I find it hard to contrast this view with the view that healthcare is a human right. If you take both together it can lead to some nasty conclusions.
I find this attempt to distinguish between positive and negative rights unhelpful semantic rhetoric. Every positive right can be rephrased into a negative right, and vice versa. The first amendment's "Congress shall make no law..." equates to "You have the right to (speak, gather, etc) free from governmental censorship".
"The right to be safe from harm" itself sounds like a positive right; certainly, without enforcement to ensure it, such a statement is a lie and the right de facto does not exist.
Healthcare requires a whole setup, so additionally it's hard to talk about what you even have the right to, concretely. I agree it's a semantic distinction, but I think it is helpful, because it separates rights in to the kinds that are fundamentally attached to human beings and the kinds that are basically strong preferences for the existence of different institutions.
Governments upholding 'rights', then, only makes sense to talk about from a social contract perspective; what do we, as a society, decide people have a right to. We can decide people have a right to freedom from harm, or we can abridge that right (as we do when punishing someone). We can decide kids have a right to education, a right to clean drinking water, etc, or not.
"Healthcare is a right" is, obviously, not a statement of fact (it currently is not), but a statement of what should be, an implicit belief of what society should adhere to. It's no more and no less accurate to say it's a right than to say "a right to liberty" is a right; it's up to society to adopt any such claim and adhere to it.
And that distinction is true whether it's a positive or negative right, and a completely different discussion.
Your claims are self-refuting. You don't need to believe in speech or a right to it in order to speak. You have to right to free speech because because you are able to speak without the interference or involvement of others. This is an objective right because it is predicated on objective concretes (i.e. the ability to communicate). If there are no objective rights then there is no such thing as a harm or benefit. Only an empty act devoid of all meaning on it's own.
>>Even if you believe in God or a creator or similar, that everyone has certain inalienable rights granted by that God/creator, there is quite a bit of difference over what those rights are, or how they're to be carried out, and -certainly- claims of "my rights!" don't seem to invoke that God/creator to do anything for you.Governments upholding 'rights', then, only makes sense to talk about from a social contract perspective; what do we, as a society, decide people have a right to. We can decide people have a right to freedom from harm, or we can abridge that right (as we do when punishing someone). We can decide kids have a right to education, a right to clean drinking water, etc, or not.
A "social contract" is only as good as the awareness/belief of its existence. In your world of social contracts, rights are determined by mystical belief, mass delusion, or the will of the mob. Not objective circumstances. Social contracts as such are neither provable nor enforceable. They are elements of a civil religion or a civil superstition.
>>"Healthcare is a right" is, obviously, not a statement of fact (it currently is not), but a statement of what should be, an implicit belief of what society should adhere to. It's no more and no less accurate to say it's a right than to say "a right to liberty" is a right; it's up to society to adopt any such claim and adhere to it. And that distinction is true whether it's a positive or negative right, and a completely different discussion.
Society can't adopt a negative right because a negative right can't be enforced. It can only be observed, enumerated, and built upon. A right to liberty is a right because (I know I'm repeating myself) the existence of said right is predicated on your concretes of being able to live freely in the first place. And doing so without the interference or intervention of others.
That's the sticky bit if you think about it. Not all, but many women and men get into sex work due to lack of other options, with all that in context it would seem that there is a suggestion that you have a human right to sleep with disadvantaged women or men at government expense. If no disadvantaged people exist then I presume it would be the governments role to create them. This quickly descends into madness.
Because I got into software engineering because it was the best paying option available to me that fit into my morals and ethics. I'd imagine that's also what got people into being doctors, social workers, etc. I'm not sure how sex work in this case is different. In fact, from the article, it sounds like it requires training; even if the government provided that to anyone, how is that different from any other governmental work program? How is it different from joining the armed forces? How would both be different if we also addressed poverty via a UBI or similar?
You're looking at sex work as it is now, a socially unacceptable option open to nearly everyone as a last resort. This categorically changes it to be a form of social work; I don't think the same stigmas and contexts apply.
I never did this and was quite clear that some choose this willingly vs making the choice due to drug addiction or some other tragic reason. However, taking advantage of another persons drug addiction and getting them to sleep with you in exchange for more money to buy the drug is the same thing as taking advantage of someone's down syndrome in exchange for money to buy candy. It simply isn't something that someone who isn't a predator does.