# Pope calls health care an "Inalienable Right". What's the right-wing spin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 19, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262 "2010-11-19T20:34:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/201 "2010-12-06T23:36:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Abstinence works better than any other method, _if it’s actually used_. It has in common with every other method that it doesn’t work if you don’t use it. Is it easier/more likely to be used than a condom? If not than a wrench that never gets used isn’t a very useful wrench. Which method would a horny couple (remember hormones are a normal human thing, and ultimately the fault of whatever created humans) be more likely to use a condom, or abstinence? Plus I think abstinence only types really don’t understand the nature of people at all. Consider the phrase “one thing lead to another” which means an escalating feed back loop where one slightly intimate act produced pleasure which made a slightly more intimate act seem okay, and so fourth so that a kiss leads to some dude squirting man gravy all over the pink cave amid moans that’d wake the dead. Now abstinence only types would cluck their judgmentle throats, and wag their fingers about it getting that far, but they’d ignore a fundamental reality about human nature. We’re genetically closest to [bonobo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Sexual_social_behavior)s. The mating urge is an instinct that clouds reason so that sticking it in can seem like an urgent matter and “what about future I mean what are the chances? just this once is okay.”? Now you might say that logic is dumb, and I’d agree, even in the heat of passion, but you’re basically arguing to leave dumb people to unintentionally reproduce while smarter people don’t. According to everything we know about science, what happens to a trait that discourages reproduction? I say better dumb people and smart people both have tools, that they’ll use, to control fertility and reproduce as a choice, not an accident. Jesus wants children to grow up in healthy stable families who are at a point they can properly provided for their kids, yea? further I submit that if “sex is a sin. Sins are forgiven. So stick it in.”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/202 "2010-12-06T23:54:51Z")
Further I submit that hormones are strongest, and cloud judgment the most, when people have the least amount of experience to deal with them: teens and early adult hood. Further the inherent naivety of youth doesn’t help this. Who’s fault is design that if you attribute humans as created beings? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/203 "2010-12-07T12:43:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Abstinence works better than any other method, _if it’s actually used_. It has in common with every other method that it doesn’t work if you don’t use it. You are right, but human’s have a sex drive for a reason,and very few people have that low of a sex drive.For the ones who abstain it may be easy, but I know of a lot of people in bad marriages, because of it’s use. Abstinence is the most un-natural Method of birth control! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/204 "2010-12-08T00:07:34Z")
I never said it was natural. No method of birth control is natural. The commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” isn’t just written in a book; it’s coded into our genes by billions of years of evolution. That said, humans do plenty of other things that are unnatural, too. ---
**Author:** ![Raiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3da27b/32.png) [@Raiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raiko)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/205 "2010-12-08T05:43:36Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > My saying bricker’s helping a little bit,was in comparison to the life time of the woman and child. He is doing what he does voluntarily. The woman in his way would have no choice! I have volunteered at a senior center, did charity work from my home, but never thought of it as a sacrifice, a volunteer can quit at any time a woman cannot if everyone thought as Bricker does. Concider the children who are starving to death in third world countries, and in places where a woman is considered a possion! > > If every woman had the morning after pill available there would be very little, if any need for an abortion! If that is your argument then you would similarly beleive that a woman who can no longer take care of her eight year old child would have the right to murder him/her. It is (in most cases) the womans choice to involve herself in activities that would make her pregnant (I don’t say sex because for the really crazy bitches out there you have in-vitro to give you eight children you don’t need saving you a huge amount of time and messy coitus!) so in this way she is choosing to have the commitment but it sounds to me as if monavis’ bleeding heart would not be bandaged even if bricker personally carried, birthed and funded every child of irresponsible parents through their twenty first birthday (though that would be one hell of a 21st!) personally I think women should keep their children if they weren’t raped or otherwise unwillfully impregnated monavis seems to think every pregnant woman deserves to have responsibility magically lifted from them and I suggest you move to the forest where you can live in a tree with elves and be fed cookies and have all responsibility taken from your shoulders (LSD not included) That being said I won’t tolerate (as if it matters) any more needless laws prohibiting or endorsing abortion, in this regard I am both pro life and pro choice as any sane person should be. I don’t need laws telling me it’s bad to use abortion as birth control but at the same time I don’t want stupid people who would want to use abortion as birth control raising children that I will later have to deal with (kick the shit out of for trying to steal my car.) ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/206 "2010-12-08T12:01:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I never said it was natural. No method of birth control is natural. The commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” isn’t just written in a book; it’s coded into our genes by billions of years of evolution. That said, humans do plenty of other things that are unnatural, too. Being fruitful and multiply is something a human wrote, so in that case one is believing in what some human said thousands of years ago! Not all people have the ability to multiply either so some genes must be missing that! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/207 "2010-12-08T12:09:39Z")
> [@Raiko](#): > > If that is your argument then you would similarly beleive that a woman who can no longer take care of her eight year old child would have the right to murder him/her. It is (in most cases) the womans choice to involve herself in activities that would make her pregnant (I don’t say sex because for the really crazy bitches out there you have in-vitro to give you eight children you don’t need saving you a huge amount of time and messy coitus!) so in this way she is choosing to have the commitment but it sounds to me as if monavis’ bleeding heart would not be bandaged even if bricker personally carried, birthed and funded every child of irresponsible parents through their twenty first birthday (though that would be one hell of a 21st!) > > personally I think women should keep their children if they weren’t raped or otherwise unwillfully impregnated monavis seems to think every pregnant woman deserves to have responsibility magically lifted from them and I suggest you move to the forest where you can live in a tree with elves and be fed cookies and have all responsibility taken from your shoulders (LSD not included) > > That being said I won’t tolerate (as if it matters) any more needless laws prohibiting or endorsing abortion, in this regard I am both pro life and pro choice as any sane person should be. I don’t need laws telling me it’s bad to use abortion as birth control but at the same time I don’t want stupid people who would want to use abortion as birth control raising children that I will later have to deal with (kick the shit out of for trying to steal my car.) NO, I do not think a woman has the right to kill her child of any age after it is born, nor did I ever imply such a thing. I am talking about a possible child, not one yet formed, such as a fertile egg, that is far from being a person, just like a fertile apple blossom is not yet an apple. I doubt that many women use abortion as a method of birth-control.It is not an easy choice for the woman and because i never considered an abortion doesn’t mean I should force an other woman to do as I wish. I have not lived in her shoes, I do not know her financial, mental,or physical situation. I am not the conscience of the world. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/208 "2010-12-08T12:17:27Z")
> [@Raiko](#): > > If that is your argument then you would similarly beleive that a woman who can no longer take care of her eight year old child would have the right to murder him/her. It is (in most cases) the womans choice to involve herself in activities that would make her pregnant (I don’t say sex because for the really crazy bitches out there you have in-vitro to give you eight children you don’t need saving you a huge amount of time and messy coitus!) so in this way she is choosing to have the commitment but it sounds to me as if monavis’ bleeding heart would not be bandaged even if bricker personally carried, birthed and funded every child of irresponsible parents through their twenty first birthday (though that would be one hell of a 21st!) > > personally I think women should keep their children if they weren’t raped or otherwise unwillfully impregnated monavis seems to think every pregnant woman deserves to have responsibility magically lifted from them and I suggest you move to the forest where you can live in a tree with elves and be fed cookies and have all responsibility taken from your shoulders (LSD not included) > > That being said I won’t tolerate (as if it matters) any more needless laws prohibiting or endorsing abortion, in this regard I am both pro life and pro choice as any sane person should be. I don’t need laws telling me it’s bad to use abortion as birth control but at the same time I don’t want stupid people who would want to use abortion as birth control raising children that I will later have to deal with (kick the shit out of for trying to steal my car.) As a post script I would think you and Bricker could take care of all of the unwanted pregnancy’s that would surely solve some of the problems 🙂 Having a morning after pill for every woman of child bearing age would sure cut down on the need for an abortion!It would give her a choice and no child would suffer. When one speaks of the right to Life they have to consider the fact that some religions think every martial act should be open to bearing a child! Human life began eons ago that is a fact, so it isn’t the right to life but the right to birth inspite of the woman’s rights to her life! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/209 "2010-12-08T12:59:53Z")
Anyway this is a huge hijack. Healthcare is a human right in any meaningful sense of the phrase human rights. The Pope says so, and Catholics gonna argue with their freaking Pope? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/210 "2010-12-08T16:46:05Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > The Pope says so, and Catholics gonna argue with their freaking Pope? Bricker will. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/211 "2010-12-08T16:56:57Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Bricker will. Yes. I find it particularly fascinating that Catholics are vilified for blindly following the Pope… except when the Pope’s pronouncements happen to coincide with the rhetor’s desired outcome, in which case Catholics are vaguely disloyal or otherwise to be condemned for questioning the Pope. In any event, as I hinted before, the Catholic faith has a certain set of dogma, beliefs which cannot be questioned, and a much wider set of beliefs which a particular individual Catholic need not share. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/212 "2010-12-08T21:10:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Not all people have the ability to multiply either so some genes must be missing that! And yet those people generally still try very hard to do so. Why do you think people have sex so much to begin with? Yes, yes, because it’s fun, but why is it fun in the first place? Because organisms which have sex a lot leave more offspring behind, spreading their sex-is-fun genes. ---
**Author:** ![Raiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3da27b/32.png) [@Raiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raiko)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/213 "2010-12-09T07:09:12Z")
Healthcare is not an inalienable right. Inalienable rights consist of things that should come first and foremost on the governments agenda whether their national budget is trillions of dollars or a few shells and a chicken. Things like making sure your people aren’t killing each other, that you arent endorsing slavery, and that your citizens are reasonably well cared for with the means you have at your disposal, this does not include paying for all their medical bills, it is sufficient to make it available. Universal healthcare is a nice perk for more wealthy countries but it is not an inalienable right. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/214 "2010-12-09T12:53:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. > > I find it particularly fascinating that Catholics are vilified for blindly following the Pope… except when the Pope’s pronouncements happen to coincide with the rhetor’s desired outcome, in which case Catholics are vaguely disloyal or otherwise to be condemned for questioning the Pope. > > In any event, as I hinted before, the Catholic faith has a certain set of dogma, beliefs which cannot be questioned, and a much wider set of beliefs which a particular individual Catholic need not share. In other words it is mind control? Because the RCC teaches you can’t think differently is purely a teaching of the RCC, not necessarily the truth! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/215 "2010-12-09T14:22:43Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > In other words it is mind control? Because the RCC teaches you can’t think differently is purely a teaching of the RCC, not necessarily the truth! It is difficult for me to imagine an explanation for the disparity between what I said (“…a much wider set of beliefs which a particular individual Catholic need not share…”) and what you summarized (“mind control”). ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/216 "2010-12-09T15:18:29Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > [Home - OSV News](http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1004736.htm) > > Myself, I stop short of calling health care a right, but nevertheless something that a non-third-world country should be able to make affordable to everyone. Like education. > > But Republicans are all too willing to exploit the Pope’s influence on issues where they agree with him, like abortion, so what’s their take on this? > > Vice-versa, too. Will Church leaders try to deny communion to Catholic politicians who oppose health care reform? Americans generally and conservative Americans in particular have a long history of ignoring inconvenient things religious leaders say about some topics while wrapping themselves smugly in holy vestments with regard to others. Hypocrisy is their friend! ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/217 "2010-12-09T16:14:16Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Even if there was a way to NOT destroy the embryo s/he would still be destroyed… because in the opinion of the scientific elite (as well as pro-choicers): CITE? I have never heard this even from the most vocal stem cell proponents. > [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Is it easier/more likely to be used than a condom? If not than a wrench that never gets used isn’t a very useful wrench. > > . Or as I like to say, you could prevent all traffic fatalities by having no one drive, but that doesn’t mean that seatbelts and airbags are a bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/218 "2010-12-10T22:44:45Z")
Let me get this straight. For those who believe health care is not an inalienable right, you believe that you should not pay taxes to prevent a baby from dying even though the resources exist to keep this child alive? You can’t be arsed to spend an extra buck or two into taxes in order to save someone’s life? Why do you even want to live in a civilized society? What is the point of living in a society if you’re going to live by jungle rules? [http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog\_thelookout/20101209/ts\_yblog\_thelookout/after-budget-cuts-indiana-baby-denied-life-saving-treatment/print](http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101209/ts_yblog_thelookout/after-budget-cuts-indiana-baby-denied-life-saving-treatment/print) “After budget cuts, Indiana baby denied life-saving treatment” ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/219 "2010-12-10T22:55:50Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > Then you aould be just as pleased if I sold you a horse embryo so you could pay several hundred dollars to ride, or a fertile egg to feed your family instead of a full grown chicken? Since there is no difference what would the difference be? Going by your logic a newborn horse is not a horse either, nor is a baby chick a chicken. Your argument reeks of semantic panic. > [@](#): > > A good excuse in my opinion, to try to keep a woman a slave to being a brood mare. Just like people used religion to justify slavery in the past. > > It is a matter of pushing your religious beliefs on all others not a matter of biology. Brood mare? And you accuse me of religious beliefs while you come up with madness like that? Not being able to kill someone with a beating heart is slavery? Where did you come up with that one?\* > [@](#): > > I commend you for adopting “A” child, because you wanted one,but you didn’t take into consideration the woman who would endanger her life to bring the egg to frutation. Nor did you state how many children she already had.each case is different and that should be a good reason why it should be an individule woman’s right to decide what she wishes to do with her body. But it’s not just her body that she’s doing something with. It’s also someone else’s. Different DNA, different blood type, all of that. Measurable brain waves and heart beats, too. These are all facts established by embryology. “Her body”? You’re not even pushing science with your argument at this point - you’re pushing myths. That’s called religious beliefs, pardner. > [@](#): > > But that doesn’t take care of the hundreds of thousands that die of starvation or some illness every year in 3d world countries Starvation will never go away no matter how many you abort. > [@](#): > > or even using Haiti as an example where the country is said to be 80% RC, and are taught that birth control is a sin or use the most un-natural method of which they approve! Uhm, why are you bringing up the Roman Catholic Church? I believe in contraception. Go find a fanatical RC straw man to beat on, perhaps your arguments are better suited for them. - Oh yeah and before you bring it up, I also support a zero hope of escape option for fathers who try to escape child support. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/220 "2010-12-10T23:05:46Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > Well, medical practitioners have inalienable rights, don’t they? They have the right to be secure in their person, they have the right to their property (including their medical supplies and instruments). Presumably we don’t have the right to force them to work for free or at a loss, or to give away their supplies without compensation. > > So that makes the right to health care not inalienable, but conditional. We are quite content to provide others with the treatments that ensure continued health. In fact, most of us prefer single payer healthcare because it allows to actually keep the Hippocratic Oath by which we are supposed to be bound. Not everyone is like you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262.md?page=12)