The Most Basic Human Right

When discussing the area of human rights, there is a logical hierarchy,as there are in needs. For example, a person will worry about having food and shelter before worrying about whether a job brings a high level of personal fulfillment. In the area of rights, certain rights are built on the presumption of other rights. A person's right to freedom of expression, for example, cannot exist without freedom of belief. Indeed, this hierarchy of rights can be imagined as an inverted triangle, with every level of rights resting on a smaller group of necessary rights – all the way down to the single fundamental right which underpins them all. This is the right to life.

In Canada, unfortunately, this right is one which is seriously neglected. Certain categories of person are denied it by law, or by an unthinking public. If you are a person who has yet to pass from your mother's womb, this right is not legally upheld. If you are seriously disabled, while so far your right to life is legally upheld – if somewhat weakly – public opinion is seriously mixed as to whether you hold this or not.

Therapeutic abortion is the euphemistic term used to describe the denial of the fundamental right to life of a child by a medical act. In Canada, this can legally take place right up to the moment of birth, as there is no law governing it. The same child which can be delivered by Caesarean at 5-6 months in what has become an almost routine procedure can be aborted at 9 months so long as they are still in the womb. This would be the logical equivalent to suggesting that an area in Canada could be designated an open killing zone, where any person who happened to be there could be killed at will. “Welcome to Haliburton County – hope you live!”

Those who support legalized abortions support their stance by two means. The first of these is the idea that the child isn't a person until birth, but rather a simple extension of the mother's body, much the same as a toe or finger. This argument falls apart as soon as you examine one simple fact – the genetic makeup of the child versus that of the mother. They are completely different – as different as that of a mother and her child. Any transplant surgeon can tell you that the difference is such that there is no guarantee that a transplanted organ from one to the other will not be rejected. Thus, the child in the womb can only be thought of as a mere appendage by a fool.

The other justifying idea is that there is a difference in the rights accorded to the mother versus those accorded the child. This, though, is either silly or evil. It is silly, if you haven't considered the idea that there is no basis in Canadian law for seeing different groups of people as having different rights merely by their inclusion in some subgroup.

It is evil if you recognize that fact, but still argue that the child has fewer rights regardless. Anytime, throughout history, but most graphically in the last 200 years, that one group (usually the one with a greater degree of power) has sought to argue that another has less rights for some reason – usually that they are less fully “human” - massive bloodshed has been the result. Hutu's did this to Tutsi's, German's to Jews, Japanese to Koreans and Chinese, the same was done to native populations in many cases by their colonizers.

Nothing but evil can come from arguing that any one part of a population is less than another – and if left unchallenged it is a mentality which can spread it's influence. The US saw this even after the Civil War and destruction of slavery, as states fought against the full integration of black Americans into society – sometimes literally. Thousands of children, their lives ended in the abortion mills of Canada – that is the evil we confront today.