The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his097/inalnble.lzh/INALNBLE.TXT

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GOV:The ingored 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.