M.Ted...from a dictionary
sanctity..."The quality of being holy"

therefore, it DOES assume that some special protection outside simple pragmatic consideration is being applied. This assumes that there is such a thing AS holiness....and this IS one of the issues under debate.

Short answer: No, I do not believe that life "has any particular sanctity" related to the definition above, but that we can argue in ways similar to Kant's Categorical Imperative that we can extract logical bases for respecting life and each other, and by implication, other things related to having 'quality' in life.

need more detail?