Top 6 Facts of Human Rights History Fact 2

Legal Human Rights Started with the 4th Century Criminalization of Abortion Due to the Ancient (Christian) Pro-Life Principle that All Humans without Exception are Equally Precious Not Cheap, Implicitly Establishing The Inherent Human Right to Live Which State Governments are Obligated to Protect.

Christianity introduced into the West the term and concept of personhood, based in the Christian theology of the 1 God in 3 Persons who made humanity, "male and female" equally "in God's Image" (Genesis 1:27, from the very first chapter of the Bible).  Because Christians understand God is mysteriously 3 Persons, humans made in God's Image began to be called persons - with inherent high value and inherent rights.  Thus, as long as any humans have been called persons, with inherent rights, preborn humans have been called persons, with an Inherent Human Right to Live legally protected in Western Law or custom since the 318 AD criminalization of abortion (which happened 5 years after the West stopped violently persecuting Christians in 313 AD, and started listening to them).  

Note: Western Christian Civilization from the 4th Century to the first half of the 20th Century provided the necessary background for the logical development of Modern Human Rights.  Legally recognized Human Rights started with the 4th Century criminalization of abortion and infanticide due to Christian influence, and culminated in the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, produced under the direction of a devout Christian at a time when most in the "Free West" were baptized Christians and attended a Christian Church (see Fact 4 below).  In addition to personhood, ancient Christians also introduced the West to charity to look after basic human needs.  As they do to this day, Christian missionaries and religious orders provided free health care and education to as many humans as possible (Christian or not), raising the quality of human life in order to best serve the great dignity of humans "made in God's Image."  Christians invented hospitals and universities as an outgrowth of these pursuits in recognition of the Christian belief in equal human preciousness - which is one of The Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy.  (Note also that Modern Science and the Modern Scientific Method were developed by Christians in the Christian universities of Christian Europe, the world's first stable, long-term community of scientific scholars, logically building Science as we know it upon First Principles gleaned from the Bible - that the universe is an ordered cosmos, with an intelligent orderer/Creator God, and not an ultimately random, undirected chaos - which is why it is worth looking at Nature for underlying patterns of order, the sign of an ordering intelligence, as Science does.  Science never developed wherever an ordering intelligence was not assumed as First Principles, and all the major figures of the Scientific Revolution were devout Christians.)  Later on, colonists from Christian Europe wherever they went typically ended indigenous wars and indigenous Human Rights abuses like human sacrifices, cannibalism, widow-burning, and giving children over to be temple prostitutes, in accordance with the Christian principles that underlie Human Rights. Unfortunately, colonists may not be the most devout Christians themselves and did not always show proper Christian love and respect for every indigenous human "made in God's Image."  So, devout Christians became the Founders of International Law to help make up for this lack.  All the Founders of International Law were devout Christians, some Catholic (Friar Francisco de Vitoria; Father Francisco Suárez), some Protestant (Alberico Gentili, Hugo Grotius).  Devout Christians founded International Law in order to protect humans and their inherent rights to life and property no matter where they were, whether they were Christian or not, and however primitive their civilizations might be compared to Europe.  Most of the greatest social reformers in history, such as William Wilberforce ending slavery in the British Empire, were devout Christians specifically trying to have Christian principles like equal human preciousness without exception better put into practice in their country.  Non-Christian social reformers like Gandhi were educated in the Christian West, well-versed in the Judeo-Christian Bible, and heavily influenced by Christian principles..

EACH OF THE "TOP 6 FACTS" IS SUBJECT OF AN ENTIRE CHAPTER IN THE BOOK PRO-LIFE EQUALS PRO-DEMOCRACY