The argument is circular. It makes for good rhetoric, but is logically worthless. To recognise difficulties in the concept of non-discrimination, though, is not to answer the substantive questions about whether the age of consent should be lowered. It is simply to expose an inherent limitation in the use of the language of human rights when complex moral and social issues have to be decided. The appeal to rights is always at its most powerful when people feel that they have been oppressed or marginalised.
Rights act like trumps in a moral card game.
They are used to override opposition by the assertion of absolutes amid all the ifs and buts of actual decision-making. Sometimes this may be necessary, especially in the absence of proper democratic means of redress. But if presumed rights are allowed to displace the careful weighing of pros and cons, and if they rely for their effectiveness on faulty logic, they can pave the way for even worse decisions in the future. Back to Tablet home page.