[lit-ideas] Re: Paying taxes for months on end
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 14:59:50 -0700
In response to Brian's assertion that there was no right to health care,
I wrote, quoting the Preamble to the Constitution:
>>*We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
>>equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
>>Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
>>Happiness[Declaration of Independence].
I then observed that there were no footnotes, parenthetical
qualifications or escape clauses here, so that if one believes there is
a right to life, one doesn't believe that it exists 'sometimes,' 'in
some circumstances,' or for us but not for them, for me but not for you.
*I went on to argue that if there is a right to life, then there
must also be a right to the preservation and maintenance of life, for a
right to something that one has no right to preserve is no right at all:
It is like having 'the right' to Alpha Centauri, or the wind.
*Let me repeat what I wrote yesterday: if people have a right to life
but do not have the right to treatment that would preserve their lives
(so that only ‘healthy’ people have a right to life), then the right to
life itself is a fraud and a sham.
You have not addressed this argument, and pretend not to see how a right
to health (a right to 'be healthy') follows directly from a right to
life. Instead, you say, in response to my having said that there are no
qualifications in the text regarding a right to life, that
> We should define this first because I suspect we wouldn't use it in
> the same way.
It isn't at all clear what 'it' refers to, unless it refers to the word
'life.' I think you know perfectly well what life is in this context,
and that you can understand the use of the word in such expressions as
'A dozen lives were lost in the recent flood,' 'Virginia Woolf took her
own life,' and 'I regret that I have but one life to give form my
country. (Surely, he doesn't want a mere biological account of life.)
The Founding Fathers did not have some esoteric and novel 'definition'
of life.
You say further:
> This clause is about moral ownership.
It is my turn to wonder what is meant. What work does the word 'moral'
do in the expression 'moral ownership'?
And:
> we are created (life)
What does this mean? That we have a right to life, assumes that we
already have lives, whether we were created or appeared out of thin air.
That is, that we have a right to life does not simply mean that we were
created; it could not, for unless we came into being somehow we could
not be alive and the expression 'right to life,' would be nonsense.
Moreover, mere creation bestows no 'right' on a thing to continue to
exist, however much we think the Parthenon ought to be preserved.
> [we are] free (liberty) to pursue our lives as we see fit;
> that no one can lay moral claim to these things because they are not
> given of the state, as a privilege of government, but of the Creator
> of us all, thereby inalienable (absolute).
The Preamble says that we are endowed by 'our Creator' with certain
'unalienable' rights, the right to life among them. That they are
inalienable' does not mean that they are 'absolute'; it means that one
cannot give them up or bargain them away, that, e.g., one cannot sell
oneself into slavery. But in any case, if we were endowed with these
rights by a Creator, this would not entail that the state could not
enforce them—for they are not self-enforcing—so that even if they were
not given by the state, it is up to the state to preserve them, for some
foolish people are always trying to deprive others of their inalienable
rights, just as other foolish people often try to give them up.
> Given the way you are using it, what do you think of abortion vis a vis
> your interpretation?
My interpretation of what? I lay out the plain facts, and you call it
'an interpretation.' Strange. What I think of abortion (do you expect a
simple answer?) is irrelevant to anything I've said about how a right to
the preservation of life follows from the right to life. Let me though
suggest this to you. Babies born prematurely, 'preemies,' usually
require expensive, prolonged, and highly sophisticated medical care (as
do babies born with serious physical defects). It would be absurd to
imagine that they should be given such treatment even though they had no
right to life. It would be equally absurd, in fact it would be appalling
if premature babies were thrown out into the street or sent home with a
few aspirin and the best wishes of all concerned, just in case their
parents could not pay for the needed treatment. Here there would seem to
be a mild dilemma for those opposed to abortion in all circumstances: if
from the fact that every embryo, fetus, or cluster of (human) cells has
a right to life, should it not follow that premature infants, whom I
should think also have this right, are kept alive and treated not
because they are interesting biological specimens, but because their
right to treatment (health care) derives from their right to life? If
their care does not derive from this prior right, what is the point of
it? One cannot consistently hold that human beings have a right to life
but no right of access to the means of preserving it, i.e., to the
means of maintaining that right.
What I would really like to find is some response to the argument I gave
in the paragraphs marked asterisks above. I did not mean for the rest of
this to distract you from addressing that.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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