Without going too much into it, someone who happens to be one of the very few people in the world I both respect and admire believes that I do not value human life. On reflection maybe they are offended that I value other things above life, but that isn't to say I don't value life itself. Their belief might be that the world would be a better place if people did value life above all else. I do not agree.
If I valued life above all else, I would be against abortion; I am not. It is worth noting that my mother tried sex one time and I am the consequence of that one moment of curious weakness, even though precautions were taken. She never wanted a kid, and I believe I might've ruined a large part of her life plans. She only had me because my grammy wouldn't give her the money for an abortion and attempting to have one in other ways would have made her parents disown her. Putting me up for adoption would've resulted in the same thing. She was left with no other choice but to raise a kid she didn't want and was ill-equipped to deal with, and I feel that was wrong. My grandparents, much as I love them, were wrong to put her in that position. She at the time depended on them for financial support (which she had to leave anyway later in my life, the reasons of which I might have gone over before in another post but suffice it to say american health care needed revising then and it does now) and couldn't afford to be thrown out of her own house. I am aware that had she been allowed to take the route that I think is ethically proper, I would not exist. This doesn't bother me. Above all else I value a person's right to do with their body and their life above all else, and I do not believe the preservation of my own life should take precedence of that value.
If I adopted their values, I would also be against drug use - or abuse - which I am not, because as I said, a person has the right to do whatever they damn well please with their bodies and their lives. I don't use drugs myself, I don't smoke, and I don't drink. I don't do these things because I have no desire to suffer the inevitable health problems that arise from their use (which would be magnified in my case anyway) but I will not object to another person doing these things even if it kills them because I believe that would infringe on what is ultimately the most sacred right to me. I have relatives who smoke, and I care a lot about one of them, but those are her lungs to destroy, not mine, and though I'd like her to at least try to quit in her declining age so that she might live longer and healthier (because I cannot imagine the world without my grandparents, although realistically I will have to someday) I know that it must ultimately be her choice to do so and all I can do is try to encourage her without imposing.
Which brings me to the matter of suicide. I am not against that either. I have friends who contemplate it every day, and I sometimes make myself sick with worry for them, and I feel - and I tell them as much - that the world, and especially me, would suffer greatly from their absence. I try to talk to them, I try to, as honestly as I can, give them some hope and make them want to continue existing, and I myself often challenge what I say to them later on to try to justify it myself because it is very important to me that what I say to them is what I believe to be the truth, but I ultimately know that there is always the chance that someone I care about might end their life to end their suffering and I have to accept that is their right. It is their life, not mine. They own it, they can use it as they please, and they can take it. I am aware that in some parts of the world knowing someone has this intent - or even desire - and not trying to actively stop them is considered criminal, but I would not infringe on the most sacred right to me under penalty of law or death and I think it goes far beyond criminal to try.
But all that said, I still do actually place value on life. All life, not just human life. It is a process I do not fully understand and which humankind has been trying to figure out for as long as we have been sentient, and for all intents and purposes - scientific or other - it is a miraculous thing. I am the kind of person who stopped eating meat because they couldn't live with the knowledge that we arbitrated an expiration date on other animals. I am the kind of person who needed to be explained that square watermelons aren't a callous invention of humans because shaping the melon itself does not actually cause the plant pain and that it, in fact, wants animals to consume its fruit. The same friend, who is a biology major, has often explained things about life to me in an effort to diffuse my guilt that we must consume other life - plant or animal - to sustain our own. There was a time when I was so disturbed by this that I would often lose my appetite (which for those who know me is almost impossible) and I now deal with this feeling through, for lack of a better phrase, the magic of science. Plants cannot feel pain as we do, so chewing up a leaf does not make it suffer needlessly, although they can still be damaged (which can sometimes make me take care when walking through tall growth) but those who care for plants while they grow do so with care and are concerned, if only for the purpose of monetary gain, with the plant's, for lack of a more accurate term, happiness and well-being and the things we consume do live in the conditions which would meet their needs as healthy happy living organisms and I must content myself with that.
I must also content myself with, although this is a little harder, the knowledge that even though we ultimately kill yeast in the process of baking or brewing, there is the likelihood that they have lived several generations in that span of time and thus have lived several full lives in their idea of a preferred environment. I sometimes wonder if humans might meet a similar end one day by some creature who is using us to cultivate a result, and I think I can be content with that too.
On the subject of human life, it is true I am a misanthrope and I, on the whole, view the world as wrong and unjust and that part of that I blame on humans, but I am not an inhumane person - at least not intentionally - and I consider humans with the same regard as animals in terms of my ethics on their lives, although I personally prefer the company of most animals to most people largely because animals on the whole have treated me more honestly than most people even if they didn't much care for me. Animals are not plants, they are not stationary and they don't depend on other species to procreate. As a result, animals do not, as a rule, like being chewed up, gored, shot, cleaved, or any other form of pain, and I do not like inflicting pain. I was that kid who tortured caterpillars when I was very young and later became disturbed when I realized what suffering I put them through. When I was 4 I cried over the carcass of a dead bird. I cannot say why, except that I remember the impression of a great overwhelming sadness and confusion. I dislike causing creatures pain and sickness just to satisfy our curiosity about the world, and even though I have to accept that the ends will sometimes benefit medical science for all animal species, including humans, I still don't think I could ever inject a rodent with AIDS and watch it die to study its immune system. I sometimes wonder how the scientists who do this live with themselves. Maybe they try, as best they can, to make the life they sacrificed count for something, and maybe not all of them cause pain and death to other creatures lightly. Or maybe they are just detached enough to not be affected, and maybe some of them don't value animal life at all, or at least not nearly as much as human life. I don't know. I'd like to believe the former, even though the latter has been evidenced to exist. I'd like to believe that is a minority though, and since my scientist friend is also someone who values animal life a great deal and is very much concerned with the well-being of all creatures (she is not a misanthrope as I am, and loves humans as much as any other animal) it makes the former much easier to believe.
I often speak in anger, as is a cultural phenomenon of americans and probably not a very good one - of wanting to kill someone or some group in some very specific methodology. Right now, as I am, I cannot imagine taking a life and I would very much appreciate if, for the moment, everyone who sees this happens to believe I'm full of shit, but unfortunately I have actually been angry enough to make someone suffer and there were times in middle school when I became angry enough to try to kill someone. It was lucky I didn't know to aim for the neck with my heel instead of the skull in one instance. I have learned to accept many things about myself, this is not one of those things, and I have some very legitimate anger issues that I am always fighting with. I do not like the idea and on an intellectual level I always feel there is something very wrong with taking another person's life. This also attributes to why I won't help anyone kill themselves unless they are incapable of doing it themselves and they explicitly ask. I will help someone suffering paralysis with no hope of recovery to die, if I am certain that is what they want. (My mother and I have discussed this exact scenario, and we both agree to take the other's life in the event of its happening. We cannot be happy existing like that, unable to do the things that bring us joy because they involve our mobility.) I will not help someone obtain helium tanks if they are in full control of their faculties though, as one of my friends learned (and which I somewhat regret. I am in conflict about whether my refusal to help was disloyal or whether it was selfish to place my desire not to kill someone above their desire to die), and I will not help someone research ways to die or advise them on the subject at all. I would always feel that I inadvertently caused their death and thus robbed them of any other option that might have eased their pain and while I do not condemn suicide I view it as a last resort when there is nothing left and I cannot live with myself if I caused someone to forsake all hope when there might have been some.
I made a few posts about my anger and how I feel about it, so I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say I sometimes wonder if I am a monster and if one day it will come out of me and I won't be able to control it. What I fear most is that I might kill someone and later come to know the details of their lives. People are valuable to other people, even when that seems unlikely (something I have personal experience with) and I might actually rob a child of their parent, someone of their best friend, or an animal of a part of their family. I am not sure I could live with that. I have thought about what I might do in that situation, and only one answer comes to mind.
On the note of self-preservation though, I do not agree with the consumption of other animals but it is my choice to not consume them myself and I cannot expect that of others. Although I think a person's sacred right to choose ends at the point where it damages or takes another's right, or their life, I do know that a lot of livestock are well cared for in most facilities and though they have been arbitrated a life expectancy, which I disagree with, their life, such as they have it, is usually made comfortable. (With the exception of veal, which I will condemn people for consuming.) I am the only vegetarian in my family and they are good people. I also don't condemn someone for hunting game if they use most of what they kill and they don't endanger the environment by leaving a rotting carcass lying about. Some people do, and because there are significantly few carnivores left in my area, the bodies go uneaten and they do rot and fester. (We hunted the wolves to near extinction here but the deer have thrived in their absence.) Even if someone isn't going to use the whole carcass themselves, they should submit it to one of the many facilities here that will. (Deer jerky is a popular market here.) Aside from the practical concerns, though, I think it is disrespectful to the life taken to not utilize its body as best as you can. I disagree strongly with hunting something you do not intend to eat and I view trophy hunting as careless and don't believe the people who do this have a proper respect for life.
I also believe that when necessary it is acceptable to kill in self-defense, human or otherwise. It would be ideal to incapacitate the threat, but in the heat of the moment it is not always possible to aim for the arm or leg as opposed to the chest. It is not a clear issue on whether it is always justified, nor is the whole story ever given, but it can be necessary and sometimes the only immediate option. Whether or not I think it is ethical is ambiguous beyond that.
But the real issue that started all this is whether or not I think it is kinder to let someone die than live in suffering. I suppose the problem with twitter is that 140 characters isn't enough to really explore a topic, so what I said was taken out of context. I was led to believe that people - humans - were living in the middle of a warzone where they were being bombed all the time (and I took that quite literally) and that there was no apparent end to it in sight. I don't know these people, I don't know if they have an internet connection to offer their own insight (Can an internet connection survive constant bombing?) or their own wishes, but as is the case with how I view everything else, whether or not they live is their choice and though I would personally find it dubious to choose to live that way, I wouldn't infringe on their right to their own life.
However, I find it dubious simply because I personally would find living in suffering worse than death and would take the latter over it. Maybe this is what others find so inflammatory, in which case, we simply disagree on a fundamental level based on our separate values and beliefs and I would be content with that if it weren't implied that I value life less than they do just because mine differ.
Actually, my concern for others is exactly why I feel so strongly about this. I think it is wrong that people have to live in fear and that their lives are full of pain - I feel this way about all humans, not just those whose circumstances are more precarious, although I would say that their plight might take priority - and I do not want anything to live like this. I have been accused of seeing people as abstracts, that cannot be farther from the truth. I see them as people, they have relatively the same nervous system I do. If you cut them with a knife, they bleed. If you shoot them in the chest, they die. If you kill someone they care about, they cry. If you subvert them and use them and take away their rights, they feel despair and anger and indignation. It is the sheer fact that we are talking about humans that I feel such indignation on their part in the first place. I am against war. It is sometimes inevitable, but it should be avoided whenever possible specifically because it ultimately makes a lot of people - real people - suffer, and more often than not, they are just caught in the crossfire and not even soldiers themselves.
However, I do not know a lot of the context for that particular subject. I honestly don't think that what I say has any real gravity on it for that reason, but I find it insulting that I am accused of devaluing life when nothing can be further from the truth. I am, at most, guilty of ignorance which I wholly admit to, but I am not uncaring and I do value life.
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