MY RIGHT TO CHOOSE - MY RIGHT TO CHOOSE

MY RIGHT TO CHOOSE

Protecting my Basic Human Right of Freedom of Choice

Stes de Necker

The freedom of choice

Imagine going out for dinner and ordering a steak only to have the waiter tell you that you may not have it, that you must have fish instead. How would you feel?

The choice between a steak and fish may be a fairly benign one, but it demonstrates a very important characteristic of human nature: we don't like to be forced into decisions we're capable of making for ourselves.

We resist compulsion. Even when we face more serious decisions, ones with moral implications, it is important that we can choose for ourselves.

Disregard and contempt for this very important basic human right, have resulted in hordes of, not only unjust and unlawful acts, but also in a myriad of human rights abuses, suffering, marginalization, segregation and human tragedy. 

 

It is important to note however, that we must be very careful not to trample on another person’s rights, while we are in pursuit of our own. Everyone has the right to their own opinion and beliefs.

While we are "accountable" for our choices, there will always be consequences for those choices, both good and bad.

So while we are pursuing the protection of, what we believe are our inalienable right to choose and to do something in this regard, we must also respect the right of others not to do anything!

Doing nothing is a choice in itself, albeit not a very good one.

Neither is letting other people, society or political institutions make decisions for us. For example, just because many films portray intimacy before marriage as perfectly acceptable, doesn’t mean it is generally acceptable.

Our character will be developed and refined when we make choices based on what’s morally right despite the prevailing wisdom there really is much right and wrong in the world.

Truth isn’t relative and sin isn’t just some unenlightened person’s "value judgment.

Every year, hundreds of young men and women fall in love in India. They defy their parents, caste and religious considerations and traditions. Many of them elope and get married; some others also give in to family pressures and fall back into traditionally more acceptable roles.

The Bollywood film industry thrives on such stories. We have laughed and cried with many of these couples on our television screens.

The Supreme Court of India has however repeatedly come to the protection and aid of just such couples.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 21.6 million women worldwide undergo unsafe abortion procedures every year.

Unsafe abortion is defined as a procedure carried out by unskilled practitioners or conducted in an environment that lacks the minimal medical standards, or both. These procedures cause an average of 47,000 deaths each year - at least 13% of all maternal deaths - and result in serious complications or disability for millions more women, particularly in the developing world.

Mormons are encouraged to stand up for what they believe, regardless of prevailing opinion.

It may not be easy, popular, or fun. Sometimes taking a stand means subjecting yourself to ridicule, slander or even physical abuse.

In this kind of situation, every person should be able to rely on the institution and protection of his/her right to freedom of choice.  

Unfortunately this is not the case in the world we live in at the moment!

The inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all people of the human family, is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.

This basic Human Right should be protected much more vigorously as an inalienable legal right in national and international law.

The freedom of choice is an inalienable fundamental right to which every  person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being, regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status.

Claims for Fundamental Freedom of Choice in Value Participation

The overriding importance of freedom of choice in the shaping and sharing of all values is fortunately beginning to be articulated and established as authoritative general community expectation in a wide range of formal expressions at both the transnational and national levels.

The most important development in this regard is the Charter of International Basic Human Rights of the United Nations.

The Charter reaffirms "faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women,"and pledges to "promote social progress and better standards of life and larger freedom" and to "employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples."

Comparable regional expression is also found in the preamble of the American Convention on Human Rights which states that , "the essential rights of man are not derived from one's being a national of a certain State, but are based upon attributes of the human personality."

The European Convention on Human Rights expresses the profound belief in those Fundamental Freedoms which are the foundation of justice and peace in the world and are best maintained, on the one hand by an effective political democracy, and on the other by a common understanding and observance of the Human Rights upon which they depend.

In a more recent summation, the Proclamation of Teheran, adopted at the International Conference on Human Rights in 1968, solemnly reaffirmed that “The primary aim of the United Nations in the sphere of human rights, is the achievement by each individual of the maximum freedom and dignity”

Every country should grant each individual, irrespective of race, language, religion or political belief, freedom of choice and expression, of information, of conscience and of religion, as well as the right to participate in the political, economic, cultural and social life of his country.

The basic thrust in global community expectations toward protecting individual freedom of choice in all value processes is greatly fortified by the long history of developments within the constitutive processes of the different national communities. The continued insistence by so many peoples in different communities and cultures that authority can rightfully come only from the people is a direct expression of demand for freedom of choice in the power processes that affect all other processes.

It is this demand for freedom of choice, secure from arbitrary coercion, which underlies the whole 

historic panorama of constitutional reforms beginning with Greek and Roman liberalism and extending through the English, American, French, and Russian revolutions to the present era of the emancipation of former colonial peoples.