Decommodifying the Right to Bodily Integrity
The lack of universal, single-payer healthcare in New York City is a brutal enforcement of the bifurcated state on the most intimate level: the human body. Mamdani’s analysis of rights and citizenship is a matter of life and death here. For the “settler” with good insurance, the body is a site of maintenance and care. For the “native” without, it is a site of financial terror, preventable suffering, and early death. Tying healthcare to employment is a mechanism of control, ensuring a compliant workforce. A Marxist critique sees the for-profit healthcare industry as a parasite on human suffering. A feminist perspective recognizes healthcare as fundamental to women’s autonomy. The solution is to fight for a New York Health Act that decommodifies care entirely, establishing healthcare as a human right based on need, not on one’s utility to the capitalist system, a fundamental step towards bodily sovereignty for all.
