tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974663230424208222.post1359699992801004288..comments2023-09-24T01:24:58.450-07:00Comments on Adventures in Health: Health is structured by povertyjshafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09881006270574519837noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974663230424208222.post-41954193805985872662008-10-20T00:47:00.000-07:002008-10-20T00:47:00.000-07:00Hi Maggie,Thank you so much for taking a look at m...Hi Maggie,<BR/><BR/>Thank you so much for taking a look at my blog! It has been fun to get to learn how to use this platform to discuss the important issue of global health equity and role students can play in the solution.<BR/><BR/>I completely agree with you that those of us who have benefited directly from the unjust and unfair social order in which we live, have a moral obligation to provide basic life-sustaining services to those less fortunate. But, using the language of "moral obligation" just seems a little flaky to me. <BR/><BR/>Why do we have rights in the first place? Our Bill of Rights was created based on the realization that individuals cannot guarantee that our collective moral obligations are upheld. They realized that by using the democratic process to write the rights into law - by making our social contract explicit - they were indeed providing the only way that things that we value as essential (aka rights) could be guaranteed. <BR/><BR/>By refusing to discuss health as a fundamental human right, you are essentially throwing the moral obligation ball into the "individual perspective" court. In our society, unless something is written explicitly as law, individuals can choose how to act. If access to health care is not an explicit right, then I may choose whether or not to subscribe to subjective "morality" of providing health care. That is the beauty of the United States: that we have the freedom to have our own moral tenets. The things that bind us as a society are our laws which hopefully and ideally reflect some kind of collective definition of "right" and "wrong".<BR/><BR/>Finally, our nation has a strong tradition of individualism and competition. Unfortunately, we lack deep sense of national solidarity, especially with regards to social and economic goods. I think that if our goal is to honestly try to create the most just society, where all people have the ability to live healthfully, it is foolish to rely on the subjective language of moral obligations. Instead, we must adopt rights language to describe health because it is the only pragmatic way, in our society, to make sure that our moral obligations are upheld to one another.jshafferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09881006270574519837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974663230424208222.post-16965328869990539202008-10-16T19:56:00.000-07:002008-10-16T19:56:00.000-07:00First, thanks very much for addressing the importa...First, thanks very much for <BR/>addressing the importance of poverty.<BR/><BR/>On the question of healthcare as a "right"--I have written that I prefer to talk about healthcare as a moral obligation that we owe to each other in a civilized society.<BR/><BR/>The language of "rights" tends to look at healthcare from an individual perspective: "I and my family have a Right to heatlhcare."<BR/><BR/>I prefer to look at it as something that we, as a society, owe to each other--becuase we recognize each other as equals, and equally human This means looking at the problem collectively. <BR/><BR/>It's not about "me and my family" --it's about "us". <BR/><BR/>And finally, while I am not at all religous, I think that our "moral obligations" to each other are far more powerful than our individual "rights."<BR/><BR/>Rights are defined by man-made laws, and can change with changing political times. (For example, the right to bear arms.)<BR/><BR/> . Moral obligations are defined by "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and do not change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com