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It depends on whether this is a moral question, philosophical question, or human question. That
humans have rights need not be gainsaid and those rights are manifold: the right to life, free
assembly, religious expression, political views, the right to life, employment education, freedom,
peace, justice etc. The problem arises when those rights are either not recognised or denied. How
does one respond to the denial of human rights? And what steps does one take to ensure that those
rights are recognised and reinstated when they have been denied? But whether humans have rights
simply because of their 'nature' is a different matter. I would suggest that whatever exists has rights,
whether it sentient or not. Creation exists and, as a Christian, I obviously say that it exists because
God wills it into being. But what exists does so because God wills it and not from any determinative
necessity, therefore, since it is not necessary for creation to exist it is a contingent dependent on a
necessity, since, I believe it is necessary that God exists. That creation is willed into being and given
its own freedom and constituent elements e.g. laws, direction, development, the evolutionary process,
physics etc., science may tell us how that creation is constructed but science does not reveal
anything that is not already existent e.g. DNA always existed, science has simply dis-covered it, lifted
the lid of it, so to speak, to reveal the glories and wonder of what is there in all its breathtaking
beauty.
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But such a creation also has rights, it has a right to exist and be itself independent of the utility value
Man places on it. So, given that God wills creation freely, he also freely gives it rights — and those
rights independent of Man. Perhaps we should begin to speak about a bi-lateral covenant agreement
between creation and Man wherein the rights of all creation are guaranteed, respected, and when
they are denied, how to effectively respond to them. As a Christian and a priest, especially a
Franciscan, I would say that we speak of the rights of nature, including ours, and where those rights
are denied or attack, then I consider it an attack on God him/ her/ itself.
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