Understanding Law

Audio Blog: Understanding Law

Unless you know your rights and exercise them, you do not have them in effect. Just as if you do not read, you are in practice, illiterate. Children have rights, but they depend on adults to exercise them for them. We have denied children their very basic right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anything less for them is tyranny. Anything less of us is ruthless.

We have been so concerned about our personal "rights", that do not belong to us, and we do not deserve, that we have infringed upon the rights of others who do deserve them and should belong to them, but have been unfairly taken.

Allowing others to continue living is very basic to human existence. What we have experienced in our lifetime can be summed up in "man's inhumanity to man" which will not look kindly upon us to future generations who are missing their siblings and our grandchildren.

These very rights are already written within our Constitutions of state and nation, yet our judicial system has ruled unjustly. And we have not held them accountable, nor have we enacted just laws to enforce these very basic human rights principles.

Law is a moral code that distinguishes what a society will and will not tolerate. It prevents the rights of one person to infringe upon another. It deters unwanted behaviors by threatening unwanted consequences. And when someone is victimized by another breaking the law, it provides justice for the victim by providing consequence to the perpetrator.

It is the responsibility of the courts - judge or jury - through testimony and witnesses to determine if, in fact, a crime has been committed, who committed that crime, and the fair consequence for committing it.

It is the responsibility of law to lay out clearly what actions are allowable or unallowable by law. A just and fair law does not distinguish who would be guilty if the law is broken. It cannot provide differing scales on who may commit or not commit a crime. It simply draws the line between what is right and what is wrong for everyone so that no one can be "above the law" but all held accountable by it.

Law already does, however, distinguish between intentionally breaking a law and being coerced to break the law. It distinguishes between someone knowingly lying in court and someone who did not have access to the information being asked. It distinguishes between someone who knowingly ran someone over with a car and someone who accidentally ran someone over with a car. It distinguishes between someone knowingly breaking a law and being forced to break the law or unaware of what they are doing. It distinguishes between those perpetrating the act and those victimized by the act.

The goal is that the law not be broken.

God opposes unjust laws. God hates and judges nations for injustice. It is unjust to condemn an innocent child to die. It would be unjust to determine that a mother is "always" or "never" guilty of a crime before knowing the circumstances surrounding her.

We do know children have their lives unjustly taken. Though guaranteed the same inalienable rights that we have, they are denied theirs. Though among the living, they are counted as already dead. Because none of us know our lifespan, we cut theirs short. And we justify our actions as if it is merciful to break into someone's home and shoot them because they would eventually die anyway.

Though the most defenseless as the "least" among us, they are afforded the least protection. With the most potential, the most future, the most promise of any of us, they are forgotten as if they do not even exist. As if their faces and personalities, their joy and pain, their potential and their promise are not the future of the human race, we throw away our legacy and heritage lying to ourselves that these children are "just tissue" which by that definition we all are. Mere mortals of tissue and bone, sinew and systems organized around a beating heart and sensing, like they are.

Yet, like a wrapped Christmas present under the tree, we discard them before opening them, before discovering who they would be. The greatest asset to humanity is our children. For without them, we are hardly more than anatomical robots working, exchanging tasks for pleasure, devoid of selflessness, of wonder, of innocence, of love.

We can do better than abortion. Women deserve better than abortion. Killing children does not benefit their mothers. We are wasteful discarding children. We are cruel to experiment on them. To purchase pieces of them. To inject into ourselves lineages of them. And we are foolish for throwing them away.

The value of a human being is incalculable. Their inestimable worth that cannot be calculated based on body parts, nor bought and sold as slaves or treated like property whether by a mother or a doctor. These children have a right to their own bodies, to their own heartbeat, to their own mind, to their own soul. We have no right to deny their rights.

We have no compassion until we put our compassion into law. Only then do we mean what we say.

The rights for ourselves apply to our "Posterity", the children who come after us. And their children. These are God-given rights that no human being has the right to take away. It begins with the protection of parents, the medical field, lawmakers, judges, churches, communities, family, and you and me.

These basic human rights are not just state and national rights, these are universal natural law. They are written in our hearts, if our hearts have not yet turned to stone. We are the "Posterity" to those who wrote them, as are the generations after us. At which generation do we want them to stop applying?

Here are the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights in Colorado:

U.S. Constitution | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Article II, Bill of Rights :: Colorado Constitution :: Colorado Law :: US Law :: Justia

Proverbs 18:5

Showing partiality to the wicked is not good, nor is depriving the innocent of justice.

1 Timothy 1:5-10

We realize that law is not enacted for the righteous, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for killers of father or mother, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching.

Faye Barnhart is a Life Affirming Specialist and Co-Founder of the Colorado Life Initiative. She was a women’s advocate for 19 years, served four pregnancy care centers in two states, including CEO of the largest pregnancy care center geographically in the United States, and served in a federal think tank on the co-occurrence of adult and child violence. A prelaw student who interned at the state Capitol and in media, she graduated with honors and pursued master's work in Organizational Leadership and a career in Communications for international ministries. She began in the prolife cause in the 1980’s, raised her children as a single parent, and is now married with an adopted special needs son and enjoys each of her grandchildren, including a grandbaby who needed life-saving surgery at birth. She accepted Christ as her personal Savior and Lord as a small child and continues her walk with the Lord in daily dependence.