The Value of Life

At what price would you value a human life? Can you imagine a sufficient dollar amount? Generally, we would balk at the task of appraising the human experience into a tangible currency. Some vainly try to create adequate valuations on the human existence. Life insurance companies offer payouts from the hundreds of thousands into the millions of dollars. Some judges have ruled that a life’s dollar value may reach up to $16 million. Some people have even achieved platinum net worth status reaching into the billions of dollars. Yet, despite these colossal cash sums, the dollar signs never seem to sufficiently add up to the being they purportedly “represent”.

 Naturally, no currency will ever equate to the experience, influence, and odyssey of the human life. A life of love, struggle, joy, and growth cannot be whittled into quarters, dimes, and nickels. Were that to be the case, I imagine that human life would never achieve anything beyond the lowest levels of meaningfulness. Thankfully, experience has proven time and again that a single life can accomplish or achieve the unimaginable. The complexity with which we live each of our lives demonstrates just how priceless one life can be.

For anyone who possesses at least a shred of optimism, I feel this is one point that we can all agree upon: life is invaluable, irreplaceable, and inestimable. I presume you have head the poetic clichés heralding life, its glory, and its majesty. As flattering as the spoken word may be, sometimes it does nothing more than mask the cancerous trends that discount human life and mock our natural benevolence. Though our lips may honor the natural beauty of life, our hearts are often unfeeling towards its sacredness.

For some time, I have wrestled with these thoughts in my mind. Now that I get to enjoy the benefits of fatherhood, I have come to earn an unprecedented respect for the sanctity of life. This respect becomes even deeper as friends or family move on from mortality. Because of the life I have been given and the lives that have surrounded me, I am more whole and more fulfilled. Life increases my joy. Nonetheless, my joy encounters bold contrast of heartache, sadness, and death.

Society appears to be accepting and even celebrating practices that overtly discard, devalue, and dismiss human life. On a daily basis, I hear or view dialogue that praises abortion, sanctions suicide, or ignores genocide. While each of these acts disturbs me to my core, I think the thing that bothers me most is the attitude with which society approaches “life” related issues. We are too callous, too arbitrary, and too derisive in our treatment of life.

Understandably, these issues can evolve into highly polarized debates regarding morality and ethics. These topics have been debated ad nauseam in news-cycles and on campaign trails. At first, I had determined that enough is being said on the subject. But as of late, I have grown uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable with knee jerk accusations. I am uncomfortable with people’s attempts to build their résumé as “world’s most open-minded intellectual”. Above all, I am uncomfortable with the flippant and inconsistent attitude towards life, especially human life.

Why should we consider this attitude so heinous? Perhaps it is because such attitudes reject the feelings and responsibilities that make us human in the first place! Think about what it means to be human. Consider the following words and their corresponding definitions:

Humane – A characterization of tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people, animals, and life.

Humanitarian – Having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of humans.

Humanity – The quality of being humane, possessing kindness, and showing benevolence.

Do these definitions seem consistent with the socially popular attitudes towards life? Doesn’t seem so does it? In fact, some other words come to mind: inhumane, dehumanize, subhuman, nonhuman.

I don’t strive to place a broad blanket of guilt and shame over society. I would point out that everyone, excluding a depraved super-minority, possesses humanitarian attributes. Naturally, most of us condemn murder and discourage suicide. The humane part of us knows these acts are wrong. 

However, we are sometimes erroneously selective in our feelings towards human life. This selective humanitarianism tends to increase unchallenged and unnoticed in modern society.

Probably the best way to illustrate what I mean by “selective humanitarianism” is to provide you with a few examples of its practice:

We plead and pray for the lives of depressed and suicidal friends, but some applaud the broad and liberal requirements for assisted suicide.

We demand protection for our local communities, but some willfully ignore the slaughter of men, women, and children seeking refuge.

We campaign for the protection of women and girls, but some keep their silence regarding the practice of gender selective abortions.

We scorn the senseless destruction of eggs, nests, and habitats of protected wildlife in order to give voices to the voiceless. However, discarding the life of viable unborn human life goes unchallenged.

These are all real, modern examples of selective humanitarianism.

I argue that life is not selective. Life is not a discriminatory moniker, susceptible to the changing whim of individual minds and circumstances. If that were the case, my life and your life would be forfeit as soon as it collided with the convenience or ambition of another human being. Can you imagine the chaos that would result from following that philosophy universally? Does scaling that philosophy down to the individual make that much sense either?

I prefer to see life as an inherent and self-evident designation. A designation earned through undeniable and unquestionable existence. Life is life, no matter from what angle you look. I witnessed this firsthand as I helped Chilean families overcome the emotionally crippling pain of a regretful abortion. I observed the lasting consequences of suicide in the lives of people who are left to pick up the pieces. In contrast, I witnessed the joy and satisfaction of forgoing abortion in favor of adoption. I have observed the enduring influence of a spared life. Life, by its very nature, is celebratory and sacred. In contrast, death is somber and mournful in any form or circumstance.

There is a lot to be said on this subject. Conversations regarding life can become complex and emotional. While the topic may be complex, we can still treat it with a high degree of respect. Life is too precious and important to treat it any other way than the way that it deserves.