General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What are the main reasons men pay for sex? [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)There are DU threads about school issues and about the Hobby Lobby decison. Go into one of those threads and give voice to such a narrow view of the "needs" people have. Be prepared to get flamed hairless, and justifiably so.
You're obviously correct in that sense that children who never go to school and women who can never get any kind of birth control won't die as a direct consequence. (Yes, there might be some differences in mortality rates based on education, contraception, sex, or my having the full-time services of a nutritionist/cook, but that doesn't make all those things needs in the narrow sense you're using.) The word "need" is commonly understood to have gradations, whether Maslow's hierarchy or something less sophisticated.
The context here is explaining or justifying conduct on the basis of an asserted need. Most people would say that the need for oxygen is a stronger justification than the need for education or sex or a nutritionist/cook, so simply labeling something as a need doesn't mean that all efforts to obtain it are automatically beyond reproach.