Medical Care as a Right: A Refutation

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Abstract
From man's primary right — the right to his own life — derive all others, including the rights to select and pursue his own values, and to dispose of these values, once gained, without coercion. The choice of the conditions under which a physician's services are rendered belongs to the physician as a consequence of his right to support his own life.If medical care, which includes physician's services, is considered the right of the patient, that right should properly be protected by government law. Since the ultimate authority of all law is force of arms, the physician's professional judgment — that is, his mind — is controlled through threat of violence by the state. Force is the antithesis of mind, and man cannot survive qua man without the free use of his mind. Thus, since the concept of medical care as the right of the patient entails the use or threat of violence against physicians, that concept is anti-mind — therefore, anti-life, and, therefore, immoral.

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