In answer to the QUORA Could
the 9th amendment about non-enumerated rights mean that healthcare is right?, I posted this answer:
If this question refers to
the “right to healthcare” as advocated by Bernie Sanders and his ilk, then the
answer is, No.
Rights are not arbitrary
creations of government or politicians. Rights belong to individuals, and only
individuals—no other unit of humanity exists. A right is a guarantee of freedom
of action to pursue a goal without coercive interference from others. A right
is not a guarantee of achieving that goal. There is no right to goods or
services that others must be forced to provide. There is no right to enslave.
Therefore, there is no right to healthcare other than what you can secure for
yourself, or what others are willing to provide voluntarily through trade or
charity.
The concept of individual
rights as unalienable, also known as natural rights and which the Declaration
of Independence and U.S. Constitution refer to, means that all individuals
possess the same rights, which means one’s right to act ends where the
violation of others rights begin. Rights precede government, which is created “to secure these rights.” The unalienable rights of others constitutes
the boundary beyond which the rightful actions of any individual cannot go, including
individuals as elected legislators or government officials acting on their
constituents’ behalf. The Ninth Amendment refers only to these unalienable
rights.
For those interested in
digging much deeper into the issue, I recommend Tara Smith, Moral Rights and Political Freedom, and Randy E. Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty Chapters 9 (“The Mandate of the Ninth
Amendment”) & 10 (“The Presumption of Liberty: Protecting Rights Without
Listing Them”).
Related Reading:
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