So, Where's the Line?

Yesterday, I asked why suicide was considered a crime (or taboo for Relax Max who doesn't think it's illegal). I got a number of interesting viewpoints and comments, including Relax Max arguing that only attempted suicide is a crime but not suicide itself (since there's not we can do to punish a successful suicider), Soubriquet's excellent examples of socially acceptable suicide (we call it bravery) and mrsbitch's making a comparison between murder and suicide.

What I'd like to do is expand on mrsbitch's comments. She noted that murder was illegal and, as suicide was effectively self-murder, the same rules applied. Well, although I noted that, in my opinion, the problem with murder is that you're making life/death decisions for someone else without their input - which isn't the problem with suicide.

But, let's for argument sake, say that there is an inherent sanctity of life that no one has the right to snuff out, not even for oneself. So, if human life is absolutely sacrosanct, anything one does to shorten or endanger one's own life would also be criminal. To some extent we do this now by making narcotics and other serious and addictive drugs illegal. But, where do you draw the line? If we couldn't put our lives at risk, smoking should be absolutely forbidden, and extreme sports made illegal. Obesity would be a crime. One could not refuse treatment for oneself. Salt would be seriously curtailed.

And he's a kicker. What if you're pregnant and the pregnancy puts your life at risk? You'd no longer have a choice to try to carry the baby. Of course, that's a whole other post.

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Why Is Suicide a Crime?

I know it may seem facetious, but I have to ask, why is a suicide a crime? I mean, I understand the ambiguity behind euthenasia - without direction, who can know what someone would really choose for themselves?

But suicide is different. Suicide is someone choosing not to live any more for whatever reason. So, why is that illegal?

Oh, I know some religions are dead set against it, but we're supposed to be a secular nation. What's the legal justification to tell someone they can't die if that's what they prefer? Why is it "wrong"?

I can speculate at some reasons. There are those that think anyone who wants to kill themselves is mentally ill and must be protected from themselves. Why are we so sure that's so? Is it inconceivable that someone can be perfectly rational and just not want to live any more? The Japanese, of course, respected suicide as a way of erasing shame or finding glory. Many cultures in Asia and the Pacific and North America appreciate the notion of people knowing when it's time to die. So why does it have to be insane?

Now, many people understand other people facing a terminal illness or a painful debilitating illness wanting to die painlessly instead, but why do we feel we have to understand and agree with the reason they want to die? What's it to the rest of us?

If physical pain and misery are sufficient justification to "let" someone die, why not loneliness or hopelessness? Why not remorse or despair? Who's to say what's "enough" pain except the person involved? People survived Auschwitz, but could everyone? Should everyone be able to?

We value our freedom, that adults can make decisions for themselves as long as they don't illegally damage anyone else. So, if we can choose how to live our lives, why can't we choose when to end it?

Just wondering...

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Burning Your Spaceship

So, I'm distracted another day from the bare necessities of education because I read an editorial in the New York Times yesterday that really threw me for a loop: One-Way Ticket to Mars. The notion, proposed by this article, is that we could develop human spaceflight to get to Mars (and the moon, too, incidentally, though they don't mention it) if we didn't have to worry about bringing the crewmembers back.

Yeah, that was my reaction. Now, he mentioned giving it some thought before going with the gut reaction and I've done that (my gut reaction wasn't complimentary). He is also correct when he says a one way trip is drastically easier and less challenging than a round trip. That saves consumables for round trip and two different "landing" vehicles ( you only need one), plus all the propulsion to come back and leave the surface of Mars. And you and I both know that getting volunteers would be no problem - people would still be lined up around the block (especially scientists) to go even if we cheerfully told them they only had so much time before they'd asphyxiate when they got there. Oh, yes, it would be way easier.

But, no, I think this is an abysmally bad idea.

What really surprised me is that I talked to my boss and others and they were kind of shrugging. My boss pointed out that Cortez scuttled the ships when he hit the shores of Mexico (and sent me a religious website that extolled the virtue of committing, come heck or high water, to something with the implication that the devil is the one that incites one to plan an escape route which, I suppose puts Cortez on the side of God. Um, hard for me to see him as the protagonist, but I digress.). My boss also noted that the scruples that would undoubtedly make such an option ugly to us might not bother the Russians or the Chinese - which would give them an opportunity to leapfrog past us.

So, why, besides my innate safety-first mentality, makes me think this is a bad idea?

Well, first, as much as I'd like to admire the foresight of Cortez, he was an asshole who was putting his men in a position where they had to defeat and conquer the Aztecs or die trying. That was pure unadulterated greed and the quest for glory that came with a pretty big price tag for the natives. He wasn't starting a colony - he was conquering a nation.

But the rationale isn't comparable anyway. There is food, water, air in Mexico. You just have to work with the natural resources. Nowhere in the solar system can we say that except for the surface of our own planet. Historically, an escape hatch, a path of retreat has been the difference between survival and failure many times - with the usual result of failure to have an escape route being fatal. In other words, having no retreat is stupid. Going somewhere where you can't even survive outside without one goes a step beyond stupid.

Secondly, although I understand people would be willing to sacrifice themselves for the opportunity to explore other planets, suicide missions are the sort of thing one does as a last resort. If we were facing a cataclysm, taking a one way trip makes sense - a chance to get something when catastrophe is your only other alternative. But we're not.

And, here's the next question - what are we hoping to accomplish? If we are really to conquer the stars, we're going to need to figure out how to go where we want and come back. When we went to the moon, we walked and brought back, not just astronauts, but all they saw and heard and felt and learned about wandering about another planet. We brought back pieces of our other planet. We learned lessons about landing and taking off that we would never have learned if we'd just sent them one way. We had to do it right to do it at all.

And that's it. I'm not interested in climbing Mount Everest 'cause it's there. I want to go out into space with a plan. I want to go out there for good, not as a publicity stunt or to gather a few data points before biting down on my cyanide pill. I want to be there so I can use what I learned to go further, faster, smarter next time, to find a new horizon because I really beat this one.

We've already proved we know how to send things to Mars. Going with men means getting them back because that's the real achievement.

In my opinion.

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