12. The Right to Life
The Right to Life
Although governance by written rules and laws is better than authoritarian rule, the rule of law is not immutable. Laws can change. So, to underscore the unique value of a human being, our American Democracy grants all citizens rights. Like a law, there is also a process to change a right, but since our rights have never been changed they therefore can be referred to as immutable. They are enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights. On rare occasion a right has been added, to our Bill of Rights, yet never has a right been deleted. Rights acknowledge the extraordinary value and uniqueness of a human life. They are the foundational blocks our rule of law is based on.
The first right that Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration was the most important, our ‘right to life. From time to time our politicians may use coercive law in a manner that infringes or impedes our rights, an immutable right, although subject to interpretation by the courts, will always be upheld over a law. Our rights are guaranteed to all our citizens and trump laws. They underscore the unique value our culture places on human life, that life is special and shall be cherished, valued and protected. Our culture has held the value of life in highest regard and although not often verbalized or fully understood our high regard for life underpins our rule of law. At this time, we must ask Is our sacred right to life being challenged or changed, and if so by whom and how? Is our right to live under attack from within?
Four areas that indicate significant changes in our Right to Life are 1) dramatic increases in the frequency of abortions, 2) use of unconsciousness instead of cadaver status to harvest organs, 3) government palliative care for the elderly in hospice treatments over reliance on opiates for pain and 4) expansion of assisted suicides well beyond terminal cancer patients. Although not exhaustive by any means this post will touch on these four social changes that are reducing our right to life.
Is abortion a threat to our right to life? The founding fathers left abortion out of federal governance as they did many other things. Yet today many Americans believe a fetus is their property and it is their right to destroy it should they chose. What do the largest religions say? The Muslims believe God blows life (the soul) into the fetus at 120 days, 16 weeks and prior to 16 weeks it is permissible in rare circumstances to abort. Thomas Aquinas believes the fetus is alive in 60 to 80 days. In Jewish law The Torah, Exodus,21,22,23 and the Talmud do not consider a fetus to be alive. In Christianity today abortion positions are complex and vary from church to church. However, going back to the beginning of Christianity both the Orthodox and Catholic, Apostles Andrew and John were opposed to abortion.
Camus says “Someone who does not see abortion as evil assumes the fetus is not yet human.” But is that true?
President Obama, a poster child for abortion, who supported government intervention in most every aspect of our lives yet considered the decision to abort a private property decision independent of what stage of childbirth the aborting mother was in. Nine-month abortions were fine with Mr. Obama because it was “her property.” Mr. Obama’s position reduces a human life to material, property. A human life in our culture has always been more than mere material.
Aristotle’s Potentiality Principle in a contemporary iteration would likely say embryos and fetuses should not be killed because they possess all the attributes that they will have as full persons later in life.
John Stuart Mills sums it up “The moral worth of an action depends on its motives . . . the unborn, in virtue of their common humanity, deserves the full protection of the law.”
It is true that abortion has been around for 2,000+ years it is also clear that in America it’s not the job of Federal Government to be involved in that decision, nor should it be.
Yes, we all have a right to life. Today a new born faces abortion, abandonment by the father and a Federal Government that is at best neutral to abortion and will fund an abandoned mother with generous welfare programs rather than penalize the absentee dad. But if the new born survives the gauntlet of conception and is lucky enough to have a mom and a dad they too will have a right to life.
How else is that right to life being threatened? Wesley Smith talks about how death is being redefined in medicine from a biological state of nonbeing into a state of lessor value, to facilitate organ harvesting. Today organ harvesting in America is also becoming “killing for organs” With what the bioethicist Singer calls the “irrevocable loss of consciousness” organs are harvested. But unconscious people aren’t cadavers or they? Often times people thought to be unconscious could be awake and aware. Keeping these people on life support to harvest their organs is valuing the organs more than human life.
Is palliative care administered by government violating our sacred right to life? Many times, during palliative care in Hospice treatment, spouses agree to having their loved ones administered opioids, unaware that it easily could lead breathing failure and death. In many elderly patients breathing stops as a result of narcotics administered by government Hospice Care. The spouse worried that their mate is uncomfortable will agree and the government, for comfort, will do the rest. Many elderly die unnecessarily and unaware ceded to the governments offer of “comfort”, often viewed more important than life itself. Today the government, through hospice, is excessively injecting opioids to the elderly, causing the end of life
Some citizens are abandoning the belief that human life is unique and more than mere material. In the last few years assisted suicide beyond chronic cancer patients have increased substantially. They are approved in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado, Wash. DC, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine and New Mexico. According to a survey conducted by the National Library of Medicine 7% of physicians have assisted at least once in a physician assisted suicide. One might want to wait a day rather than acting on a suicidal impulse which may well change tomorrow.
Culturally today a new rule has permeated our belief system that a human being is not a special creation but merely material or property and that the owner of the property, be it the elderly, infirmed or the mother of a fetus, has the right to end life.
The belief that a human life is less than special will mark the beginning of the end of all our inalienable rights. Be wary of those that do not hold human life as special, for soon all our rights uniquely granted us in our Declaration and Bill of Rights could be lost.
Today cultural red flags abound challenging our most sacred right, our right to life. Organ harvesting using the loss of consciousness condition as opposed to cadaver status is expanding, A fetus is often considered by a woman to be her own property and therefore she feels she can dispose of it. The state send money to single mothers excusing the paternal father from providing for his child and leaving 25 million children fatherless. The government is loosely administering opiates causing deaths among the elderly under so called palliative care. By appealing to grieving spouses, they claim to be mitigating pain when in reality the opioid will stop the patient from breathing, leading to drug death. As with abortion of a fetus many Americans are no longer treating birth and human life as the precious special gift it always was. If we are not diligent, we will soon lose our right to life as well as all our rights and our life will no longer be viewed as the precious, special life that uniquely defined us.
Is there an absolute right to life or is it merely another changing issue in the panoply moral relativism?
Have a blessed week!
Anthony C. Christ