Inviolability

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In religion and ethics, inviolability or sanctity is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of human life which are said to be holy, sanctified, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated. The concept of inviolability is an important tie between the ethics of religion and the ethics of law, as each seeks justification for its principles as based on both purity or natural concept, as well as in universality of application.

[edit] Sanctity of life

The phrase Sanctity of life refers to the idea that life is sacred, argued mainly by the pro-life side in political and moral debates over such contentious issues as abortion, euthanasia, and the "right to die" in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

In contrast to the consistent life ethic, the sanctity of life principle is usually reserved for non-criminal human beings. Critics argue that the sanctity of life principle is undermined by its inconsistencies—in particular its approbation of the death penalty and lack of unswerving support for such concepts as vegetarianism, veganism, and especially animal rights. In Western thought, sanctity of life is usually applied solely to the human species, in marked contrast to many schools of Eastern philosophy, which often hold that all animal life is sacred―in some cases to such a degree that, for example, practitioners of Jain carry brushes with which to sweep insects from their path, lest they inadvertently tred upon them.