I like this article for the simplicity of its message. It goes along the idea of constrained optimization, which is kind of like another way of saying ' you can't have your cake and eat it as well '. In short, the article asks how do we decide what are the rights to protect and maintain given that not everyone of them are achievable?

Rights need to be prioritized if we are to achieve them. Some -- such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- are inherent to the human condition. Known as natural or inalienable rights, they must be actively thwarted not to thrive. Others -- like education, retirement benefits and medical care -- depend on the goodwill and solidarity of others. These so-called statutory or alienable rights must be actively striven for. Without collective effort, they die

one other random thought:

In thinking about the right to medical care etc, I think the standard answer in economics is to conduct lumpsum transfers to achieve redistribution with the least distortion:

imagine that different households have different forms of partial insurance against shocks (how much you can rely on family, how much precautionary savings you have, etc). If we believe that households know how to optimize their own welfare best since they know their own problems better than anyone else, then possibly giving them cash handouts and letting them do the allocation of resources seems more efficient.

The problem, however, comes back down to a moral hazard problem and its probably politically easier to tell a taxpayer that his money is going toward something tangible like education as opposed to we gave XX household this amount of money from your tax payment.

anyway, i digress. but for what its worth, this article does address how and what we should be terming as "rights" since not every right can be granted.