Healthcare is NOT a basic human right.

Nurses Activism

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If one were to read the Constitution one would realize that the Constitution does not grant anyone freedoms, liberties, or rights. The Constitution only protects freedoms, liberties, and rights from transgressions on part of the government. A right is something that is inherent to the individual, comes from that individual, and is maintained by the individual. You are born with such rights like the right to speak freely, the only thing that can be done to that right is to have it infringed. No one can grant a right to another, only limit or impede the exercise of that right.

Healthcare is a human invention that does not exist in the natural environment. Only through the work of others and through the taking of resources from one party and giving to another does healthcare exist. You cannot force someone to give effort and resources to another and call that a right. In the absence of human intervention the individual would live their lives and succumb to the natural forces which would act upon their bodies.

Do I think we should provide preventative care and basic primary care? Sure. Do I think that we can? Maybe. Do I think that healthcare is a basic human right? Absolutely not.

Specializes in Critical Care.

I think the US is already at the point where people will do what we did to Britain in 1776. Too bad there is no nice uninhabited land left on earth to go start a fresh nation... lol

Specializes in Emergency.
I think the US is already at the point where people will do what we did to Britain in 1776. Too bad there is no nice uninhabited land left on earth to go start a fresh nation... lol

You mean to go to and slaughter the indigenous population??? Oh wait...aren't we doing that in the middle east?

Specializes in Dialysis.
Great!!! But remember these folks that tout the constitution as the "ultimate word" seem to conveniently forget that it was essentially created by hypocrites for hypocrites that really never worked a hard day in their lives...remember...they had slaves to do it all for them...

How incredibly ignorant you are of American history. Try reading a little more than Howard Zinn.

Specializes in Critical Care.
You mean to go to and slaughter the indigenous population??? Oh wait...aren't we doing that in the middle east?

gee your wit is just great.

i should have covered that.... no. i meant actually uninhabited.

Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.

If healtcare is a right, the COPDer who smokes 2 packs a day comes to the hospital and gets a weeks worth of free care. We fix him up then send him home to his third floor apt without AC, in 100 degree heat. Is air conditioning a right? He can't survive without it. Do we pay for the AC unit and the electricity? Or do we just cycle him through the hospital every other day during the summer. Do we provide him with a cell phone, so he can call the ambulance to take him to the hospital because he can't survive in an apt without air conditioning?

It's his right to smoke. We can't stop that. Should we take that right from him so he can enjoy the right to free health care? Or should he have the right to both? Does one cancel the other?

My head spins when I read threads like this.

At first I agree with one side, then the other. One poster will type something so smart and profound I just think THATS IT!! Until I get to the next person who posts something equally smart and profound...on the other side of the issue.

I will agree with whoever posted that a persons rights are whatever the society they live in decide it is.

Specializes in Emergency.
How incredibly ignorant you are of American history. Try reading a little more than Howard Zinn.

Perhaps you might do the same...Where did you get your "definition" of said history?

Specializes in Emergency.
gee your wit is just great.

i should have covered that.... no. i meant actually uninhabited.

Yes , yes ...sorry...I was caught up in so much wittyretortism....

Specializes in Dialysis.
Perhaps you might do the same...Where did you get your "definition" of said history?

Are you serious? Not that it really matters but I majored in American labor history at the Univ of Minnesota before I became a nurse and your arguments wouldn't pass muster in any class I have participated in except for a few laughs. Every class I took had a reading list that had me spending hours in the "stacks" at U of M looking at both original source material and what current historians wrote. You really do need to read more unless, as I suspect, your mind is made up. Start with Eric Foner and then read twenty more authors and maybe you'll have something more than polemics.

You've got to ask yourself: Why is it considered a basic human right to bear arms, but it's not considered a basic human right to receive healthcare? One has to do with your vitals, something a part of you and vital to life, and another has to do with a piece of cold metal. But the latter's a right and the former is up for debate.

Maslow's hierarchy?

Specializes in Emergency.
Are you serious? Not that it really matters but I majored in American labor history at the Univ of Minnesota before I became a nurse and your arguments wouldn't pass muster in any class I have participated in except for a few laughs. Every class I took had a reading list that had me spending hours in the "stacks" at U of M looking at both original source material and what current historians wrote. You really do need to read more unless, as I suspect, your mind is made up. Start with Eric Foner and then read twenty more authors and maybe you'll have something more than polemics.

So what particularly do you feel lacks "muster" please expound...it must "matter" if you are consigning me to nothing more than a polemic response...

Perhaps you might do the same...Where did you get your "definition" of said history?

Apparently not from a historical revisionist.

From the UN:

What are human rights?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.

Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law , general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.

United Nations Fact Sheet: The Right to Health

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Factsheet31.pdf

EXCERPT

Key aspects of the right to health

• The right to health is an inclusive right. We frequently associate the right to health with access to health care and the building of hospitals. This is correct, but the right to health extends further. It includes a wide range of factors that can help us lead a healthy life. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the body responsible for monitoring the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, calls these the “underlying determinants of health”. They include:

Ø Safe drinking water and adequate sanitation;

Ø Safe food;

Ø Adequate nutrition and housing;

Ø Healthy working and environmental conditions;

Ø Health-related education and information;

Ø Gender equality.

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