April 1987
1. If a right is not:
- a. A natural process that would happen anyway.
Example: Growing old. - b. A social requirement inflicted on someone no matter what his will.
Example: Income taxes.
2. Then perhaps a right is a freedom granted to a person by another person or group of persons.
3. The people of the United States grant rights to individuals such as:
- a. The right to or not to vote.
- b. The right to or not to leave the country.
- c. The right to or not to sue.
- d. The right to or not to kill unborn babies.
- e. The right to or not to have an attorney when charged with a crime.
4. Parents sometimes grant rights to their children, such as:
- a. The right to or not to take the family automobile.
- b. The right to or not to attend church.
- c. The right to or not to keep a messy room.
5. God grants only one right to His children:
- a. The right to label good and evil.
- b. The ability to choose and to do good or evil is not a right. No one has a right to do evil before God.
6. Observations about rights:
- a. A right is worth only the power invested by the granting agency to guarantee that right.
Example: If the government does not assure that you can vote when you get to the polls, your “right to vote” is worthless. - b. Rights may be withdrawn by the granting agency.
Example: Martial law suspends many individual rights. - c. There is and can be no “right to life,” for no one can guarantee it. What government presently guarantees is freedom from government harassment if one aborts one’s child. But in a recent court case it was decided that mother’s do not have the right to abuse their unborn children with drugs and then give birth to them.
- d. There is no right to health, for no one can guarantee it.
- e. There is no right to education, for no one can guarantee it. But some societies guarantee a right to schooling.
- f. There is no right to be free from racial discrimination, for no one can enforce it. But there is a right to sue and obtain damages for racial discrimination in specific contexts (e.g., hiring) if such can be proved in a court of law.
- g. Who has rights to the public treasury? Only those who have legal entitlements. Do AIDS victims have a right to research money to find a cure for the disease quickly? Only if some government body passes a law to that effect.
- h. God wills that men grant each other the rights to protection of life, freedom of conscience, and the right to control of property. Any society that grants its citizens these rights must be upheld by citizens if they are servants of God. Otherwise, God holds them blameless if, under His direction, they overthrow those governments.