# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/121 "2010-11-23T18:22:10Z")
I think he is saying that it is inconsistent to care for the life and health of those who are out of the womb without having any concern for those taht are still within the womb. I can’t say I entirely agree but I thiknk that is what he is saying. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/122 "2010-11-23T18:31:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Maybe I’m being dense on this, but that makes it even more confusing. Please don’t offer an analogy… just explain the position on its own merits. What does abortion and UHC have to do with each other. > > Are you just taking two arbitrary issues and saying you’d be willing to trade one for the other? OK, you can have your UHC, but you have to give me my anti-abortion law as a trade? No, no – nothing of the kind. That might make sense if I were a legislator trading votes; here, for discussion purposes, that makes no sense. I’m simply saying that a country has no business spending its citizens money on health care for some of the population while at the same time allowing others of the population to be killed at whim. It’s simply inconsistent. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/123 "2010-11-23T18:32:45Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > He wants to withhold UHC, which is a good idea, as punishment for legalizing abortion. > > It’s utterly indefensible, it’s petulant, not intelligent. No. Don’t ascribe a position to me I have not taken. This has nothing to do with punishment. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/124 "2010-11-23T18:38:03Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Bricker, if I understand your position correctly: > If a country legalizes abortion, you would oppose them offering UHC (however you define UHC), so for example you would be opposed to them offering free medical care to indigent people. > If a country makes abortion illegal, you would then say it is wrong for them to **not** offer UHC, and you would say that in this country the government should be required to offer UHC (e.g. free medical care to indigent people.) Hesitantly yes. There are other things a country could do that would invalidate the offering of UHC – genocide against segments of their population, for example, or perhaps involuntary human medical testing, something like that. In fact, perhaps that makes my position clearer? If the country offered UHC, but also had a policy of forced sterilization for a despised minority population, you can see how foolish that would be, yes? So it’s not ONLY abortion that flies in the face of UHC, but abortion is (I think) the only thing on which there’s widespread disagreement. Most societies agree that forced sterilization is evil. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/125 "2010-11-23T18:40:18Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > I, too, am having trouble making sense of **Bricker** ’s position – although I can’t agree with **Lobohan** that he’s withholding support for UHC as a bargaining chip for prohibiting abortion. It seems something more like: it is (in someway) gross to support a policy that accounted for everyone’s health but that of the unborn, who are being _killed_ as long as abortion is legal. > > But I don’t think many would find the connection terribly convincing. (I certainly don’t.) Should we keep from enacting UHC until we outlaw capital punishment, which at least occasionally takes innocent lives? Until we eradicate poverty, which harms the physical and mental wellbeing of countless individuals? Things’ll never be perfect. Capital punishment is a tough one. It’s a clear wrong, a clear evil, but it happens so comparatively rarely that I can’t justify tying it to UHC. Obviously it doesn’t make sense to provide UHC while at the same time deliberately killing some of our citizens, so capital punishment should be ended… but the numbers don’t match up. For abortion, they do. Poverty? No, especially since one clear way that poverty harms the physical well-being of individuals is lack of access to health care, which (obviously) UHC would solve. So the existence of poverty is NOT a reason to stop UHC. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/126 "2010-11-23T18:46:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Hesitantly yes. There are other things a country could do that would invalidate the offering of UHC – genocide against segments of their population, for example, or perhaps involuntary human medical testing, something like that. In fact, perhaps that makes my position clearer? If the country offered UHC, but also had a policy of forced sterilization for a despised minority population, you can see how foolish that would be, yes? > > So it’s not ONLY abortion that flies in the face of UHC, but abortion is (I think) the only thing on which there’s widespread disagreement. Most societies agree that forced sterilization is evil. I’ll say that your position is more logical than it appeared to me at first, and I understand it better now. But I disagree. Offering UHC would be a good thing, even if a country has other practices that are human rights violations (e.g. forced sterilization for a despised minority population.) In that case, one should do whatever is possible to stop the “wrong” practice, but still encourage the “good” practices. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/127 "2010-11-23T18:52:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, no – nothing of the kind. That might make sense if I were a legislator trading votes; here, for discussion purposes, that makes no sense. > > I’m simply saying that a country has no business spending its citizens money on health care for some of the population while at the same time allowing others of the population to be killed at whim. It’s simply inconsistent. So, let me ask this. Suppose the US outlawed abortion. No more legal abortions in the US. Would you then, as a matter of policy, champion the cause of UHC and argue for its inclusion in our laws, or would you merely not oppose it And why? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/128 "2010-11-23T18:59:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Hesitantly yes. There are other things a country could do that would invalidate the offering of UHC – genocide against segments of their population, for example, or perhaps involuntary human medical testing, something like that. In fact, perhaps that makes my position clearer? If the country offered UHC, but also had a policy of forced sterilization for a despised minority population, you can see how foolish that would be, yes? > > So it’s not ONLY abortion that flies in the face of UHC, but abortion is (I think) the only thing on which there’s widespread disagreement. Most societies agree that forced sterilization is evil. I’m just not seeing the linkage. Why would it be wrong to offer UHC if a country had forced sterilization of some group? The forced sterilization is a policy decision completely apart from UHC. We already have a situation in the US where federal $$ cannot be used to finance abortions. So there is no mixing of the two. Abortions are legal, if privately funded. So, if UHC is a good, it should be a good regardless of the legality of abortion. Unless, of course, you believe in collective punishment. The US is a wicked, evil country for allowing abortions, hence its people (including those who passionately campaign to make abortions illegal) do not deserve health care as an entitlement. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/129 "2010-11-23T19:01:45Z")
> [@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. Well doesn’t the rights you correctly apply to medical practitioners also depend on the cooperation of law enforcement ? Presumably we don’t have the right to force the police to work for free or at a loss, or to give away their supplies without compensation. So that makes the right to security not inalienable, but conditional ? ---
**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:** [November 23, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/130 "2010-11-23T19:39:15Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No. Don’t ascribe a position to me I have not taken. This has nothing to do with punishment. Your position is logically incoherent, I was offering a sane, if stupid way to justify it. Are you suggesting that your motivations aren’t sane? Because you being bitter and petty is about the only possible way to frame this as something wretched and misguided, but not completely irrational. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/131 "2010-11-23T19:42:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m simply saying that a country has no business spending its citizens money on health care for some of the population while at the same time allowing others of the population to be killed at whim. It’s simply inconsistent. Most people don’t agree that a first trimester fetus is a person. All people agree that a janitor with stage III liver cancer is a person. The only inconsistency here is that you care more about unthinking fetuses than Janitors. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/132 "2010-11-23T19:51:41Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > Well doesn’t the rights you correctly apply to medical practitioners also depend on the cooperation of law enforcement ? > > Presumably we don’t have the right to force the police to work for free or at a loss, or to give away their supplies without compensation. > > So that makes the right to security not inalienable, but conditional ? See **John Mace’s** concise reply in post #36. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/133 "2010-11-23T20:02:35Z")
If the Pope thinks it’s a right he must understand that UHC is a tax funded program. He should liquidate the wealth of the church as a pro-offered luxury tax and then pay property taxes on the remaining assets. In addition to taxes assessed on income and property he should promote taxes on direct labor for those who do not generate enough income to tax. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/134 "2010-11-23T20:16:09Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > See **John Mace’s** concise reply in post #36. I’m more interested in your take on it. Do we have an inalienable right to security? ---
**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:** [November 23, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/135 "2010-11-23T20:17:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Everything I’ve said applies to abortion. You want to create a system of providing health care to some people and leave in place a system of arbitrarily killing other people. This doesn’t make sense. Except it isn’t a system of providing health care to only some people. Every version of the health care bill that’s been proposed has included pre-natal care. The fact that abortion is allowed is an injustice, but it’s a completely separate injustice, since all pregnant women have access to medical care for their fetuses if they seek it. Now, obviously, some pregnant women (presumably including those who are aborting) won’t seek access to that medical care, but they still have that option: Surely you wouldn’t argue that medical care should be compulsory? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/136 "2010-11-23T20:18:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, let me ask this. Suppose the US outlawed abortion. No more legal abortions in the US. Would you then, as a matter of policy, champion the cause of UHC and argue for its inclusion in our laws, or would you merely not oppose it And why? I guess the answer would depend on why we outlawed it, but under most versions of that event, yes, I’d say we had a moral responsibility to offer UHC, and I’d affirmatively support it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/137 "2010-11-23T20:22:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I guess the answer would depend on why we outlawed it, but under most versions of that event, yes, I’d say we had a moral responsibility to offer UHC, and I’d affirmatively support it. Why don’t we have a moral responsibility now? There is no connection between abortion and UHC. Why do we have a moral responsibility to prevent slavery, since we allow abortion? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/138 "2010-11-23T20:29:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Suppose you offered a plan to provide UHC to everyone with an even social security number. Odd numbered ones are on their own. > > You might say, “Look, it’s better to get at least the even numbers covered. Half is more than none, after all!” > > Would you wonder that I’d resist that? It’s true that half is more than none as a mathematical statement, but making that kind of distinction is a terrible thing for a society to do. It’s bad because it gives the illusion of having made strides towards solving the problem. And it’s even worse because it draws a ridiculous and impermissible distinction between living persons. But fetuses are not persons and the distinction is by no means ridiculous. I don’t regard HC as an inalienable right, but I would support society providing it “in the main”. If there are limits to our abilty to provide HC universally, they should parallel the limits of personhood. On the front end, a fetus has not yet arrived at personhood, so no personhood was lost in the event of abortion. On the tail end, very elderly or teminally ill patients have reached the limits of personhood, so little additional personhood would be sacrificed by withholding treatment. In neither case is death as great as tragedy as when the patient is in the prime of life. Witholding treatment from those unable to pay is much more arbitrary. > [@](#): > > Everything I’ve said applies to abortion. You want to create a system of providing health care to some people and leave in place a system of arbitrarily killing other people. This doesn’t make sense. Abortion is not a “system” or a government program in the same sense that UHC would be, so that’s apples and oranges. Abortion is society recusing itself from getting involved and leaving the decision to the individual. If a pregnant woman comes in for pre-natal care, the “system” will help her in investing in what will eventually become a person. The “system” is not going to kill the fetus or withhold treatment with the expectation that it will die. If a pregnant woman decides that she doesn’t want to create a person, then the “system” does nothing and she’ll go to a place where she can pay for an abortion on her own. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/139 "2010-11-23T20:37:57Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Your position is logically incoherent, I was offering a sane, if stupid way to justify it. > > Are you suggesting that your motivations aren’t sane? Because you being bitter and petty is about the only possible way to frame this as something wretched and misguided, but not completely irrational. Please dial back your rhetoric. Even phrased as a hypothetical, this is a personal attack on **Bricker**. The post that led to this wasn’t really phrased as an “offer,” either. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262/140 "2010-11-23T20:44:27Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Please dial back your rhetoric. Even phrased as a hypothetical, this is a personal attack on **Bricker**. The post that led to this wasn’t really phrased as an “offer,” either. [click]I have set my rhetoric-pump back to neutral. My bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-calls-health-care-an-inalienable-right-whats-the-right-wing-spin/561262.md?page=8)