The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a 2-month-old girl, even though the baby has had less life. The 20-year-old has a much more developed personality than the infant, and has drawn upon the investment of others to begin as-yet-unfulfilled projects.
Interpretation
The loss of a young adult is perceived as more tragic than that of an infant due to their developed identity and potential.
This quote by Ezekiel Emanuel explores the complex nature of life valuation, suggesting that our perceptions of loss are often shaped by the development of personality and the potential of unfulfilled endeavors. The quote highlights how we attribute greater significance to the life experiences and aspirations of individuals who have reached maturity, contrasting it with the potential life of an infant who, despite having lived less, has not yet formed a distinct identity or invested in future projects.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the value of life and how we perceive its worth.
There's nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, in trying to bend every child to match a one-size-fits-all notion of what it means to be a boy or girl of a specific age. Better to set a few parameters and then go with the flow. Call it 'jazz parenting.'
We had a big controversy in the United States when there was a limited number of dialysis machines. In Seattle, they appointed what they called a 'God committee' to choose who should get it, and that committee was eventually abandoned. Society ended up paying the whole bill for dialysis instead of having people make those decisions.
Patients who are being kept alive by technology and want to end their lives already have a recognized constitutional right to stop any and all medical interventions, from respirators to antibiotics. They do not need physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
As an academic, what do you have? You have the quality of your work and the integrity with which you do it.
Our dad hugged us and kissed us so much that some friends and relatives complained that he was going to turn us into sissies or homosexuals. But my dad didn't care. Let them raise their kids in a reserved and reticent way. He grew up in Israel, and his boys were going to be hugged and kissed by their father and know they were loved.
Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.
Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.
Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.
It doesn't take much insight to realize that wars have been getting worse every time - worse from the point of view of the civilian, more and more destructive, more and more total.
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky Will cave in on him by and by.
We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.
I can't imagine not being in a phase where I'm trying to understand something or create something. That's the essence of life.
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