Scabies in a homeless AIDS patient (Public Domain)
A few years ago, a junior colleague I had not seen for a while gave me a hug. As she broke from the hug, she declared that she’d recently had scabies, but it was now clear.
She lied!
I learned this weeks later when I developed the most incredible itching and small papules between my fingers. Ugh!
I remembered the incident as I was musing about the right to health. In international law, there is a right to health and a right to health care. But is there a right to scabies treatment? Should the AIDS patient in the photograph, who had a horrendous scabies infestation, have been left to suffer?
In the anti-abortion world, a new line of attack has developed that there is no international right to abortion, or as one writer titles it in a Heritage Foundation blog, “No, Abortion is not a Human Right” . The argument pivots on the fact that the word ‘abortion’ does not appear in the international human rights instruments. Instead, we have generic statements about a right to health and well-being, the promotion of “health for all”, and “leaving no one behind”.
I wanted to “kick the tires” of the argument, and the best way to do it is to replace the word ‘abortion’ with any other health condition and see how it plays out. I fed four anti-abortion articles in to Claude with the following instructions.
The attached articles argue that there is no international right to abortion. I want you to use the same style of argument to say that there is no international right to scabies treatment.
The Myth of an International Right to Scabies Treatment
Scabies treatment advocates have spent decades trying to add mite elimination to their ever-growing list of human rights. Defining parasitic treatment as healthcare is a key part of this effort. The pressure is on to claim scabies treatment as an international human right.
Despite claims by scabies treatment advocates around the world, there is no international right to scabies treatment—neither in fact nor as defined by international law. The word “scabies” does not appear in any of the UN human rights treaties. Nevertheless, treatment advocates have co-opted the human rights system to advance their radical anti-mite agenda.
Treatment advocates attempt to manufacture a right to scabies treatment within other established rights. The dangerous idea that basic healthcare must include a right to scabies treatment has spread far and wide. However, defenders of traditional medicine can prevent the establishment of mite elimination as an international human right. The text and history of international treaties provide no support for universal access to anti-parasitic treatments.
Most importantly, nations must contest—loudly and frequently—any and every claim that scabies treatment is a human right. The human rights system was never intended to mandate specific medical interventions. Enshrining scabies’ treatment as a human right does not expand the scope of rights—it subverts the very concept of rights.
Large language models like Claude are good at mimicking a written voice. The satirical argument it developed also makes clear how empty the anti-abortion argument is. The fact that human rights instruments do not list every specific right does not mean that the right does not exist.
Instruments have been developed for specific groups, conditions or outcomes such as persons with disabilities, women, children, and indigenous people. No one would argue that people without disabilities lack human rights protection under broader, less specific instruments.
The more specific instruments are there to clarify and reinforce a right and, in some instances, highlight specific additional rights. Of course, a woman’s right to a life free from physical violence pre-dates the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW), even though there was no prior instrument declaring that specific right. The preamble to the DEVAW makes it clear that new rights were not being created. Instead, the Declaration reinforces and specifically applies existing human rights in the context of violence against women. The declaration is there to remind us—in case we forgot—women are human too.
My right to scabies treatment exists not because of a specific instrument that names scabies as a disease of concern. It exists because I am human and enjoy universal rights, including the right to health.
A right to abortion does not need to be explicitly named for it to pre-date any specific new declaration of that right.