THE IGNORED INALIENABILITY OF INALIENABLE RIGHTS
by Raymond Voulo, M.D.
The inalienable right to life is frequently and rightly
invoked in arguments against abortion and euthanasia.
For many, the moral argument alone is sufficient, but a
careful appraisal of the concept of inalienability, and
of its historical and contemporary importance, may have
valuable legal implications.
The Declaration of Independence states, "We hold these
truths to be self evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" ... etc.
When Thomas Jefferson first penned these immortal words,
he was not saying anything radically new in itself ---
these rights were so much a part of the intellectual
culture of the time that he could properly describe them
as "self evident." Jefferson's chief purpose in the
Declaration was to justify the American Revolution to the
world by charging George III with having violated rights
that both proponents and opponents of the Revolution took
for granted.
ALIENABLE AND INALIENABLE RIGHTS
The writings of John Locke and Alginon Sydney in the
1680s contributed substantially to the political
philosophy of Jefferson and other statesmen and scholars
of his era. Two distinct types of human rights are
delineated by their teachings: alienable rights and
inalienable rights.
Alienable rights are civil or legal rights which a
government can confer on citizens by legislative
enactment or constitutional provision. These rights can
be revoked or nullified by the government; and they can
be assigned or transferred by the individual who
possesses them, as in the transfer of title in land
sales. Therefore, these rights are described as
alienable or assignable.
The possession of inalienable rights, in contrast, does
not depend on legislation. "These are rights that are
not dependent for their existence upon positive law or
political institution," explain Adler and Gorman in their
AMERICAN TESTAMENT. These rights belong to all of the
human species by virtue of their common nature; these
rights cannot be taken away by any person or government,
at any time or under any circumstances, without due
process of law. An individual cannot renounce his
possession of an inalienable right, nor can he give it
away to another or have it taken from him. (You cannot
sell yourself into slavery nor give up the right to your
life).
Whereas government can justifiably demand the surrender
of part of your inalienable rights to your property in
the form of taxes, for instance, the deliberate violation
of an inalienable right by governing authorities is
defined as tyranny, and is sufficient reason for
revolution. Thus, for Jefferson and his contemporaries,
as indeed for us today, when tyranny existed in the
government, it was the right and duty of citizens to
alter or abolish that government. As the Declaration of
Independence stated: "...that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
power from the consent of the governed, that whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it." The
violation of inalienable rights, in addition to its
moral significance, had such practical legal importance
that the justification for the American Revolution was
dependent upon it.
HUMAN NATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
In the Declaration of Independence the statement that men
are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights
follows directly on the pronouncement that all men are
equal by virtue of their human nature and their common
creation. This is of profound significance: Since
inalienable rights are inherent in human nature, and
since the equality of men is based on the sharing of each
member of the human family in this common human nature,
then these rights are possessed equally by all who share
in this human nature. No man, woman or child has more
claim to the right to life than any other man, woman or
child, since all possess the same human nature. Whatever
rights any human (a possessor of a human nature) is
entitled to, all other humans are equally entitled to.
Thus, the possession of a human nature automatically
guarantees the inalienable right to life. WEBSTER'S
INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY (2nd Ed.) defines "nature" as
follows: "Nature: the essential character or constitution
of a particular thing, a SPECIES or kind." [emphasis
mine] By this definition we see that human species
EQUALS human nature. The RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE (2nd Ed.) further defines "human nature"
as "a particular combination of qualities belonging to a
person by birth, ORIGIN OR CONSTITUTION." [emphasis
mine] If not yet by birth, then, the preborn child most
certainly possesses a human nature by its origin and
constitution in the event and at the moment of
fertilization.
Note, too, that inalienable rights derive from equal
CREATION, not birth or viability. Jefferson's original
draft of the Declaration was even more emphatic on this
point: "We hold these truths to be sacred and
undeniable," he wrote, "that all men are created equal
and independent, that from the equal creation [not birth
or point of viability!] they derive rights inherent and
inalienable, among which are the preservation of life and
liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Embryologists
agree that man is created when sperm and egg unite at the
moment of fertilization. This is the completed act of
creation, and development of the preborn child from this
moment on is a matter of maturation only. Viability,
therefore, is not a prerequisite for the inalienable
right to life.
Furthermore, any agreement which relinquishes this right
before natural death is invalid because the human
possesses a human nature up to death, a human nature to
which the inalienable right to life is inextricably bound
and not assignable. The "living will," therefore, is a
violation and usurpation of this right to life.
Likewise, the "quality of life" decisions which deprive
or remove food and water from patients, or prematurely
remove life support or render lethal medications, are
violations of this inalienable right and therefore
tyrannical.
THE DECLARATION AND THE CONSTITUTION
If the authors of the Constitution had included a written
statement of the Declaration of Independence, with
perhaps an explanation of its concept of inalienable
rights, it would have been impossible for the Supreme
Court to make its colossal ROE V. WADE blunder. Why then
was the Declaration not formally recorded in the
Constitution? The answer is simply that its principles
were and continue to be "self evident." After all, had
not a revolution so recently been fought and won based
on these principles? A revolution justified legally and
morally by a definition of tyranny based squarely on the
concept of inalienable rights, the violation of which
demanded by right and duty the alteration or abolishment
of the offending government? In other words, it was
unthinkable to the Founding Fathers that these principles
needed restating in the Constitution of their new nation,
since it was on these principles that America's very
creation was wholly justified. Surely, it was just as
unthinkable to them that the future stewards of that
Constitution would ever claim to find in it sanction for
the violation of those same rights which it had been
written to guarantee.
And even if the Declaration was never recorded in the
Constitution, it has nevertheless long been regarded as
the basis of that document in both American law and
jurisprudence. For instance, Volume I of the United
States Code is entitled "Organic Laws of the United
States of America." The first document appearing there
is the Declaration of Independence. BLACK'S LAW
DICTIONARY (the standard dictionary for all legal
practitioners) defines "organic law" as "the FUNDAMENTAL
law or constitution of a state or nation, written or
unwritten. That law or system of laws or principles
which defines and establishes the organization of its
government." [emphasis mine] Consistent with that
definition, Adler and Gorman in their AMERICAN TESTAMENT
explain that "the Declaration of Independence is a
statement of the ultimate objective to be achieved by a
just government. The Constitution is a means to obtain
that objective."
RESTORING THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO LIFE
The usurpation of the inalienable right to life from the
preborn by the ROE V. WADE decision is, therefore,
judicial tyranny, and it is the right and indeed the duty
of citizens to alter this wrong by, at the very least,
the Paramount Human Life Amendment to the Constitution.
Our Congressmen and Senators have a double
responsibility: first, their responsibility as citizens;
second, and even more binding, their sworn duty to uphold
the Constitution and everything for which it stands,
which includes the Declaration of Independence.
The inalienable right to life is bestowed by our Creator
upon all of the human species, and it cannot be revoked
by any person, court or government. It must be restored
to the preborn, the handicapped, the incompetent and the
aged by the passage of the Paramount Human Life
Amendment, if the principles upon which our nation was
founded --- and indeed our nation itself --- are to
survive.
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Raymond J. Voulo, M.D., is a physician in private practice living
in Port Washington, N.Y. This article was taken from ALL About
Issues/June-July 1989. Copyright American Life League, P.O. Box
1350, Stafford, VA 22554. American Life League grants permission
to reprint this item provided that credit is given to American
Life League, their address is mentioned and a copy of your
publication is sent to Editor, ALL About Issues, at the address
above.
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