# What's the next "rights" movement? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477 "2004-02-10T17:32:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/41 "2004-02-11T18:24:46Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > I’m not sure if I’m being whooshed. First, how many politicians do you really think are going to fish for votes by standing up for convicted criminals? That’s not exactly a surefire campaign winner there. > > Second, the whole point is that ex-felons CAN’T vote; if this becomes an issue, it’ll have to be non-ex-felons who support it. > > Daniel Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Nobody is going to stand up for convicted criminals, which is one reason why the movement will never get started. The only people who might would be politicians who think that there are lots of ex-felons who will vote for them if their rights are restored. Since ex-felons are hardly clamoring to vote, there will be no constituency to push for this, no benefit to be gained from it, and therefore no politicians to try to get it passed. In essence, nobody cares, and nobody stands to gain, which is why I don’t think ex-felons rights is a movement with a future. Please note that I am not arguing either for or against the idea, just saying that I think it is not likely to get much traction. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/42 "2004-02-11T21:13:46Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > In essence, nobody cares, and nobody stands to gain, which is why I don’t think ex-felons rights is a movement with a future. I’m not sure you’re right about this. [Check out the NAACP’s page on reenfranchisement](http://www.naacp.org/work/voter/reenfranchisement.shtml). Because ex-felons are disproportionately black, organizations that work for the rights of minorities are taking this issue up. I could see this being an issue that other progressive groups would get on board with. I could even see some libertarian groups getting behind it, and possibly even some religious-based groups that work toward getting folks back on their feet (as I said, I’d think that encouraging ex-felons to vote could only have a positive effect on recidivism). But whether the movement will take off – that’s pure speculation. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/43 "2004-02-11T22:20:17Z")
> [@](#): > > I would agree: what rights don’t we have? Women tend to win custody in divorce cases, but I can’t think of anything else. Again, hard to get a movement behind that. Reproductive rights. Here are a few examples: - A man is forced to continue paying child support even though DNA test show he is not the father of his girlfriend’s child. - A couple is forced to pay 13 years of back child support–plus court costs–to a woman with whom the husband had a fling with 14 years erlier. - A man permanently loses his parental rights on the ground that he did not “support” his girlfriend while she was pregnant. - A couple who has since married loses their parental rights after the woman puts the baby up for adoption having conceled her pregnancy from the man or lied about its outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/44 "2004-02-11T22:37:25Z")
Weighing in on age of consent thingy… I think a review of court cases in the past which have used child witnesses (most especially the pre-school molestation allegation craze of two decades ago) show that a young, pre-pubescent child can have their perceptions of reality altered very easily by adults. They can be made to believe many things, such as molestation which did not in fact occur, which makes their ability to state truths unreliable at best. If they can not state or even see the truth, their ability to consent also weakens significantly. When such irreperable harm is the consequence of abusive paedophilia (I know a woman age 29 still suffering issues around it), I feel it’s much better to err on the side of caution until new facts arise. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/45 "2004-02-11T22:53:55Z")
Here’s a crazy thought: How about simple, individual rights as envisioned by the framers of the constitution? Rights not contingent on being the member of any group, but simply arising from the fact that you are a citizen of the age of majority who has not commited a crime that would abrogate the retention of some specific rights. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/46 "2004-02-12T03:04:44Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > A possible right’s movement that I’d not considered until recently: felons’ rights. That’s another good one. And it’s not just about voting - there was a front page article in my local newspaper a few days ago about ex-cons working in the real estate business. Apparently it’s scandalous for someone who has been released from jail to have a job in this particular field. (What are they supposed to do, work at McDonald’s for the rest of their lives?) ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/47 "2004-02-12T04:12:11Z")
Health Care Rights. I know that emergency rooms must take all comers and some public hospitals are specifically set up to treat those unable to pay, but I don’t think there is any set of rights to health care…the closest we come is laws about what insurers must provide and who is eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477/48 "2004-02-12T21:18:19Z")
[brings out perennial soapbox] What about schizzy rights? The rights of people, regardless of apparent mental condition and/or alleged “illness of the mind” (whatever the fuck that really means), to be constrained only by the same laws and rules to which everyone else is subject? In other words – • A single standard as mechanism for determining that a person is too “out of it” to make their own decisions. Whether it’s your rich Aunt Polly who at 89 is too impaired by Alzheimer’s to manage her own affairs, or Susie the unfortunate comatose victim of botched anesthesia in the operating room, or your schizophrenic roommate Charles who starts burning all his currency because he thinks he’s Jesus Christ. And this one standard should involve an adversarial hearing in which people get to argue in favor of retaining their rights, and the burden of proof should be on those parties alleging incompetence – lest greedy nephew Percy have rich Aunt Polly locked up so he can have at her resources. _And_ there should be a built-in reversability, such that any person who was previously incompetent but recovers can easily demonstrate nonimpaired decision-making capacity and invalidate any guardianship arrangements. • Outside of the mechanisms of that single standard, no forced treatment and no involuntary incarceration for bipolar people, schizophrenics, depressives, or bearers of other psychiatric labels. Or anyone else who has not committed an arrestible crime. We’re just the “differently minded” among you, dig? 😉 And some of us really like the way we are and do not want to be “cured”. * * * comments on other nominations – re: paedophilia, the tone of the argument may nominally be “the right of children to their own sexuality”, but the underlying focus is pretty transparently “the right of paedophilic adults to have sex with children”. If we’re going to enact children’s right to consent to sex, it would have to be part of a larger package of children’s liberation in general (otherwise the power differential makes consent problematic. it probably unavoidably is anyhow, but if it were ever not to be, children’s sexual lib couldn’t be granted without children’s general emancipation, which in turn would require reshaping laws that apply to every emancipated person). The first place I would expect any widespread acceptance of children’s rights to their own sexuality would be _with each other_, i.e., with someone within 85% of their own age. And since it would be damnably hard to weed out incidental adult participation (encouragement, facilitation, etc) or adult prurient interests, probably even that would pretty much necessitate a general children’s liberation. Effectively the end of the legal status of “childhood”. re: incest, if we’re talking about adult brother-sister or cousin-cousin, I could see legal barriers to this falling pretty quickly and suddenly. With the exception of genetic risks w/regards to reproduction, it’s a victimless “crime” and there’s no justifiable reason to prohibit it. As for parent-child incest, I’m under the impression that most of it originated in paedophilia (so see above) – can anyone name or reference a case where adult child and their parent became romantically involved without prior sexual-romantic connections that started back when the child was a child? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-rights-movement/228477.md?page=2)