Health care is a human right, just like free speech

In response to the article ‘Is health care a right?’ (ODE, 11/4), I believe so. A right is not granted by anyone else; you’re born with it, its yours. We’re born with the right to free speech. As Utah Phillips sang, “The state can’t give you free speech, and the state can’t take it away.”

The state can kill you and silence you, but that doesn’t take away your right to speak or live. Similarly, one can fall ill, get a sore throat or mono and lose the ability to speak. The state could cut out your vocal cords. None of these actions, however, take away your rights, your essential freedom to speak out. Health is a right, facing many of the same threats and infringements; if not cared for one’s health will deteriorate.

Your life is yours. People can choose to eat fast food, junk food and drink chemicals; people can also choose to say ridiculous things, that does not remove one’s right to speak, nor be healthy. Anyone can lose their faculties and consequently lose their ability to speak or their ability to live. But does not change one’s rights initially.

We have so fundamentally assumed the right of health that we’ve ignored it. The debate itself is absurd and disgusting; of course it’s a human right, to say otherwise is to imply a complete disregard of human life. We build parks and amphitheaters; let’s also build hospitals.

opinion@dailyemerald.com

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4 comments

ConfusedAsAlways

Tue Nov 10 2009 16:12

"Therefore all other rights are based upon being alive"

Also, am I to take this as a sign that you've joined the pro-life camp?

ConfusedAsAlways

Tue Nov 10 2009 16:09

"Health itself if a right"

So babies who're born with diseases are being denied their rights?

Your name

Tue Nov 10 2009 15:36

What I meant by this is that the vast majority are born and live, mostly healthy lives. Health itself if a right, as a society we ought to take care of our citizens, because healthcare facilitates the right to be healthy. The treatment of ills however is a luxury, that is why I did not make the argument that healthcare, is a right. However without health, an individual is dead and this in fact makes all other rights meaningless. You cannot for instance, speak out if one is dead. Therefore all other rights are based upon being alive, this is what is meant by assuming the right of health. It underlies all other rights.

One can wander through the jungle and shout one's self hoarse and lose the ability to speak, not the right. Likewise one can wander through a jungle, contract a disease through a bug bite, but that does not take away ones right to be healthy.

I maintain that health is a right, without which no other right can exist.

If I had meant to talk about healthcare, I would have talked about healthcare. The idea of health as a right seems to have given rise to some confusion about its own nature, that I found more pressing than healthcare, for the necessity of healthcare is useless without the understanding of right to one's health.

BadPersonNoDoubt

Mon Nov 9 2009 21:53

"A right is not granted by anyone else; you’re born with it, its yours."

Unfortunately for the rest of Cims' otherwise confused attempt at reasoning, the above quote is exactly correct. If, hypothetically speaking, Cims G were out in the desert by himself, he could babble to himself all day long -- the right to free speech is derived from the fact that it cannot be granted, it can only be taken away.

Conversely, if Cims G is traipsing about in the forest by himself, from whence does his supposed "right" to health care derive? Certainly not from nature, which watches millions of organisms just like Cims G die of disease, drown, and get devoured by predators every single day.

Unlike free speech, which is a natural product of being alive, health care (and let's be honest here, Cims G is talking about "health insurance") must be provided by someone else. "Health care" (or "health insurance") does not follow naturally from the simple act of being born; it is a concept invented by humans.

Mr. Cims declares that "of course [health care is] a human right." Unfortunately, he seems unaware that he is making a mere political statement, not a logical one.

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