Human Rights Competency #1-3: Recognizes My Equal, Inalienable Rights

Equality in healthcare settings has a different meaning than in human rights.  Healthcare equality is about roles and rules.  There are assigned rules for people in assigned roles.  Everybody in the same role has to follow the same rules and that's what makes you equal.  Also, nobody in that role is supposed to get an exception to the rule that applies (even if no one affected cares).  Otherwise (the system thinks) that would not be treating everyone the same.

The end result is of healthcare equality is that you can be treated like the dearth of the earth.

But...

 (1) as long as someone in a higher role class than you are is following the rules 

       and...

(2) the same rules apply to everyone in your class

       then...

(3) you are all 'equal'

       and...

(4) it is all 'fair.'

Human rights equality is entirely different.  In human rights equality, the important rules are how we treat each other.  Accordingly, even when we have different roles, same rules for how we treat each other apply to all of us.

Specifically: 

1. Everybody gets respect
2. Everybody gets dignity
3. Everybody gets an opinion
4. Everybody gets to voice it
5. Everybody gets to participate
6. Everybody gets to create
7. Everybody gets to learn
8. Everybody gets a chance
9. Everybody gets a choice
10. Everybody gets access to the necessities of life

To be sure, different people in the human rights world have different responsibilities. Life is diverse.  Sustaining life has a lot to it.  It requires a lot of people with a lot of different kinds of know-how.

Naturally then, roles and responsibilities in a human rights paradigm vary as much as they do anywhere else: 

• Different people have different tasks to perform and different functions to carry out.  
• Different tasks and different functions often will require different education, training, skill and levels of mastery in specific areas of life.  T
• They may also require more or less time, more or less energy, more or less attention and more or less effort across physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual dimensions.

Even so, in a human rights paradigm, one thing stays constant.  Repeat after me:

1. Everybody gets respect
2. Everybody gets dignity
3. Everybody gets an opinion
4. Everybody gets to voice it
5. Everybody gets to participate
6. Everybody gets to create
7. Everybody gets to learn
8. Everybody gets a chance
9. Everybody gets a choice
10. Everybody gets access to the necessities of life

Are you starting to get the picture?

The constant, for human rights, is how we treat each other.

In that regard, we are all equal.