No, Health Care Really Isn’t A Human Right
But that’s an argument you hear the left make quite a bit. Most recently, state Senator Tony Fiebiger wrote in the Fargo Forum that health care is a “right, not a privilege.” According to something he’s calling the “Universal Declaration of Rights.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all human beings have the right to “medical care,” and this right must be respected without discrimination. As a member of the United Nations, our country has committed to protect the “right to health” as a signatory to the American Declaration on the Rights of Man. ...
This debate is about more than health care. It is about how we value our fellow Americans. Let’s reject a health care future for our children fueled by misinformation and fear. Let’s stand up tall for ourselves, those without a voice, and all our neighbors coast to coast. Let’s tell our representatives in Washington, D.C., that in the greatest country in the world, everyone deserves health care – because it is a human right, not a privilege.
The problem is that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and all the nonsense the United Nations routinely comes out with, aren’t American law. What is American law is the Constitution, which states nothing about health care. And the guiding principle of our country is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Note that statement doesn’t specifically guarantee happiness but rather your ability to pursue it.
The problem with a lot of liberals is that they seem to think that everything they want is a right, and that rights mean that other people have a responsibility to help you exercise that right. All rights mean is opportunity. Free speech means you have the opportunity to speak out, not that someone has to give you a platform to speak from. Free religion means you have a right to believe (or not believe) as you wish. Not that someone has to subsidize your beliefs.
Gun rights mean you have the opportunity to own guns. Not that people have to buy guns for you so you can exercise those rights.
Health care is not a right, but even if it were it still wouldn’t mean that the rest of society has the resopnsibility to provide it to you. You have the freedom to be prosperous and care for yourself.
