Full Idea
The decision 'to prefer the risk of death to the certainty of having to obey' is the 'last anchor point' for any assertion of rights, 'one more solid and closer to the experience than "natural rights"'.
Gist of Idea
Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them
Source
Michel Foucault (works [1978], EW III:449)
Book Reference
Foucault,Michel: 'Essential Works 1954-1984 3: Power', ed/tr. Faubion,J [Penguin 2002], p.448
A Reaction
I recall a group of Afrikaan men going to face certain death, rather than give up apartheid.