Abortion, Healthcare, and Ben Shapiro

     In 2004-5, conservatives nationwide went into an uproar over the case of Terri Schiavo. Terri Schiavo was a woman whom doctors had diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, and her husband wanted to remove her feeding tube from her, allegedly because she had previously expressed to him that if she were ever in a vegetative state, she wouldn't want to be kept alive. The news made national attention. Cultural conservatives demanded that Terri Schiavo must be kept alive. The removal of her feeding tube was likened to murder. She had an innate and inalienable right to life, after all. Republican Governor Jeb Bush attempted to use legal powers to force medical professionals to keep Terri alive, but this was struck down in court. 

     Now, I don't want to get bogged down in specifics. There are all sorts of ethical and legal implications in the Schiavo case. I just want to call attention to the fact that conservatives, at least at that time, believed that it was Terri Schiavo's God-given right to have life-sustaining medical care, and it was conservatives who attempted to force her husband and medical caretakers to provide her this care. In short, conservatives demanded that healthcare, at least their version of healthcare, was a right.

     But nowadays, conservatives will gladly tell you that healthcare is not a right. Enter the cool kid's philosopher, Ben Shapiro. Shapiro has for years argued that healthcare is not, and cannot be, a right. At times, he has said that a right to healthcare is tantamount to forced labor. It forces medical professionals to perform an act they might not otherwise consent to. He has expressed this in the phrase "Rights that derive from individual need inevitably violate individual autonomy." 

    His general argument, as stated fairly clearly in this recent video, goes along the lines of saying that healthcare is a commodity, and commodities cannot be rights. 

     Ben Shapiro isn't the only one using this or similar talking points. Earlier this year, when Joe Biden tweeted that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege, Jordan Peterson response tweeted, "Nothing that someone else is required to provide can be a right." Peterson has since deleted this tweet, but not before the Majority Report got a screenshot. 

     Of course, this argument is incredibly weak. We have an entire amendment in the Constitution that protects our right to own a gun, and guns, last I checked, are a commodity. They are manufactured, bought, and sold like any other commodity. And yet, we clearly have a right to bear arms. So the idea that we cannot have a right to a commodity is disproven by one of conservatives' favorite amendments. 

     And what about the argument that a right to healthcare involves coercion since a doctor would be required to provide a good or service without their consent? Again, this sort of thing is required elsewhere from our constitution. You know, a criminal is entitled to a fair trial, which involves the coercion of private citizens to act as impartial jurors. In fact, a juror who disobeys a summons can be found in contempt of court. So, let's be clear, our Constitution contains rights for citizens that can coerce other citizens to provide a service. Again, Shapiro's (and Peterson's) argument fails.

     I was recently thinking about this point. As we potentially enter a post-Roe-v-Wade era, I wonder how Shapiro can justify saying that an unborn child has a right to using its mother's body for nine months for growth and nutrition, but has no right to receive medical care before, during, or after birth? This is particularly ironic since Shapiro argues that part of why we need a market solution to healthcare is to drive down demand. Of course, abortion has been one of the main market solutions for driving down demand for natal and maternal healthcare. Google tells me that the average cost of vaginal birth is $13,000. The average cost of an abortion at 10 weeks is $500. If healthcare is a market, then is there any wonder women choose abortion? 

     Shapiro's pro-life stance is perfectly fine with interrupting the market and forcing people to choose the less economic option. You can argue this is justified, but you cannot argue it is not an interruption to the market. 

     Now, for a pregnant woman who does not want a child, conservatives are happy to talk about how she can give up her baby for adoption, thus relieving her of the burden of her unwanted baby. But ask a conservative, ask Ben Shapiro, if we can relieve this same woman of the financial burden of the unwanted medical treatment and hospital delivery. Do you think he will agree that this burden should also be lifted? Or would that be socialist?  

     If conservatives like Shapiro are OK with coercing women to carry to term, I think it's time they quit using their illogical and inconsistent arguments for denying healthcare to people. In my opinion, a government big enough to regulate the reproductive lives of its citizens is a government big enough to provide healthcare to its citizens. The fact is, conservativism is perfectly compatible with government coercion of its citizens. So the conservative argument that we cannot coerce the market is, in plain and simple terms, pure hypocrisy. The idea that a woman can be forced to carry to term, but the healthcare market cannot be forced to provide her or her baby with medical care . . . does that really make any sense on a moral level?

     Anyway, there's my hot take for now. I don't offer any solutions. I merely point out the inconsistencies. Have a nice day.