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If a right like that existing wouldn't make the argument clear cut, doesn't make that my case, which depends on such a right not existing, even stronger?
...people pretty obviously have a right to not be shot by police unless they've in some sense 'deserved it' or some other interest is served to ameliorate a certain rate of accidents. A "right to life" ring a bell? Tradeoffs exist when it comes to public policy. I much dislike the constant agitation by people all over politics at pretending these tradeoffs don't even exist in the first place because of XYZ iron law or moral stance. In this case, it feels completely beside the point to view police actions as inherently self-justifying. And to be clear, I'm advocating for policy change, not necessarily a specific outcome in this specific case.
You're the one that said "I think framing it purely as 'X right exists [and trumps everything]' and leaving it at that is not a helpful framing, because especially when talking about law enforcement various "rights" come into conflict with each other all the time", so right off thr bat you've originally argued against your case, which was my point.
My case rests on a specific right (one to escape), NOT existing. If the suspect does not escape, by means of charging at an officer with a deadly weapon, at no point is their life in danger, so framing the discussion as a "right to life" id completely absurd.
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Yes- as a political slogan of the pro-life movement, relating to the inherent innocence of unborn who have made no decisions that could warrant killing them.
Secondarily, as a bad-faith attempt to twist that broadly understood meaning into other non-analogous contexts, typically as a poor 'gotcha' intended to imply hypocrisy.
Obviously it didn't make it into the Constitution as exactly such, but in the Declaration of Independence:
Or in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments:
These... didn't come to mind first? Very, very unfortunate. Right to life is not a gotcha, it's an obvious recognition that death is something uniquely serious - definitionally, something with zero remedy or reversal (spirituality aside) that robs a human of all future potential and agency. Obviously a lot of commentators have disagreed historically about whether property rights are (or ought to be) intrinsic to humans or not, and to define what a person is, but generally speaking no debate exists over a right to life in the broad sense. I'm a bit surprised I have to explain this?
Very appropriately not, because the declaration of independence and constitution were not the basis even the American anti-abortion movement believing in a God-given rights, or the moral impetus to protecting unborn children. The premise of human rights does not first bring to mind your cited documents, because they are neither the origin or the primary legitimizer of the premise of God-given rights.
Many in that movement are, in turn, much more familiar with the religious background of that premise of inalienable rights bestowed by the creator, and that religious tradition's view on children, which far, far predate the American documents in this question.
Many in the more modern era who wish to appropriate their slogans to other causes- such as opposition to capital punishment, which ignores the intellectual tradition emphasizing the role of innocence- or to paint the anti-abortion movement as hypocrites, will gladly use the phrase with equal disregard of the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. They are using the phrase in the sense of arguments as soldiers.
I would be a bit less surprised that an American was today years old when they first learned that a major part of the culture war for their entire life had a slogan that was first popularized by religious people referring to their religion, and not an American political document written about 250 years ago alluding to that religious tradition.
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