September 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently formed a Commission on Unalienable Rights to advise his department in its dealings with foreign governments and international organizations.
Advocates of “unalienable rights,” or “inalienable rights” of the kind found in the US Declaration of Independence, ground their understanding of rights in undeniable and universal truths about the human condition. This is a basic starting point of natural law thinking.
Sexual revolutionaries sneer at natural rights and natural law, treating these as self-evidently terms of derision. They seem to think that anything using the word “natural” is a strictly theological concept.
But, advocates of the Sexual Revolution often use an expansive understanding of “human rights” to promote their values and visions. Describing “marriage equality” as a “human right” allows them to sidestep the many troubling consequences of redefining marriage. Labeling abortion as a “human right” puts defenders of the unborn on the defensive.
And, the language of “human rights” is very common in the United Nations and other international organizations.
The newly formed Commission on Unalienable Rights, on the other hand, has the potential to create a focal point for an alternative understanding of rights.
The Commission is chaired by pro-life Harvard Law Professor and former Ambassador to the Holy See, Mary Ann Glendon. Ambassador Glendon has been thinking deeply about the proper understanding of “rights” for a long time. ….
