[AndrewC]

This fact changes nothing about the self-evident truths above - the essential fact is that we are endowed with these rights.

So what about the ant, or the mosquito, or the Yersinia pestis? If those organisms have rights why do we deprive them of life? If they have rights when do we appoint ambassadors to bargain with them for territorial and resource apportionment? If they do not have rights how does homo sapiens acquire these "self-evident" rights? At what point is this "self-evident" truth self-evident?

[Storm Orphan]

If they do not have rights how does homo sapiens acquire these "self-evident" rights?

We conceptualize them, define them and claim them as a species that has attained sapience.
Not all human agree, but then, that too is the nature of the struggle to protect rights.

Sapient species have rights. Non-sapient species do not.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

Very rarely do I fault our founding fathers and our founding documents. They missed it big time on this one, eh? Self-evident sure don't mean what it used to mean. Amazing how 'in the dark' they were, and how 'enlightened' we are today. The nerve of them to think that 'man' was somehow special and leave out the ant, or the mosquito, or the Yersinia pestis...