There Are No Human Rights without Our Creator
By Allison Schuster
In January, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at an event in Tallahassee, Florida, on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
“So we are here together because we collectively believe and know America is a promise. America is a promise. It is a promise of freedom and liberty — not for some, but for all,” Harris said. “A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The vice president's careful omission of “life” and “Creator” exposed her radical pro-abortion and anti-God agenda. It also revealed the Left’s warped understanding of human rights.
The preamble of the Declaration of Independence — that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”— was once well-understood and highly regarded by most Americans. The fact that Harris excludes references to God and the right to life from her delivery of the document is a sign of the pervasiveness of secular progressivism.
Our country’s fabric has frayed because most citizens no longer share a common understanding of the Constitution, namely the principle that human rights come from God, not government. Unlike most countries, whose citizens are united by a common language or ethnicity, America's unifying principle is its founding credo.
The Founders of the U.S. Constitution drew from political philosopher John Locke, who posited that all individuals are equal because they are born with certain inalienable rights that earthly authorities may not violate. This includes "life, liberty, and property” — revised, in Thomas Jefferson’s formulation, to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, the role of the government established by the U.S. Constitution is to protect its citizens' God-given rights, rather than to grant them.
Today, “human rights” to progressives means an ever-growing laundry list of demands from an ever-growing number of identity groups. The conversation is centered on social justice and political advocacy, neither of which are compatible with the founding principle of limited government. These new rights — to healthcare, to abortion on demand, to mandatory celebration of the LGBT community, to government-funded gender reassignment surgeries — are in direct contradiction to the Constitution.
Due to insidious marketing by the Left, there is now widespread ignorance to God-given rights. Any leftwing social justice trend can be a “human right,” according to progressives. The Left's obsession with making every part of their agenda a campaign for “human rights” makes the phrase meaningless.
Atheists reject the authority of God or a higher power, so where do they believe human rights come from? If it’s not God, then their authority must be the government. If the Left believes human rights are bestowed by the government, are they not bound to accept any government decision, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade? If their basis for individual rights is government, it becomes impossible for the government to ever violate “human rights” as it is their sole creator in their view. By their logic, human rights are subject to the whims of those in power.
In the Declaration of Independence, the end of government is clear: the protection of the citizens’ God-given rights. Make no mistake, there are no human rights without our Creator.
Allison Schuster is a communications strategist and policy advisor to the Center for Education Opportunity for the America First Policy Institute, as well as a contributor for The Federalist. She lives in Washington, D.C. but escapes to New York whenever possible.
