At Quadrant, Dalrymple examines the modern idea that health or health care is a human right, a notion he regards as conceptually confused and practically problematic and which nowadays is endlessly inflated.

…we live in a world in which, increasingly, everything that is desirable becomes a human right. It used often to be claimed that healthcare was a human right, mainly because a society in which it was available to everyone is obviously preferable (at least in this respect) to one in which it is not. But we have moved on from there, become yet more generous in our allocation of rights—verbal generosity, after all, costs nothing.

Read the full essay here.