Letters to the Editor

Is health care more like a human right or a human need?

Is a human right an eternal gift freely given by Our Creator? Or is it something you can buy and sell? Life is a human right no one earns and can’t be bought and comes with the responsibility to care for its need for food, clothes, shelter. Unlike human needs, human rights allow for the use of force in its defense, not in its acquisition. I can defend my life from injury, but no one is permitted to use force to get food, even though we would all die without it. Can I walk into a restaurant with an empty stomach and expect it to be filled with food without paying for it? Of course not; this would violate another person’s right of property. Property is created by the work of human hands and the world’s natural resources. Dirt left on its own won’t grow much food, but the God-given talent of the farmer mixed with it does. Property is not limited to material things and includes one’s intellectual property, speech, free association, and practice of religion. No one can use force to redistribute the fruit of my labor, to silence me, to keep me from forming relationships, or to worship other than as I and my religion decide. As with all rights, property comes with the responsibility of caring for one’s self, one’s family, and one’s community. Knowing this, is health care more like a human right or a human need?

Daniel B. Bruzzini, Webster Groves, MO

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