Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? #5
It’s been over 2 weeks since we’ve looked at the justice course and with having me just finishing some assessments and there are more assessments to come, the justice course is a good gateway for me to debate and get my brain going without an immense amount of stress. Let’s recap: Locke argued about the role that consent played within a government and society, debating for the idea that as you have given your consent to join a government or society, you are bound to be obligated to take on a certain rule. Take the example Prof. Sandel gave, about the right for a sergeant to command you to run towards a cannon, if you were to be asked. Let’s build on from the idea of consent, in the examples of military conscription and motherhood, as per the lecture.
The Hybrid System
Prof. Sandel introduces the system implemented during The Civil War, in which men who were drafted to fight in the war could essentially pay money to other men (“substitutes”) to fight for them. Do we think it’s fair? Straight away, my answer is no! The first question that pops in mind is why be drafted and promise to fight for your country, just so you could use a sum, a number to buy your way out of it? To look at it another way, you (the drafted soldier) are almost putting a price tag on less privileged, people struggling financially because you’ll never know if they’re going to make it out alive and if they die, you have essentially put a price tag on their lives. Maybe I’m being dramatic, maybe I’m not.
It seems that I wasn’t the only person who thought so, with almost the entire lecture hall full of students agreeing that this hybrid system was unjust and immoral. Some discussed the action of putting a dollar value on less privileged individuals lives, which we know is difficult to do and is definitely worth more than 300 dollars. Some students in the hall believed that this seemed more like a volunteering act, it’s the people willingly giving up some of their rights to serve with the risks that comes with war. To that I’d argue, like a few students in the hall did as well, is that the less economically fortunate people didn’t have a choice. An overwhelming sense of forcefulness radiates from the system, due to the people acting out of necessity during that time, more than the volunteering army that we have in society today. Thinking more logically and with sympathy, the people enrolling into the army now are doing it out of feelings of patriotism and the idea of civic obligation, while those during the civil war, I’d imagine the economy to be on the brink of crumbling, people struggling to provide and hence has to sort of gamble their way through economic safety.
Who Owns the Baby?
To build onto the idea of consent and rights, Prof. Sandel introduces a real legal case in the 1980s, regarding the rights of a mother of a child. To give a bit of context, a lady called Mary Beth had agreed with a professional couple to be the surrogate mother in exchange for 10,000 dollars. However, after giving birth, Mary Beth decided that she wanted to keep the child. Upon ignoring the legal side of this issue, the moral aspect is, to me, very straightforward. The majority of students in the hall that had agreed for the pre-agreed contract to be enforced, a deal is a deal, right? It’s very clear to me, Mary Beth should have 100% agreed with all the terms of the contract before accepting the sum of money and becoming a surrogate mother, this whole process was long and carried an immense amount of weight to it, it’s impossible to sign an agreement, most often than not, give the right to be a mother away. It is no excuse for Mary Beth to suddenly change her mind.
Some people may disagree, arguing that Mary Beth never knew beforehand that she’d fall in love with the baby, who is supposedly a child she gave birth to, but to this I would continue to support my argument for which I believe this was no excuse, the terms of a contract should be clear as day and the possibility of loving the child you give birth to should’ve definitely been a factor of consideration. Not something to argue for upon the child being born. To add to this, Mary Beth gave birth to the child, made the contract under the agreement for an exchange of 10,000 dollars, notice how she took the money happily yet afterwards is protesting to keep the child? Not the best look. With this in mind, I can’t help but wonder, what is motherhood? Who is considered your mother?
By the Oxford Dictionary definition of a “mother”, fascinating results come up. One which describes “mother” as a verb says it is someone who “bring up (a child) with care and affection” while the other verb describes a mother as someone who “give birth to [a child]”. These two definitions are no doubt vastly different, a clear distinction that we can apply to our previous example. Mary Beth being the person who gives birth to the child, while the mother within the couple who sought help to help with infertility seem to be the one that’s to bring up the child, which one is correct? In the majority of cases, a mother figure is someone who is responsible for both giving birth and taking care, but for certain scenarios, I think the child gets to decide. In the case of Mary Beth, the mother who looked for a surrogate mother in the beginning should absolutely be the one taking care of the child, she never wanted this to happen, infertility to take over her, if not, she would have given birth herself! Highly suggest you all to check out the legal case of Baby M, Mary Beth was a crazy lady and the couple got what was rightfully theirs: Their child.
It feels good to be discussing controversial arguments again! It’s the type of brain workouts that doesn’t exhaust every last bit of your mind, but still gives it a nice exercise. I’m having my midterm break soon which means more time to focus on blogs and lectures, please look forward to them and I look forward to you all’s discussions in the comments below.
Thanks for reading, and see you all in a bit.
-Winnie 09/10/2022
