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.

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