When rights talk leads to death: We cannot sever human rights from right and wrong

Several years ago, Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon offered the persuasive argument that America has embraced what she calls “rights talk.”  The assertion of rights is now the standard way to effect social change or, in the case of individuals, to have your own way.  “Rights talk” is what remains when a cultural consensus about right and wrong evaporates.Fast-forward and rights talk is, if anything, even more ingrained in the American character.  Battles over competing and conflicting asse