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.
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