Blog Assignment #8

1. A human right is something inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, race, heritage, religion, language, or any other status. A human right is meant to protect every individual from abuse of any kind, be it social, legal, or political. Human rights are important for public health because it is the role and responsibility of public health professionals to protect and promote human rights so that people are as safe as possible from all kinds of threats. The promotion of human rights directly impacts the health of individuals in a positive way. In fact, Article 3 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Essentially, the right to life is the same thing as the right to health.

2. Good standard of living relates to health because it involves making sure that everyone and their family has food, clothing, housing and medical care, as well as any social services they might need, especially in times of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, etc. This is a major human right because it is definitely beneficial to health; a huge factor that contributes to public health is the environment in which one is living. Lack of sanitary conditions access to medicine, a place to live or warm clothes during a cold season will negatively effect an individual's health by making it so that people will have more infections and diseases. These things may arise from the weather, perhaps from unclean water or the inability to afford healthy foods. A higher standard of living ensures that a person's living environment will be sanitary and safe and allow them to make healthier choices, consisting of the least amount of threats possible to one's health.

3. The States have an obligation to guarantee a woman's right to safe motherhood and affordable access to care and are responsible or at least accountable for maternal deaths at a national level.

4. I think that motherhood is specifically mentioned in the UDHR and was specifically addressed by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women because of a general understanding that pregnancy is a vulnerable and fragile time, requiring special health care. Article 25 protects children that are still within their mothers by protecting the women who carry them, because the women are the only party involved who are currently living individuals with clear and definite human rights. Although the living status of a fetus is disputable, clearly the UDHR is trying to protect it because the only difference between mothers or mothers-to-be and men is the life inside of them. If they didn't consider this the way I've described, there wouldn't be an article specifically talking about women who are expecting.