David A. Fennell
Healthcare & Our Natural Rights
October 29, 2009

I was tweeted a news story this weekend and read with absolute astonishment about a petition started by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich that aims to declare healthcare a civil right. Such a foolish endeavor reveals a profound misunderstanding as to our founding documents and the nature of our human rights.

The Honorable Mr. Kucinich is not alone in this, nor is it something confined to the progressive left. He can get away with this because we have forgotten our history and don’t look to the Founding Fathers to understand why things are the way they are. People of all political backgrounds misunderstand what’s really at play here. There are three concepts to address: the nature of human (or civil) rights; the nature of healthcare; and the real impracticality of declaring healthcare a civil right. I know I am going to lose some of you along the way but I will ask you to bear with me as this conversation will benefit everyone in the end.

First, let us consider the nature of our human rights. Many would argue that the source of these rights is the federal government. If that is the case then “what the government giveth the government can taketh away.” This is clearly not the case or our other rights would have been abandoned long ago. Others might argue that the source of our rights is the Constitution – that too would be a mistake. The Constitution enumerates and defines some of our human rights, but it does not create them. What it does create is the framework and a government that, by law, must protect them.

Our search for the source of our human rights leads us to the Declaration of Independence, whose second paragraph clearly and convincingly tells us, “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.” Our unalienable (cannot be denied) human rights are endowed to us by our creator at birth – meaning nature’s God as understood by the Founders. Human rights, civil or otherwise, are God-given, and cannot be created or denied by government. Government’s only role in our rights is to protect them. The Declaration goes on to state that “among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This clearly implies that among those there are others. Those others are the rights spelled out in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights. Thus our rights, by definition, come from God – not the Honorable Dennis Kucinich or any other body politic. He can petition all he wants – even put it on paper – but it will not change that which already is. We can pass a law stating that a horse is really a cow, but that will do little to change the fact that it is still a horse and only anger it when you try to milk it.

Which brings us to the second point: unlike horses, cows and healthcare, our rights are not tangible commodities that can be bought and sold. As God-given, they are concepts and actions. They identify the things I can do that the government cannot prevent me from doing; such as our freedom to speak, worship, assemble and protect ourselves. Healthcare is a commodity – not a right to be granted by an overreaching government. It would be the only right that must be purchased in terms of services, equipment and products (e.g. medication) for its own ends. The closest existing rights we have relating to a commodity or service are our right to own firearms as stipulated in the Second Amendment, and our right to a government provided attorney as interpreted by the Sixth Amendment. Both of these stem not from our right to hunt, target shoot or file law suits, but from that God-given human right to defend ourselves against those who would deprive us of our life, liberty or property, as well as protect us from unjust persecution. If healthcare is defined as a civil right that must be paid for or provided by government, then I contend that there is now precedence for the government to provide each person in the United States with a functioning firearm. Of course this is patently ridiculous. Given our current understanding what it means is that government cannot prevent anyone (without due process) from possessing a firearm. As such the best the petition could hope for is that the government cannot prevent anyone from purchasing healthcare – which is pretty much how it works now.

Lastly, let us assume that healthcare is a hypothetical civil right to be provided by the government. This right then must be extended to all persons within our borders. Because rights are unalienable, self-evident and granted by God, they must therefore be universal within the jurisdiction of the United States. This includes all aliens (illegal and otherwise), and the old and infirm (regardless of proximity to death). The government would be bound by law to ensure that all efforts are taken to save all people, regardless of race, creed, religion or age, because not making that effort would be an unlawful denial of life (as in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness). Never mind that this runs counter to the Obama administration’s plan to limit much of the unnecessary costs in care provided to the elderly, their stated goal to not provide care to illegal aliens or that it will require care for living victims of botched abortions, who earn their rights at birth (partial or not) each of whom could claim that the government violated their civil rights. As a civil right one might also question if it could be taxed (another administration desire) and whether the government would be obligated to provide the best possible care to every human within its jurisdiction for every ailment ranging from the tiniest boo-boo (ever wonder what a government kiss would be like?) to the most complex of brain surgeries.

Given that the average (the best would be far too costly) healthcare plan costs $6881 per year and you multiply that by 309,000,000 Americans (not including illegals) then you are looking at a bill to the tune of just over $2 trillion per year – not “about” a trillion over ten years. Even if the President is successful in cutting those costs in half, 1 trillion a year is just as unsustainable as any other number with ten digits. As a civil right the impracticality of this becomes undeniably self-evident.