Do fetuses have rights, including a right to life?

In Civil Rights and the Paradox of Liberal Democracy, Bradley Watson demonstrates the paradox of liberal democracy: that its cornerstone principles of equality and freedom are principles inherently directed toward undermining it. Modernity, beyond bringing definition to political equality, unleashed a whirlwind of individualism, which feeds the soul's basic impulse to rule without limitationincluding the limitation of consent. Here Watson begins his analysis of the foundations of liberalism, looking carefully and critically at the moral and political philosophies that (...) justify modern civil rights litigation. He goes on to examine the judicial manifestations of the paradox of liberal democracy, seeking to bring a broad philosophical coherence to legal decision making in the United States and Canada. Finally, Watson illuminates the extent to which this decision making is in tension with liberal democracy, and outlines proposals for reform. (shrink)

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its implementing regulations prohibit federally-funded educational institutions and healthcare centers from engaging in disparate impact discrimination “on the ground of race, color, or national origin” in all of their operations.

One fundamental barrier to eliminating health disparities, particularly with regard to the determinants of health, is the persistence of discrimination. Civil rights law is the primary legal mechanism used to address discrimination. Federal civil rights laws have been the subject of wider analyses as a determinant of health as well as a tool to address health disparities. The research on state civil rights laws, while more limited, is growing. This article will highlight a few (...) examples of how some states are using civil rights laws to combat discrimination, particularly in more expansive ways and in the interest of new populations, presenting tools that can target determinants and address the goal of reducing health disparities. (shrink)

Hailing from the American South, I was a slow student, awakened by Plato in high school and introduced to philosophy in college. Alienated from analytic trivia and minutia, I did graduate work in Greek philosophy at Syracuse University. My first academic job at Memphis State University involved me in the Southern Civil Rights Movement; my second at the Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point involved me in the environmental movement and inspired me to create first environmental ethics and then, in (...) collaboration with Roger Ames, comparative environmental philosophy. In the face of unprecedented challenges, such as global climate change, academic philosophy must abandon its preoccupation with arcane puzzles and its studied intellectual isolation and work collaboratively with the natural and social sciences if it is to survive in the competitive and accountable academic climate of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Suggests that there is an integral relationship between support for civil rights and support for a cluster of practices that might be characterized under the heading off "economic democracy." These include participatory workplace governance schemes and basic income schemes as alternatives to conventional income support programs.

All of us are entitled to the protections of law against violence, to a high quality education, to decent employment that respects our dignity, and to necessary assistance with our caregiving. Our civil rights are our rights to the protections of ordinary law - not constitutional law, and not only antidiscrimination law - that will ensure that we can participate in civil society, and hence lead flourishing lives. In this innovative work, Robin L. West looks back (...) to nineteenth-century Civil Rights Acts to argue that the point of civil rights law is not only non-discrimination, but also to assure that all of us receive the protection of legal rights that promote human flourishing. Since the 1960s, Supreme Court decisions on civil rights issues have focused on non-discrimination and thus have 'hollowed out' this broader meaning of civil rights law. This book reconceives civil rights as a set of legal guarantees that all will be included in the legal, political, economic and social projects central to civil society. (shrink)

This paper argues that a thorough discussion on women’s rights needs to go beyond progress in civil and political rights. Looking comparatively at Iran and Turkey, it posits that the legal and political context of secularism v. theocracy has much less of an impact than expected, and suggests that other variables offer much more compelling explanations. The paper combines feminist constructivist insights with the broader lens of world -system theory to hypothesize that the explanation for women‘s inequality (...) in employment is found at the intersection of endogenous gender constructions heavily influenced by culture and religion, and of an international economic order that contributes to the reproduction of a patriarchal structure in poorer countries, regardless of their political system. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has insisted on a more historically attentive approach to civil disobedience. This article follows their lead by arguing that the dominant understanding of civil disobedience relies on a conceptual confusion and a historical mistake. Conceptually, the literature fails to distinguish between violating a law and defying the authority of a legal order. Historically, the literature misreads the exemplary case of Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama. When read in its proper context, we can see King (...) was not just a civil disobedient, violating the law in a way that shows fidelity to the law. He was a radical disobedient, challenging the authority of the legal order. As such, he was part of a long tradition of radical disobedience, extending back through militant strikes of the labor movement. The character of this disobedience was evident, both to its main protagonists, like King and Eugene V. Debs, and to its major opponents, especially the courts. In reconstructing these historical cases, I revise the civil disobedience literature and demonstrate the distinctiveness of the radical disobedience concept. (shrink)

The articles in this volume focus on the appropriate relationship between rights and counterterrorism policy and form part of the surge of scholarship on security and human rights resulting from the 'war on terror'. The articles also take account of issues of security where terrorism is not a factor, and reflect the attempt to rethink more generally the concept of security and its relationship to rights.

In Pabon v. Wright, the Second Circuit held that the Fourteenth Amendment right to refuse medical treatment contained a corollary right to the information necessary to make an informed decision. Plaintiff, William Pabon, was an inmate at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York. He named two groups of defendants: his doctors and nurses at Green Haven and his doctors at Dutchess Gastroenterologists, P.C..In October 1996, a laboratory test indicated that Plaintiff may have contracted Hepatitis C. The Green Haven doctors (...) referred Plaintiff to Dutchess for additional testing, where additional tests confirmed that Plaintiff had Hepatitis C. In July 1997, Plaintiff returned to Dutchess for additional evaluation, and the physicians told him that he must undergo a liver biopsy in order to receive treatment for his condition. (shrink)

A persistent paradox apparently infects disability civil rights claims. On the one hand, these rights claims are often understood to apply only to those who are sufficiently impaired in body or in mind to qualify for them because of the disadvantage they endure. On the other hand, asserting significant impairments threatens to undermine the plausibility of these claims as civil rights rather than as welfare for those who are dependent and in need of extra help. (...) Behind this paradox lies a type of categorical understanding of disability civil rights: that disability civil rights are only for those who fall into a category of disability and that this category should be defined in a particular way, in terms of disadvantaging disablement. In this article, I dispel this paradox by deploying a critical analysis of Elizabeth Barnes’s account of physical disability in her recent book, The Minority Body. In her book, Barnes makes the important critical point that disability is not “bad” difference. Instead, she argues that physical disability is a physical condition that the disability rights community is working to promote justice for. I argue that this account fails as a project of ameliorative social metaphysics because it fails to understand the role of impairment in the construction of disability antidiscrimination law. I also argue that her account risks privileging physical disability and is thus problematic as a starting place for examining disability justice. (shrink)

In this article we investigate how Latino immigrant farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States navigate United States Department of Agriculture programs, which necessitate standardizing farming practices and an acceptance of bureaucracy for participation. We show how Latino immigrant farmers’ agrarian norms and practices are at odds with the state’s requirement for agrarian standardization. This interview-based study builds on existing historical analyses of farmers of color in the United States, and the ways in which their farming practices and (...) racialized identities are often unseen by and illegible to the state. This disjuncture leads to the increased racial exclusion of immigrant farmers from USDA opportunities. Such exclusions impede the transition to a “new era of civil rights,” as has been proclaimed by USDA leadership. Although efforts to address institutionalized racism on a national level may be genuine, they have failed to acknowledge this schism between rural Latino immigrants and the state, thereby inhibiting a meaningful transition in the fields, and continuing a legacy of unequal access to agrarian opportunities for non-white immigrant farmers. (shrink)

I.WhatVintage ofCivilRights?In this paper I wish to compare and contrast two separate conceptions of civil rights and to argue that the older, more libertarian conception of the subject is preferable to the more widely accepted version used in the modern civil rights movement. The first conception of civil rights focuses on the question of individual capacity. The antithesis of a person with civil rights is the slave. But even if individuals are declared (...) free, they are nonetheless denied their civil rights if they are unable to own property, to enter into contracts, to make wills, to give evidence, and to sue (and be sued) in courts. With all these civil rights claims, the target of the individual grievance is the state; it has denied large classes of individuals the formal capacities that it recognized and protected in others. The Civil War was fought largely over slavery. In its aftermath, civil rights claims protecting individual capacity received explicit, if imperfect, statutory and constitutional protection. The postbellum protections didnotguarantee these rights in absolute fashion – that is, in a way that would not be susceptible to abridgment under any circumstances. Instead, civil rights were protected in what might be called a relative fashion: whatever rights of this sort were enjoyed by white citizens were to be enjoyed by the newly freed black citizens as well. (shrink)

The U.S. Civil Rights Movement (CRM) is a relevant K-6 topic to learn foundational concepts of social justice and participatory citizenship. Year after year, though, U.S. elementary school lessons typically focus on a Martin Luther King, Jr.-Rosa Parks centered narrative, adapted for character education. This qualitative inquiry invited 66 pre-service teachers to explore social justice education embedded at the core of existing K-6 historical topics. Examining pre-service teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and what and how they plan to teach their (...) future students revealed dated educational philosophies. They held limited content knowledge and sociopolitical critical thinking needed to teach the CRM's civic significance and were conflicted by wanting to both empower students and withhold information. This study describes actions designed to model replicable, justice-oriented lessons and help K-6 pre-service teachers reflect on pedagogical choices and ideologies they adopt. It also calls attention to the challenges of K-6 teacher education and school reform when teachers lack content knowledge and political/cultural awareness. (shrink)

Genetic knowledge is a civil right and a civil obligation. New genetic knowledge in individual health risk prediction and prevention and new pharmacogenetic opportunities for developing more efficacious individualized drugs broaden human and civil rights for better health and health care. Public health policy has yet to develop and provide programs in genetic information and consultation together with other health risk information and health literacy education. Data availability and genetic knowledge will make citizens more competent partners (...) in health risk management. As with all information, abuse and manipulation of genetic information cannot be excluded; but health education as an essential part of public health services will empower citizens to better care for their own and their families health. Existing cultural and ethical principles, laws and regulations need to be reviewed and modified in order to prevent and fight illegal or immoral use of genetic information. The promotion of genetic knowledge allows for a new model of social contract as health care contract between citizens, health care experts, and society. (shrink)

In accordance with environmental injustice, sometimes called environmental racism, minority communities are disproportionately subjected to a higher level of environmental risk than other segments of society. Growing concern over unequal environmental risk and mounting evidence of both racial and economic injustices have led to a grass-roots civil rights campaign called the environmental justice movement. The environmental ethics aspects of environmental injustice challenge narrow utilitarian views and promote Kantian rights and obligations. Nevertheless, an environmentaljustice value exists in all (...) ethical world views, although it involves a concept of equitable distribution of environmental protection that has been lacking in environmental ethics discussion. (shrink)

More than two decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the issues of racial discrimination and affirmative action are still matters of controversy. The fragile national consensus on civil rights policy has been increasingly fragmented by resistance and confusion in recent years, especially under the impact of the Reagan administration's efforts to change its direction dramatically. Similarly, since the mid-1960s, the women's rights movement has worked to end discrimination and bring about (...) greater equality for women in employment and public life. Yet, recent years have witnessed increased national ambivalence about these goals and how they should be achieved, especially on the issue of comparable worth. (shrink)

Hugh Murray's comments on the civil rights movement recall Marge Schott's badly received observations on the Nazi regime. Murray is also describing something that turned out badly but which he insists began well. Contrary to Murray and Dinesh D'Souza, whose book he reviews, the continuities of the Civil Rights Movement and affirmative action policies are more significant than its alleged turning points. Affirmative action as a practice goes back to the last year of the Johnson administration, (...) but some civil rights leaders supported it before. As early as 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., whom D'Souza elevates to a cultic figure, advocated the preferential treatment of blacks under a vastly expanded state apparatus. (shrink)

The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail.

The Supreme Court dismissed the Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance as an unconstitutional restriction of speech. The Court's dismissal itself violates the free speech of the proposers of the Ordinance. It is not possible for both pornographers to perform the speech act of making pornography and feminists to perform the speech act of proposing the Ordinance. I show that the speech act of proposing the Ordinance takes First Amendment precedence over the speech act of making pornography.

The Supreme Court dismissed the Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance as an unconstitutional restriction of speech. The Court's dismissal itself violates the free speech of the proposers of the Ordinance. It is not possible for both pornographers to perform the speech act of making pornography and feminists to perform the speech act of proposing the Ordinance. I show that the speech act of proposing the Ordinance takes First Amendment precedence over the speech act of making pornography.

For all the discussion and debate about civil rights, it is striking how little attention is given initially to the question of what civil rights are. There is no well-understood principle of inclusion or exclusion that defines the category. Nor is there an agreed list of civil rights, except perhaps a very short, avowedly nonexhaustive one, with rather imprecise entries. Yet, if the extension of the category of civil rights is uncertain, its (...) significance is not. All agree that it is a principal task of government to protect civil rights, so much so, indeed, that a failure to protect them usually is regarded as outweighing substantial achievements of other kinds. But a right does not count as a civil right just because it is valuable or valued. Some of the rights most often asserted as civil rights reflect practical interests of their possessors considerably less than other actual or potential rights not so identified. In the United States, familiar legal doctrine provides a shortcut to the specification of civil rights. They are whatever is embraced by the provisions of the federal Civil Rights Acts: the right to vote, fair housing, equal employment opportunity, and so forth. That path, however, is not adequate for the present purpose. For the most part, the statutes refer explicitly or implicitly to federal constitutional rights, and the collective reference to them as civil rights is unexplained. The bases of the constitutional rights are too various to be a reliable guide to an independently designated category of civil rights. (shrink)

The controversy that accompanied the publication and reprinting of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed as part of a 2005 editorial in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has been widely interpreted as yet another illustration of an ineliminable tension between multiculturalism and liberalism. Such an interpretation would have us believe that what is at issue in defending the cartoons is our commitment to civil liberties as a mainstay of liberal democracy. But is this really what is at issue? A closer examination (...) suggests that what is actually being defended in this case is not civil liberty but civil privilege. In particular, what is at issue is the privilege to exclude and define Muslims. (shrink)

Louis Brown discusses the mission of sharing the healing love of Christ, particularly in health care. He investigates how doing so requires that we respect the rights to life, conscience, and religious freedom as the foundations for human dignity in our health care system.

The Constitutional State, in its initial configuration as a liberal Constitutional State, recognised a series of basic individual rights as fundamental rights. Subsequently, in the second half of the 20 th century, social, economic and cultural rights were integrated into the Constitution, creating the social Constitutional State. However, although said group of rights are always mentioned as a compact group, or a package of rights, in fact the second recognition only took place, in the strictest (...) sense, with respect of social and economic rights, and, to a much lesser degree, in respect of cultural rights. Largely, the cultural rights are forgotten rights in the Constitutional State, but today our society is multicultural. This is a contradiction. The text provides the basis for a progressive recognition of cultural rights in the Constitutional State. Also, the text discusses the benefits for all if we consider these rights as rights of the person, that is, as rights of all persons and not only of minorities. (shrink)

In his 1963 response to an open letter from eight white religious leaders chastising his involvement in Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. explained that civil rights activists’ blatant breaking of some laws while obeying others was the result of two types of laws: just laws and unjust laws. Civil rights activists believed they had a legal responsibility to obey just laws and a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Today, new civil rights struggles continue (...) to challenge unjust laws that shred the fabric of democracy that America espouses. Drawing upon both the Civil Rights Movement and the contemporary Movement for Black Lives, this article argues that unjust laws and practices must be broken and challenged before a just society is established. It identifies four ethical strategies for social activism: collective work and responsibility, strategic timing and economic disconnection, political mobilization, and faithful perseverance. (shrink)