From moral rights to legal rights?: lessons from healthcare contexts
From moral rights to legal rights?: lessons from healthcare contexts
Many believe the existence of a moral right to some good should lead to recognition of a corresponding legal right to that good. If, for instance, there is a moral right to healthcare, it is natural to believe countries should recognize a legal right to healthcare. This article demonstrates that justifying legal rights to healthcare is more difficult than many assume. The existence of a moral right is insufficient to justify recognition of a corresponding justiciable constitutional right. Further conditions on when it is appropriate to recognize constitutional rights are rarely satisfied in the healthcare case. And focusing on aspirational or statutory rights presents costs for those seeking to justify legal rights on the basis of corresponding moral ones while maintaining empirical challenges for justifying constitutional rights. This suggests movement from a moral right to a corresponding legal one is far from straightforward and justifies examining alternative means of realizing moral socio-economic rights such as the proposed moral right to healthcare.
Health and Human Rights, Right to Health Care, Rights, Rights Theory, bioethics, human rights, rights, developing world bioethics
21-30
Da Silva, Michael
05ad649f-8409-4012-8edc-88709b1a3182
March 2024
Da Silva, Michael
05ad649f-8409-4012-8edc-88709b1a3182
Da Silva, Michael
(2024)
From moral rights to legal rights?: lessons from healthcare contexts.
Developing World Bioethics, 24 (1), .
(doi:10.1111/dewb.12444).
Abstract
Many believe the existence of a moral right to some good should lead to recognition of a corresponding legal right to that good. If, for instance, there is a moral right to healthcare, it is natural to believe countries should recognize a legal right to healthcare. This article demonstrates that justifying legal rights to healthcare is more difficult than many assume. The existence of a moral right is insufficient to justify recognition of a corresponding justiciable constitutional right. Further conditions on when it is appropriate to recognize constitutional rights are rarely satisfied in the healthcare case. And focusing on aspirational or statutory rights presents costs for those seeking to justify legal rights on the basis of corresponding moral ones while maintaining empirical challenges for justifying constitutional rights. This suggests movement from a moral right to a corresponding legal one is far from straightforward and justifies examining alternative means of realizing moral socio-economic rights such as the proposed moral right to healthcare.
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Developing World Bioethics - 2024 - Da Silva - From moral rights to legal rights Lessons from healthcare contexts
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Accepted/In Press date: 22 January 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 February 2024
Published date: March 2024
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© 2024 The Authors. Developing World Bioethics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords:
Health and Human Rights, Right to Health Care, Rights, Rights Theory, bioethics, human rights, rights, developing world bioethics
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Local EPrints ID: 486513
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/486513
PURE UUID: 425ed009-24ac-4fb8-a8e5-d08f66ce7c6a
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Date deposited: 24 Jan 2024 18:01
Last modified: 16 Apr 2024 02:03
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Michael Da Silva
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