Human Rights (my thoughts and ponderings while working on my essay)

Research for my essay for my GenEd "Moral and Legal Foundations of Human Rights" class led me all over the place. I read a lot about a human rights abuses around the world that was saddening: the status of basic human rights for the majority of the world population is very poor. As I followed links from one website to another I was, however, somewhat encouraged by the discourse and debate on display. There was evidence of discussion and effort on all levels seeking to change things for the better. Overall, the effect is definitely negative, and leaves me with a worse view of the state of the world than before, but at least it also came with reason for maintaining optimism and hope for the eventual future.
(If you're curious, some of the specific issues that were the most depressing related to women's basic rights and gender inequality (with regard to marriage rights, sexual and other violence, abortion, labor, education, suffrage, and more) and those relating to violations of basic civil rights such as those embodied in the US Bill of Rights (especially freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion).)


Okay... also ran into references to human rights in the U.S. A couple examples briefly discussed were right to adequate sustenance (food) and medical care. The reference to the right to medical care reminded me of a point of contention regarding health care. Do people have a right to health care? Does this right apply to those who require health care that they cannot afford? If so, what responsibility do they have to leading healthy lifestyles when possible? If there is a system (either state-run/universal or even just for a given employer or insurer) that spreads the cost of insurance for health care across all of the recipients of health care, should everyone be forced to pay more to provide for the extensive health care costs of a few individuals who consciously make lifestyle choices that are blatantly damaging to their health? One example is people who smoke cigarettes. Should everyone else have to pay a higher premium so that they can have expensive procedures required as a result of lung cancer from smoking? To put the question differently, should smokers have to pay more for health cover? What about people who engage in other risky activities? Smoking cigarettes is one example, but what about other drug use or abuse, engaging in extreme sports, driving without a seatbelt, or even eating unhealthily or leading a life devoid of all exercise?

As a separate question, do you think that "economic" and "social" rights such as rights to food, shelter, and medical care should be considered universal human rights?

And again separate, but very much related to the general topic of human rights (and perhaps general applications of ethics, even to non-humans)
Inherent human dignity is often cited as the basis for human rights in modern human rights discourse (as opposed to rights derived from a supreme being or from nature). Human dignity has also been cited as a philosophically significant distinguishing factor between humans and other Earthlings (to borrow the term from the film by the same name) that justifies inconsistent ethical treatment of humans and other Earthlings.
> Is there such a thing as inherent human dignity? What is it? If it is undefinable and intangible, and defying definition, is it anything but an abstract construction to justify universal human rights and the application of those rights and human ethics exclusively to the human race?
If the inclusion of both of these issues makes it difficult to think about or discuss, feel free to just address human dignity in the context of one of them, though I would challenge you to afterwards explore its application to the other. Does denying the existence of a philosophically relevant distinction between humans and other species preclude a philosophical basis for universal human rights?


Apparently when Alexander defeated a king named Porus in battle, Alexander asked how Porus wanted to be treated, and Porus said he wanted to be treated as a king would treat a king... and that that encompassed it all...
"Imagine now a situation in which a dissident is at the mercy of his torturer and the torturer were to ask (in dark jest perhaps), "Now how do you wish to be treated?", both knowing full well that the torturer had the power of life and death over the dissident. And the dissident were to say, "As a human begin should treat another human being." And the torturer were to reply, "Elaborate your point." And the dissident were to say, "When I said treat me as a human being should treat another human being, everything was contained in that." I invite you to regard this statement as an expression of human dignity and now join me in exploring it from a religious perspective..."
-Sharma, "Dignity as a Foundation for Human Rights Discourse"


Regarding not meeting human rights standards, the U.S. is surprisingly weak on this considering its relative prosperity and international status. We fail to ratify a number of important international treaties. Some of these include the International Criminal Court, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Topics relating to human rights issues in the U.S. include corporal punishment in schools, the death penalty, CIA secret detention centers, Guantanamo Bay, torture (including waterboarding - I discovered a nice fiery debate on the wikipedia talk page for waterboarding while doing research for a torture essay last year... yes, waterboarding is torture, please), other mistreatment of prisoner's which violates even the U.S.'s somewhat poor standards for treatment of prisoners, extraordinary rendition to secret detention centers, habeus corpus denials through the Military Commissions Act, ...
if you're interested in any of the details, this is a summary from the Amnesty International Report 2007 (perhaps you can find the 2008 version if it's available yet) on the U.S. http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/americas/north-america/usa?page=1#report

During my research I stumbled upon this Amnesty International petition to 'tear down' Guantanamo... one pixel at a time. For an important cause, and also kinda cool and artsy. To check it out and/or sign, visit: http://tearitdown.org/