Or perhaps I should say, self-defense is the only operative right.
Every year on January 22 my mother used to take me on the bus to Washington DC to march for the Right to Life. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Even looking beyond the glaring hypocrisy of a slave-owner penning these words (and I love Thomas Jefferson, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t read the Declaration of Independence without thinking of that every time!), I have to say I’m not quite sure my mother or TJ got it right exactly–powerful and poetic though their claims are.