Argumentative Essay On Right To Privacy

Although the right to privacy has been used to sway the outcome of many U.S court cases, including the famous Supreme Court ruling of Roe vs. Wade, there is still some debate over how the “right to privacy” should be viewed. For example both Judith Jarvis Thompson, and James Rachels agree that the right to privacy is indeed a right that is bestowed upon citizens, however their perception of how one is granted this right is quite different. Judith Jarvis Thompson sees the right of privacy as something that can be compared to that of the right to our property (Vaughn 160). In her view she explains that the right to privacy can be seen as the “idea that our bodies are ours and [therefore] we have the same rights with respect to them that we have with respect to our other possessions” (Vaughn 160). This logic does in fact make sense to me. The idea that I own my body and therefore I have a right to it, a right to make decisions about it, just as I would have the right to own and drive my car. For example, someone would be breaking my right to privacy if they were to grab my cell phone and

In fact he criticizes this view by stating that “the kind of interest we have in controlling who looks at what parts of our bodies is different from the interest we have in our cars or pens” (Vaughn 160). Instead Rachels believes that the right to privacy has to deal with our daily social interactions. Whereas Thompson argues that one is granted the right to privacy due to the fact that they have ownership over their body, Rachels states that “privacy is necessary if we are to maintain the variety of social relationships with other people that we want to have” (Vaughn 157). This means that we have these relationships with others, whether this is in the form of teacher and student, or between co-workers, due to the fact that we have the right to withhold things about