alan1
Gold Member
- Thread starter
- #61
1) Even if I treat the disease that is no guarantee that others will not be infected.When your activities harm Americans they are allowed to make laws to protect themselves
Me choosing to not have a medical procedure harms no one else.
Here are two counterexamples:
1) You have a bacterial infection that is contagious. You choose not to treat the disease with antibiotics. You infect others.
2) You are diagnosed with a form of cancer that is easily operable. You choose not to have the operation. Your cancer metastasizes and becomes inoperable. Your employer loses an employee, and your family loses a loved one.
As has been pointed out already, the states currently have the authority to require medical treatment. The federal government does not, and it remains uncertain whether it has the authority to require you to buy health insurance, but state governments are not governments of enumerated powers; states can do anything not explicitly forbidden by either the U.S. Constitution or the state constitution.
You listed a number of areas where restrictions on personal behavior have become more stringent, but did not mention other areas where they have become less so, for example the striking down of sodomy laws, the legalization of abortion, the end of Jim Crow, and relaxation of laws against indecent exposure. What we have is a shift in consensus moral values followed by a shift in where the law focuses. It is not an overall tightening of public controls.
The same rule applies whether I have insurance or not.
2) It is my freedom of choice what to do with my body.