes communication? What actually defines love or affection? Does the ability to reflect include the ability to analyze and connect the past to the present and possibly the future? Does intelligence count if it cannot be communicated or understood? All of this is imperative to be made clear.
Once such a list has been made, so has the decision as to who should be granted rights. If “the ability to contribute to society” is on that list, you might have just stripped your elementary school self of rights, along with fetuses and humans in comas. If your list included “the ability to communicate with other members of society” or “language” you might have taken all rights from those with severe autism. On and on, this list might take away rights from those who maybe aren’t able to reproduce or make sound decisions.
Perhaps as a person who meets all those guidelines, this is not such a bad thing. However, if someone is of a different gender, a different age, a different race or ethnicity, a different species or perhaps simply has a different way of communicating, their rights have dwindled considerably. Even someone considered a person with full rights right now isn’t secure of them—a stroke, a car accident, a decision to change how one views oneself could wrench away these rights. Their quality of life is now left up to whoever might have compassion toward them, which is a far cry from rights to call upon as inherently one’s own.
Rights as a person, as a human, as a sentient being are either acknowledged or not—to say they are granted is romantic.
If this is disturbing, then keep in mind that neither you nor I get to decide who is granted rights. It’s a “majority that decides all” kind of decision, and that’s much more disturbing.