When’s the last time anyone met a superstitious dog?
People keep talking about how precious every human life is, that we shouldn’t help anyone to end it.
And then I look around and see just how cheap those lives are. Murder, war, poverty. We will do everything we can to keep someone alive despite horrific pain, yet we will do everything we can to minimize social benefits that help the poor in our own countries.
With a few rare exceptions, people who talk up the ‘sanctity of life’ tend to be (whether consciously or unconsciously) throwing a cloak of flowery phrasing over some combination of a sickening dose of the ‘just world hypothesis’ and more than a dash of hatred of human agency.
Meatgrinder bush war somewhere I can’t pronounce or babies dying of trivial childhood diseases or the suffering of the poor? Meh, whatever is is right, god’s plan, what can they expect, living like they do. Somebody has the temerity to choose death? EVERY LIFE IS SACRED! Extra credit, of course, to the sick bastards who actually claim that suffering is a noble phenomenon per se… (See also opponents of abortion vs. opponents of things that tend to make people choose abortion, like poverty, lack of bodily autonomy, and lack of access to and information about, reliable contraceptives…)
They shoot horses, don’t they?
I found the film El Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) to be a very balanced exploration of the topic. Some movies about controversial topics can be dry or preachy (I would include Vera Drake in that list), but I thought this one avoided that trap very well and presented a large variety of views in a sympathetic way.
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