Feature

The right to life

By our staff reporter

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10,1948. It proclaimed the Declaration “as a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, nations and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among peoples of Member States themselves and among peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

Article 3 “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.”

The desire to stay alive is the greatest of all desires, even though it can be argued that pride could sometimes be more compelling than the fear of death. But there is no denying that the desire to stay alive, is generally speaking, the individual’s paramount wish, and one that demands from others their most unfailing respect.

To say that people have a right to life is to convert that demand into a kind of moral imperative, that is, to impose on all people a reciprocal duty to abstain from injuring their neighbors. It relies on the understanding that in a community of persons where no one can defend himself/herself effectively, the only safety lies in each member undertaking not to attack his/her neighbor on condition that the neighbor undertakes not to attack. But since conflicts are unavoidable, the only way human beings (a rule following animals) can live in societies is to live according to rules. There is one rule that each society must have, and that is no person shall use violence against the life and person of his/her neighbor, except in some special circumstances such as self-defense.

Law enforcement which survives the death of  the victim of aggression to punish the aggressor, serves to ensure the peace. It is thru the monopoly of supreme force of the state that the peace is kept.

To say that people have a right to life is to say that all people who attach paramount importance to survival, can claim to be left in peace and are entitled to have that claim recognized. But throughout history people have been killed in vast numbers by other people. And the interesting thing is that in every case some kind of an excuse or extenuation circumstance is pleaded:

1. War As it is traditionally understood, war threatens life not the right to life, on the grounds that it is permissible to kill a soldier who is bearing arms against you, but not permissible to kill a soldier who surrenders. This distinction is, of course obscured by the practice of bombing enemy cities making it difficult for any nation that goes to war to pretend that it is respecting the right of life even according to the traditional rules of war.

Warring nations feel they can exculpate themselves from moral condemnation by plea of necessity: namely that there was no other way of defending liberty and justice and human rights against an aggressor.

2. Capital punishment The execution of murderers is obviously a deliberate act of killing, and yet it can be, and is often presented as an affirmation of the right to life. The argument is that the killer has forfeited his own life by denying another person’s right to life and that justice requires a penalty in kind.

The case for non-capital punishment is based on the argument that the right to life is a right that cannot be forfeited  even by a killer.

3. Self-defense The peace is normally kept by officers of the state and a private citizen becomes unaccustomed to the practice of defending his/her life. The act of aggressive self-defense in a dangerous situation when reflecting too long may mean the loss of one’s own life, is not, rightly or wrongly thought of as denying the right to life.

4. Abortion The practice of abortion has traditionally been considered wrong and contrary to natural law. Those who support abortion typically base their argument on the grounds that the fetus which is destroyed in abortions is not a developed human being, with a mind and soul. The defense of abortion turns on the act itself being depicted as something substantially different in character from  the killing of a human.

In the above catalogue of typical cases where lives are taken in the world we know, it is worth noting that the authors of the deaths are eager to have it known that circumstances were exceptional. Even though some particular life had to be ended, the general right to life was being respected. The circumstances were exceptional and respect for the right to life is something that people ordinarily, and almost universally, observe.

(Sources: M. Cranston What are human rights; Del Russo, International Protection of Human Rights.)