Timothy C. May writes:
-- If someone makes a contract, formal or informal (with some caveats), to supply a dose of drugs, alcohol, whatever, at some specified time, then this is fine. But if no contract exists, not supplying the drugs is not interference in choice. (Is, for a example, a Mormon interfering in the rights of a friend by refusing to supply a drink to a visiting friend? Am I interfering in the choice of others by refusing to allow cigarette smoking in my home? Examples like this are easy to find.)
If you bring a child to someone's home, and you tell them "here are the kids' meds -- you'll give them to the kid on time, right?" and you say "No" right then, thats fine. However, your friend accepted custody of the medication and of the child, did not indicate that they had no intention of dispensing the child's medication on time, and in essense failed to comply with normal standards of behavior -- contractual behavior, as it were. It appears that you are trying very hard to retrofit this behavior into your theory of what's acceptable for people to do based on your personal distaste for a particular treatment -- a treatment you do not understand for a condition you do not understand, impacting a child that is not your own.
-- If someone claims there is an _implied_ contract in this case, this falls apart after the first "refusal" to supply the dose. That is, Vickie, the mother, is well aware that my friend is returning the Ritalins to her unused, in the kid's backpack.
I agree that the mother at that point understands what is going on and shouldn't be sending the child over. However, I'd say that as a social matter, the person refusing to give the child their medicine is not doing anyone a favor. "You see, my son, I'm demonstrating that I can be Holier than Thou by refusing to give your playmate the medication his parents instructed me to give him. Since I have a right not to do so, I can exercise that right and create stress and demonstrate how little regard I have for the way people choose to raise their own children. Someday you can follow in my footsteps."
It's always useful in discussing "rights," as Perry is doing,
I believe I was discussing a cognitive problem, actually, and not rights. The only right I discussed in detail was every person's right to tell you to mind your own business, just as you loudly tell everyone else. Perry