Beyond A Right to Life

Gospel: Mark 2: 23-28

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus notes that the value of human life and its preservation is a far greater value than the law on not working on the sabbath day.  Even the sabbath day itself is not a greater value than human life and its preservation.  The right to life is sacred and inviolable; it is an intrinsic value.  But so too are the right to those things that preserve and sustain human life on earth.

Many people will argue for the right to life, but insist on nothing more.  Some will argue food and water are basic rights at the end of life, but not at any other time of human existence.  If the right to life is to mean anything at all, then the corresponding rights to food, water, shelter, employment, clothing, health care, education - all the things that sustain and nourish human life - must be basic rights as well.  That the right to such access is primary is evident in the Gospel story where access to food supersedes another's right to private property.  

If access to these basic necessities for the preservation of human life is dependent on wealth alone, then these things are a privilege for the few and the right to life has no meaning at all.  The earth and its goods were created to sustain and nourish all human life, not just that of a few.  The goods of the earth are the right of all, not the possession of the rich.  Let us seek to be a truly pro-life people.