The value of life

" I feel such a sense of solidarity with all living things that it does not matter to me where the individual begins and ends"

Albert Eienstein

Somethings are impossible to put a price tag on when they are personal and deeply rooted in your psyche. What is inspiring and truly resonates with your authentic personal self,your talents and achievements,perhaps your idiosyncrasies and behaviour patterns, is only a clue to your value, as value in human terms is more than a measure. 

Some of us find it hard accepting parts of our self,in fact what we call as our own. Somethings seems too intense, perhaps awesome, whilst something else seem banal and lame.

Very often we expect validation rather than valuation of who we are and what makes us tick.It is what we rather identify as our individual self.This happens to be the hallmark of our being, our existence. Thus it is somewhat difficult as it is too personal for us to judge.It would be more appropriate as what we all need is some distance,a boundary before we assess or judge our value. 

The quest and the question uppermost in our minds is, why do we want to judge ourselves. It is because of our low self esteem which over our lifetime society,parents,teachers and even our peers put on us,partly to easily categorise or  stigmatise us, and thus have made us to accept voluntarily or wilfully  as our "true self". This in person centred counselling is called "conditioning".

Human life has an intrinsic value? 

Human life has an intrinsic,innate value. That human life is a sacred trust just in itself and that the sacred nature of a human life begins when its biological like begins,even before the creature whose life it has movement or sensation or interests or rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Part if not the whole of this thesis was propagated by Richard Dworkin, the philosopher.

Once we accept that life is intrinsically valuable and sacred,we simply differ in our interpretation of what respecting human life as intrinsically valuable entails. 

To enforce a particular interpretation of how to respect the intrinsic value of human life would be to infringe on the freedom of religion,our self worth,which is not only the cornerstone of our democracy,but also forms the basis of our Buddhist way of life,which is the protection and preservation of all "living beings". 

We all know that it is wrong to kill not only humans but all living beings, whether by murder or even some other means outside our control, like what we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic,which has culled the population of the world by over a million. 

Why does science use animals and even humans as guinea-pigs?

Scientists can test potential new medicines on human cells and tissue to see if they are likely to work and be safe in people.Human experimentation is important as properly controlled studies with human subjects are essential to verify any conclusions about normal physiology, mechanisms of disease, effectiveness of treatment ,learning or behaviour. Thus all new drugs have to be treated on human clinical trials on volunteers,provided volunteers give "informed consent".

The Ethical dilemma

The problem of unnecessary drugs mean unnecessary experiments.This is a widespread ethical problem raised by the development of new phasrmaceticals. There is no way volunteers can be fully appraised of the risks in advance and that is what the tests purport to determine. Thus informed consent is the key ingredient in drug appraisal.

To address ethical issues of human experimentation we have to travel down ethical terrain. Vigilence is most essential when vulnerable populations are involved.

Animals as guinea pigs

Animals are used in scientific research to help us understand our own bodies and how they work. This is necessary to develop new medicines.

Animals are also used to safely test potential medicinesbefore they are tested in people and to check the safety of other chemicals and new medical treatments. Some of these problems involve processes that can only be studied in a living organism. 

Animals are biologically similar to human and succeptible to many of the same health problems. They also have a short life cycles so they can be easily be studied throughout the whole life span, or across several generations. 

But the real reason why animals are used is that of ethics, it would be wrong to deliberately expose human beings to health risks in order to observe the course of a disease. Thus animals are needed in research to develop drugs and medical procedures to treat disease in humans. Every new therapy has to pass animal experimentation in the first instance to see if it is safe and effective. If favourable, then human volunteers are asked to volunteer in clinical trials. 

The four main reasons for animal experimentation in research.

1. To improve our understanding of biology for fighting disease in humans. Studying how healthy bodies function often reveals what is happening when things go wrong 

2. As models to study disease.

3. To develop and test potential forms of treatment.Many potential treatments work in theory, but they need to be tested in a living body to make sure they work in practice.

4. To protect the safety of people, animals and treatment,all new medicines are initially treated "in vitro"using tissues and isolated organs , but legally and ethically it must also be tested in a suitable animal model before clinical trials in humans can take place.4

The symbiotic link between human,plants and animals

Symbiosis is a close relationship between the species -humans,animals and plants,in which each of the species befefit. It can be "agricultural" or "domesticated". Our welfare as a biological species directly depends upon the extent to which we provide for the welfare of our symbionts.

In this symbiotic relationship, some organism closely interacts with another type of organism to ensure its own survival, so that they all end up sharing the same habitat considered essential to the health and well being of the entire species.

This is the essence of the value of life.

Victor Cherubim