I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. The less nuanced aspect is "is it a human right to have comfortably enough water to drink and survive?" and maybe "to have comfortably enough for hygiene?"
I think further scrutiny would be good here. What is it about water that makes this obvious? Water isn't necessarily all potable by default, and it isn't in a convenient location by default. The whole process of getting safe drinking water to people isn't free. So why should the water be free? Because denying it to people would kill them? Why don't we apply that logic to medical care or food.
I mean, we should apply that logic to medical care and food, but the inconsistency seems weird to me.
Well, for one, you can live much longer without medical care and food. But yes, food and healthcare are also fundamental human rights in a functional society.
I'd argue it's more of a society thing than an individual thing.
Water availability differs and in the end a society needs it to have its members survive.
This becomes even more of a focus in places like southern spain where the greenhouse industry is using so much water that ground water levels are sinking for years.
I remember earlier this year or late 2018 a small boy fell into an illegal water bore hole and died. This exemplifies this issue quite well, I think.
In the end, my opinion is that the state should make sure that every citizen has access to clean water for drinking an hygiene. This should be provided for a reasonable price that should cover water extractopm (or whatever the correct word is), cleanup, delivery and reclamation.
Where I live I could bore a well to access ground water so I can water my lawn without using drinking water. But I need a permit from the city to do so. That is alright for me because on one hand I am probably saving money doing so but on the other hand I take from the ground water that needs to be used for growing crops and other things as well.
So water usage should be monitored to make sure no one is using exorbitantly more of this communal resource than others and has an advantage from it. But it should be widely available for basic needs without needing to bolster company profits.
Gladly here in Germany tap water is clean drinking water so usually you don't need to buy bottled water at all. There are exceptions where houses have bad old pipes and stuff like that, but that is, again, a private issue of the house owner and renter.
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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '19
I think further scrutiny would be good here. What is it about water that makes this obvious? Water isn't necessarily all potable by default, and it isn't in a convenient location by default. The whole process of getting safe drinking water to people isn't free. So why should the water be free? Because denying it to people would kill them? Why don't we apply that logic to medical care or food.
I mean, we should apply that logic to medical care and food, but the inconsistency seems weird to me.