[People] ought to be told honestly what it is they are taking up, if they profess a desire to come out from the world and serve Christ. They ought not to be pressed into the ranks of Christ’s army without being told what the warfare entails.
J.C. Ryle

The Ignored Inalienability Of I

The Ignored Inalienability Of I

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.

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.