Friday, September 21, 2012

HBL-A0047 - Consent

...be it resolved that:

In issues of consent, the determining factor must be whether the subject Would have consented if they had the knowledge and mental faculty necessary to properly make that determination for themselves. However, the consent itself may be determined by proxy, by guardian, or by presumption or default.

ex: Should a mentally retarded person be forever consigned to a life of non-sexuality? Should anyone who becomes sexually active with them be held to be a criminal for violating their rights? They will never be capable of properly deciding the issue for themselves, yet they are sexual beings as much as anyone else and have the natural right to be sexually active.

A guardian is appointed for such people precisely to make those determinations in cases where the subject cannot decide for themselves.

This argument can be applied equally, and exactly, in the case of animals or children or people in temporary states of mental malfunction whether drunkenness, seizure, coma, etc.

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