Rather than debate the merits of Moore or his movie, instead I present a fascinating article about a new movement to claim that access to experimental drugs or maybe even organs is a right akin to self defense:

Yet there is a growing push in medical, legislative, and legal circles -- both liberal and conservative -- to recognize an expansive new right that some are describing as "medical self-defense." The movement is rooted in a desire to help patients who have run out of options. Some medical experts, including Dr. Emil Freireich, director of a leukemia research program at the University of Texas, have called on the Food and Drug Administration to let terminally ill patients try unapproved drugs that might offer their last chance at survival. And Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas is working to introduce legislation that would force the FDA to do just that.

Even more significant is a potential landmark case before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals -- brought by a group called the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs -- that could make access to unapproved drugs a full-blown constitutional right. Last year, a panel of three judges on the appellate court declared that patients with terminal diseases ought to have access to unapproved drugs, surprising many legal scholars. The case is now being considered by all 10 members of the court, and a decision is expected this year.

This makes some sense to me. If you are dying, and there is a drug that might help, why is the government allowed to tell you that you can't buy it? On the other hand, this seems like something of a stretch for a constitutional right, especially given that the constitution doesn't actually recognize a right to self defense anywhere.

The article goes on to talk about whether such a right might apply to private purchases of organs like kidneys. I think that is probably a good idea, but that is even more implausible as a constitutional right, and politically impossible anyway.

But the drugs proposal is a good idea. If you are dying, what is the additional harm that experimental drugs could do? Plus, I'm all in favor of anything that weakens federal drug rules, whose harm far outweighs the good they do.

In general, the arguments against allowing free access to prescription drugs, or drugs in general, focuses on the harms those drugs can do. Those harms are very real. But the whole benefit side of the cost/benefit equation seems to be missing. Why the singular focus on harm, and no view into benefits? Certainly pharmacology has made all of our lives far better.