OPINION: Human life has no innate value
Human life has no base value or worth in any way shape or form. Value or worth is defined as contribution to a species or evolutionary fitness; which is described as a creature’s ability to survive and reproduce in the publication Natural History.
Humans are a widely populous species that populates and occupies the largest swaths of land on the planet. By 1995 at least 83 percent of the earth’s land surface has been directly affected by humans according to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Humans are also the only higher order species known on earth to occupy every single climate zone.
People hold little value for other creature’s lives also. Homo Sapien Sapien, the modern human eradicates many species without care or notice. According an article in Science Magazine about one fourth of all the bird species on the earth have been driven to extinction by humans. Other fauna are not expected to have fared much better.
If people kill entire species without discretion how could they then value the concept of one human life greater than an entire species?
Humans spread, and spread rapidly. “Since 1994, the global population has grown from 5.7 to 7.2 billion. Despite slowing population growth, UN projections suggest the world’s population could reach 9.6 billion by 2050,” according to United Nations’ population statistics.
With over 7 billion humans the loss of a single person is inconsequential. One out of 7 billion is 0.000000014285714 percent of the total global human population. The loss of one person does not diminish the entire populations gene pool, nor does it influence the evolutionary progress of a species. Populations evolve on a massive over time scale not an individual scale.
Humans also cannot be described as evolutionarily fit because many are incapable of reproduction due to biological reasons, or the desire to not want to reproduce. Great lengths are actually taken to prevent reproduction in humans. According to the Center on Children and Families at Brookings Institute over $1.32 billion is spent in the United States annually on contraceptive methods.
This all leads me to the conclusion that a human life has no innate value. A human’s life is worth nothing at base value. The death of a human does not influence the species in any way shape or form.
The value of a human life is not innate. A human life as a concept is a unnecessary use of the approximately, according to Jefferson Labs seven times 10 to the 27th power atoms that make up a grown human body.
The worth, the value of a human life is earned. Simply being human does not make one important or better than any other entity around them. What a person does with the gift of life is what gives them value. People earn worth it is not given.
Individuals who enhance the world, by learning, researching, growing and teaching; these things and so many others make their lives valuable. Humans are the most intelligent species known, so we must, as a whole be the best, not through our belief in our superiority but by our action to elevate the world. We must better ourselves and the lives of those around us to be worth something to have any value.