Human life is not sacred

World Nutrition Volumes 5, 6, January, February, May, June 2014, March 2015

Human life is not sacred

Here are Raquel my wife and Gabriel our son taking his very first steps, aware of his achievement. Gabriel is beloved, special, unique, and we trust will have a long and happy life, but he is not sacred. __________________________________________________________________ August 2018. What follows are five contributions I made to my ‘What do you think?’ column in World Nutrition in 2014 and 2015. They are notes and ideas with finally, some recommendations. I remember how hard it was to write them. What I propose in the final piece seems obvious to me now. I would now take a tougher line. Why these contributions in a journal concerned with nutrition? Well, I am opposed to the ‘objective’ style of ‘scientific’ discourse, in which the people doing the thinking and the work are absent, and firm judgements evaded. In my opinion, professionals have a duty in effect to say ‘this is what we (or I) believe, what do you believe?’ Specifically, I have always been negatively impressed by some basic assumptions of medicine and public health that are rarely questioned or even noticed. These include the tenet that it is an absolute duty to keep people alive by all means possible and as long as possible irrespective of their physical and mental state and even of their own wishes. This seems to spring from the belief that all human life is sacred, and that it must be protected and prolonged no matter what the costs and consequences are for the living and natural world, or for other humans, or the people concerned. To take one example, it is assumed that countries with an average age at death of say 80 are more advanced than those in which the average age is say 75, despite the fact that the difference is largely accounted for by rates of perinatal death, and that in the more ‘advanced’ societies people’s last 10 or 15 years is very often a miserable time of increased disability and constant expensive and increasingly invasive and brutal medical and surgical intervention. Well… read on, and what do you think? Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


World Nutrition Geoffrey Cannon Centre for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition University of São Paulo, Brazil

Email: [email protected]

Birth, life, death Human life is not sacred: 1

People who live well, live on as long as they are remembered, and are immortal when what they stood for when alive resonates for ever. The end of a good life is a time for remembrance and celebration Why does public health and nutrition teaching and practice evidently believe that the bigger humans are, the younger they become sexually mature, the more there are of them – and also that they longer they live – the better for the species, future generations and the planet? Isn’t it obvious that taken together – and individually also – in practice these beliefs are making humans more greedy, miserable, diseased and destructive? They seem to stem from a kind of ideology, from some sort of worship of ourselves as a species. See above how the people of South Africa commemorated the life, achievements and witness of Nelson Mandela after his death in December at the great age of 95. The mood has been a little like that of a Celtic wake, in which people come together when a loved person dies to sing songs, play music, enjoy themselves uproariously, Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


renew friendships, and celebrate the person who has died and so become the midwives of their immortality. In sane cultures, it is understood that people who die live on in the minds and hearts of the living, and in the bodies of their descendants, and so in this and not in a conventional religious sense may live forever. Seen like this, death is not dreadful. There is a time to die, just as animals and plants and all living things die. The notion that human life is divine and therefore that it must be preserved almost no matter what, fades away. For me one of the most bizarre headlines in a UK daily newspaper at the beginning of January was ‘Ariel Sharon’s life in danger’. The story went on to remind readers that the Israeli former prime minister has been comatose since 2006, after a massive stroke. Apparently despite receiving the full treatment, various vital organs were ‘critically malfunctioning’. Heads of state and senior officials from friendly nations had been alerted to come to Israel and pay their respects at the funeral. Another contribution to the same paper was published on the same day, written by the novelist Margaret Drabble, now in her mid 70s. ‘We are denied the right to die with dignity. It is grotesque’, she declared. ‘When it’s time to go, let me go, with a nice glass of whisky and a pleasing pill’. She has also written: ‘I used to believe life would come to a sudden end, like my mother's did – she went to sleep and didn't wake up – but I now realise she was extremely lucky and it's more likely that they just keep bringing you back again and again, even if you don't want to be here any more’. I don’t entirely agree with her, for I think that death is best preceded by a time in which the dying person can complete their affairs and say goodbye to family, friends and colleagues. This is what my second wife Caroline did in her last weeks. She summoned her friends one by one and as she said goodbye gave them all a piece of her jewellery – such as a brooch, ear-rings, a ring – for women to wear at her wake, which they did, and other keepsakes for men. Very moving, and appropriate. Now for a different situation, the true story of a man in his 70s with chronic obstructive lung disease, bronchitis and diabetes. He needs an oxygen tank, inhalers, insulin injections, and many medicines. He is a prisoner in the US, some years into a 30 year sentence. The average unit cost in a US maximum security prison is $33,000 a year. If the man lives say another 8 years, that will cost the US taxpayer over $US 250,000, plus his treatments. Suppose he wants to die, has formally stated this wish, but does not have the resources to kill himself. By what right is his request denied? And then the tough question. Suppose he does not want to die. Why keep him alive?

Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred; 1 What do you think? [Column]. World Nutrition January 2014, 5, 1, 79-80 Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015



Nelson Mandela’s death created a great cry of joy from the people of South Africa for what he has achieved for his country, for the whole continent of Africa, and the world. This is life after death Stating that ‘human life is not sacred’ in a sense is obvious – we are not gods. But how else explain what has become an obsession with the survival of very damaged newborns, and very diseased elderly people, even against the wishes of parents and of the people who want to die? Well. I can think of three explanations, all troublesome. One is that what this really is all about is a medical practice that keeps people alive because this can be done, often at great emotional, practical and financial expense; it is technically interesting and challenging. Two is that in these modern times – but never before, as far as I know – those most affected have surrendered responsibility for life and death decisions relating to themselves and their children, to a profession whose declared position is always to keep people alive, no matter what. Three – this theme here – is the general belief that on principle, life must be preserved practically at all costs irrespective of circumstances, because – human life is sacred. The implications of taking responsibility for life and death as a human act are immense. Should people who are irreversibly incapacitated have the right to end their lives? If they are unable, should they have the right to ask somebody else to end their lives? In my view yes, for sure, no doubt. Should parents have the right to end the life of their very seriously damaged newborn? In my view also yes for sure, and good societies will see this difficult choice as normal. Does the right to end life have problems? Of course. Could these thoughts be taken further? Indeed they can. Here is a positive way of looking at the value of life and the nature of death. When people stand for something in their lives, which can simply be love and care for their children, after their deaths what they have stood for lives on. In this sense they live on. Surely we all felt this, experiencing the tributes to Nelson Mandela. Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


Pete Seeger in his 90th year with his fan Bruce Springsteen, singing the US socialist anthem for the rights of the people, the choir behind them, in front of newly elected president Barack Obama. This simple but I suggest profound thought occurred to me again after reading and seeing many tributes to the ‘folk’ singer Pete Seeger, who died recently age 94. He is above age 89 with Bruce Springsteen, singing Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land is Your Land’ in front of a vast crowd at the Washington Memorial national mall in 2009, on the occasion of Barack Obama’s inauguration as US president. The tributes to Pete Seeger were joyful. His death has given him new life. Young people throughout the world who knew nothing about him in his very old age, know him now. The response to the deaths of two truly great people is telling us all something important about the value of human life, which applies to all people who live well. In spirit they do not die, and so death is not so very important. As taught in religions grounded in nature, death is another stage in life.

Nelson Mandela surely will be the father of free South Africa for ever, just as Mohandas Gandhi will always be the father of India. They are now immortal. Celebrations like these surely show this Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


Birth, life, death All life is precious

Experiences in Cabo Frio. From top left: a brasil wood tree – notice the spines; urucum opening to release its seeds and hibiscus flowering to release its pollen in our garden; a leaf insect about to die To say that human life is not sacred frees us to realise something altogether more valuable and meaningful, which is that all life is precious. The value of human life is best gauged after understanding that humans are just one species. A good start is to value the non-human life of animals, insects, bacteria, trees and plants, and yes, air, water and earth, much more. A world whose standards are set by people who live in the countryside would be very different from the world now, governed as it is by people who live in big cities. Knowledge and appreciation of nature puts the value of human life in perspective. My sense after living in Brazil for nearly 15 years is that country people do not sharply separate human life from other life. That’s what city people do, who observe nature on television or on holiday or in zoos, or who flinch when a wasp buzzes round their jam, or who seek to destroy all bugs. Really living in the countryside involves constant interaction with nature. The general effect, natural for people who have always lived that way, usually as farmers, which is gradual, partial and stuttering for people like me, is that the line between the human species and other species blurs. Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


Please do not get a super-romantic impression. In our permanent house in the state of Minas Gerais we are not living in a jungle. But this is the tropics, and there is our own forest plot on one side, and forest at the back of the house, and so much here is so obviously wonderful. Sometimes great butterflies or humming birds come into my study, to be encouraged into my cupped hands and gently rescued. Families of micos (small monkeys) swarm over the roof of our guest-house for bananas, as do families of quatis (like raccoons and also ant-eaters). This is all a bit like having our own menagerie, except that the animals are wild. The branches of our plum tree recently sagged under the weight of maybe 20 jacu (sort-of wild turkeys) guzzling the fruit and poo-ing the seeds. So we live in the midst of life, which with creatures whose lives are much shorter than ours makes us also aware of birth and death. Death… so far three of our dogs have died, and seven cats if you count newborn kittens which I do, and there will be more. All this for me gives life a sensed meaning quite different from what I felt when I lived in London during most of the second half of the last century. Now I do not sense any absolute division between human life and other life. The same general ethical values of tolerance, support, and respect, and the same general practical considerations, apply to all forms of life. If it is appropriate to venerate human life (and it’s best to be very cautious about terms that have been usurped by monotheistic religions) then it is right to venerate animal, insect and plant life also. All living things are precious. It is easy to feel this after coming to live in a tropical country. Take the pictures above, taken during breaks from drafting this column. Above left is a brasil wood tree, growing in Cabo Frio, the city where as from the year 1503 CE Amerigo Vespucci (who never sailed anywhere near north America) established the first export trade of the tree after which this country is named. Above right is a urucum tree in our Cabo Frio garden, whose seeds are ground and used by native Brazilians as body decoration, insect repellent, food and medicine and as annatto now used to colour butter and other foods. Below left is the hibiscus flower which grows everywhere here, which as you have seen above, my wife Raquel sometimes places behind an ear through sheer pleasure in life and living here. Below right is a leaf insect which Gabriel found on his pillow one morning that apparently had come inside to die. But here it is and so it lives on. One of the most valuable perceptions children can gain, which is natural, is respect and care and yes love for the living world. Contemplating these wonderful living things, I feel awe. Surely we all do.

Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred; 2 What do you think? [Column]. World Nutrition February 2014, 5, 2, 182-185 Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015



‘Today 15-05-2012 my cat named Kenai was hit by a car and died. I am very sad and want to say that children, old people or anybody could be hit and killed. Please drive slowly in this condominium so not to kill people or animals’. This is what our 8 year-old Gabriel wrote and sent two years ago Here is more on how and why the understanding that human life is not sacred has an affinity with ‘All life is precious’. Our son Gabriel naturally knows this, as does Raquel’s elder son Taua (whose name means ‘red earth’ in the native Tupi-Guarani language), a reason being that our house and previous houses where Raquel has lived have been and is open to the natural world. Geckos live in my study here where I am now. A family of gambás (opossums) have been nesting under a bedroom roof, and they seem to be partying at night. Marimbondas (hornets) build nests high up inside on the walls of the downstairs rooms. Families of micos (small monkeys) and quatis (small anteaters) come from the forest next to our garden, wanting bananas. Gabriel and I breed borboletas (butterflies) from lagartas (caterpillars), and watch wild abelhas (bees) and leaf-cutter formigas (ants) build their homes. We also have a couple of gatos vira-latas (mongrel cats), because cats should learn to live with one another. Two years ago we had Korda and Kenai, two as-if pure-bred Siamese. Then as you can see above, Kenai was killed by a car outside our house. Gabriel turned his muito triste (very sad) feelings into his appeal above to drivers, and we posted copies of his lament to everybody living in the 80-house condominium, and our neighbours still remember. ‘They have slowed down!’ he exclaimed, of passing cars, in the first week. ‘They have forgotten’ he said gloomily, after that. He has learned another reason to drive carefully.

Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


We breed borboletas (butterflies) from caterpillars rescued from birds in our garden. Here is one emerging from its chrysalis (left) and drying its wings and licking Gabriel’s finger before flight Here above is the most common butterfly in our garden. This is Methona themista, or borboleta-do-manacá, one of the many species I am seeing for the first time in Brazil, because its caterpillars feed on the leaves of the Manacá cheiroso bushes that my wife Raquel has planted in our garden, for their colours, their scents, and in memory of her beloved aunt Cely who had these bushes in her garden when Raquel was growing up. Yesterday as I write, we found a borboleta-do-manacá (not the one above) on an outside wall of our house and Gabriel edged it on to his finger, and it clung to him, as it did on my finger later. It did not drink the sugar water I gave it, and did not try to fly, and this morning it was on its side being eaten by ants. Tucanos (toucans) fly across the garden from time to time, always in pairs, and when our plum tree is full of fruit, it is dark with jacu (wild turkeys) that weigh down its branches and gorge. Beija-flores (humming birds) hover as they suck nectar. Bougainvillea grows like weeds. Trees and creepers writhe and thrive symbiotically. Big largartas (lizards) appear in our forest plot. They bite but are not venomous. Porcupines get attacked by our dogs who suffer snouts full of spines. Cobras (snakes) turn up occasionally. Some are very venomous, as are some spiders. Now I would be bereft in a tamed country like England where I lived until 1999. These creatures are not pets, meaning animals dependent on humans. Dogs are, but cats are not, though sometimes Korda follows me around when he and I are alone in the house even when he doesn’t want food. What I have learned is what Gabriel knows in his blood and bones, which is respect for animals, birds, insects and plants, and other living things, and the sense of community between them and us humans. Then there are bacteria. The ‘war on bugs’ arising from military interpretation of Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease, is a catastrophe. We and bacteria are evolved symbiotically. Some are dangerous, or can be, and all the more so because of gross overuse and abuse of antibiotics. But any attempt to sanitise ourselves and our Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


Cristal our new as-if Persian cat, the new companion for Korda, and the chrysalis of another borboleta-do-manacá inside a bedroom window, the day before the butterfly emerged and flew free surroundings, with those poisons that ‘kill all germs, dead’ is as idiotic as taking a flame-thrower to our gardens because there may be snakes in the grass. It is also disrespectful, an insult to the general principle of life on earth, which is always to live and let live. This principle also implies to live and let die, and I am coming to that. After Kenai was killed we got another vira-lata, the off-white Safira. She was wild and dominated Korda. She got pregnant at six months, and had five black kittens which I helped to birth, blind tiny things. She had no interest in them and so they all died from her neglect. Party girl, I thought, she will come to no good, and a couple of months ago she ran into the street and was killed. So now we have Cristal, an as-if Persian, extremely cute (see above) and also bold – hearing her panic mewing at dawn this morning I took a room apart and eventually saw her up at the ceiling, having climbed a bamboo structure. Korda is jealous, so he is getting family-sized love, sitting on my lap as I type. Houses in the tropics with verandahs and windows opening onto gardens have no hard line between inside and outside. Three days ago Raquel found a chrysalis (above right) on the inside fastening of a shuttered bedroom window. The next day just before midnight the butterfly, another borboleta-do-manacá, had emerged, waiting for its wings to dry. When it was ready I cupped it in my hands, went out to the Manacá cheiroso bushes outside under the window, and it flew towards the forest. Boa sorte! I called out. Good luck, little creature! It was a Brazilian woman, a special friend, who taught me about the value of human life when I lived in London. She looked through all the pictures I had neatly organised and filed of my mother and father and his mother and father, and of me when a child, and she made me little shrines of some of these pictures. I look at them now, my mother and father whose marriage was wrecked by World War II, even some of them together, here in my study, framed and in boxes together with mementoes, and also one of my grandfather and his two medals all private soldiers got after surviving World War I. In bringing them to light they are brought to life. Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


Raquel’s aunt Hebe as a young woman being modern and independent, posed in a boat and by a plane, and with friends in the big city of Rio; and Raquel’s cousin Berto, who also died last year When I came to live in Brazil I discovered that it is normal to display pictures of relatives who have died at home. Traditional graveyards, where bodies are buried or else deposited in stone chests of drawers above ground, usually include pictures of the people who have died, as well as or instead of inscriptions. I Brazil there is a day o the dead, when people altogether visit graveyards where family members and friends and buried, in mutual sympathy. All this blurs perception of the division between life and death, as do other customs here, in ways that I now feel are salutary and profound. Here above are pictures of two of Raquel’s family. Both died last year. They were among the first generations of Brazilians who emerged from traditional ways of life and became professionals in their own right. Aunt Hebe (on the left) became an independent woman as an accountant, which required courage. She was active until her late 80s, then became fragile and, refusing surgical intervention, chose when to die. The death of cousin Berto (on the right) an architect who also taught Raquel a lot, and who she saw as a beloved elder brother, was a shock. Age 66 he was full of energy and enthusiasm and then, soon after an all-clear routine check-up, he felt tired for a week and then declined and died in a day, we think from haemorrhagic dengue fever. While I don’t see them now, I think about Hebe and Berto as much now as I did when they were alive. Here is my preliminary suggestion. The notion that human life is sacred, manifest in the belief that people must be made and kept alive at almost all costs, is an artefact of a culture where life and death has became a mystery, with physicians as the divine intercessors, and where after death people are invisible. The more we value life of all living things, the less we are inclined to imagine that humans are divine. This has deep implications for public health practice. Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred; 3 What do you think? [Column]. World Nutrition May 2014, 5, 5, 482-485 Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015



Chief Dan George in the 1970 movie Little Big Man. Reflecting on persecution and massacre of his people, his character says: ‘The human beings believe that everything is alive’. Whereas white men ... In the 1970 movie Little Big Man, whose title role is played by Dustin Hoffman, Chief Dan George (1899-1981) plays Old Lodge Skins, Little Big Man’s adoptive father and guide to life. At the end of the movie Old Lodge Skins, who has experienced much in his long life, including the coming annihilation of his people, dresses in the most beautiful formal clothes and head-dress he has earned as a chief, walks out in front of an awesome landscape somewhat like that above, says ‘this is a good day to die’, thanks the Great Spirit for his life, his victories and his defeats, and lays himself down. In the book he does die. In Arthur Penn’s movie, rain wakes him. ‘Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it does not work’, he observes. Educated by learning a little about the beliefs, customs and ways of life of the original people of the Americas, and elsewhere, it seems to me that in many ways they and their societies were wiser and more able than are we and ours. The story told in the movie is not fanciful. Some at least of the native American peoples did have the ability to choose and to will the time of their death, and others accepted being helped to die, when they were very old or ill, or because for some reason it would be impossible to keep them alive. In such societies the choice of death, while it might be unusual, was a normal part of the culture, and could be joyful. When I started to explain in this column what is meant by saying that ‘human life is not sacred’, I thought I might immediately write a long meditation that came to definite conclusions. Well, I have not done this, not yet anyway. The topic is complex, it needs much shared thought which I hope these pieces here encourage, it raises many issues, and for anybody who has experienced a long grievous dying of a close relative, as I have twice, with my second wife Caroline and then my first son Ben, it is hard. But my own experiences make me sure that any society whose laws insist on keeping people alive almost no matter how appalling or terminal their



The picture here celebratesthe long fruitful life of Maria Klonowska, teacher and artist, who in her tapestries and paintings celebrates the richness, variety and beauty of Brazil and of its people. defects, injuries or disease, is wrong. It asks too much of the people most involved to intervene. Just lately there have been a lot of deaths in Raquel’s large family. The teacher and artist Maria Klonowska, mother of Vicente who is Tauá’s father, some of whose works are in our home (one is above) died days before I wrote this, age 93. In her fading years she was cared for by her sons, neighbours, friends and admirers, and by Raquel who often visited her, and she remained vivid and lucid until her last two days. Then the hospital surgeons decided that she had to undergo a major procedure which common sense said would kill her, as it did, and so she died in ‘intensive care’, alone. That was wrong. We need a society where it is easy to die at home at a time of your choosing, surrounded by what and who you most love. We lit a candle for Dona Maria in front of her tapestry that celebrates the teeming city life of Brazil that you see above. She lives on in Raquel’s heart.

Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred; 4 What do you think? [Column]. World Nutrition June 2014, 5, 6, 584-585



Birth, life, death Human life is not sacred (5)

A hornet’s nest that we found in our forest plot (left), with hexagonal spaces for maybe 2,000 metamorphoses. Our second cat named Cristal (right). Now the hornets and the kitten are dead So, to summarise. My theme here is that thinking and acting as if human life is sacred, is wrong. More, this worship of the human species and thus of ourselves is much worse thann a mistake, it is a perversion, a driver of much of the troubles everybody now faces in this century. The longer I live in the global South, the more I think and feel that concepts developed in the global North, of which this product of ‘the Enlightenment’ is one, do not work here, and things being what they now are, obviously do not work anywhere. It is time for a universal change of mind. Awe though, is a different matter. Life itself, whose very nature is metaphysical, beyond conventional scientific explanation, is awesome. So therefore is birth and death. Now I should explain the pictures above. First, the hornets’ nest. Live and let live, is my motto for the wildlife that surrounds our house and comes inside also. There are reasons for the animals, birds, insects and plants that live here, they have their own lives to live, n balance with one another. Raquel’s style of gardening is respectful. There are exceptions, cockroaches and termites being two, plus spiders for Raquel (sorry about that), but I like the geckoes that nest in my study and come out at night to catch flies and to poo on my desk. Also I am OK about wasps and hornets building small nests high up on our walls. It is the huge nests that are trouble. We found the one above, constructed for our very own local population explosion, in the forest plot adjoining our house. It was too big and too close to the house, so sadly we fumigated it and I kept the structure, as you see – very wondrous. But even without human intervention, there is a balance of nature. Normally insects do not become plagues. If we had not noticed the nest, only a few of the eggs would have become adult insects and only some of these would have survived. Without such natural balance the planet would be a solid mass of insects. Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015


Box 1 Human life is not sacred – the story so far In this column in January last year I began this occasional series by asking Why does public health and nutrition teaching and practice evidently believe that the bigger humans are, the younger they become sexually mature, the more there are of them – and also that they longer they live – the better for the species, future generations and the planet? Isn’t it obvious that taken together – and individually also – in practice these beliefs are making humans more greedy, miserable, diseased and destructive? They seem to stem from a kind of ideology, from some sort of worship of ourselves as a species. In my February column I put human life within the whole living world, and said The value of human life is best gauged after understanding that humans are just one species. A good start is to value non-human life more. A world whose standards are set by people who live in the countryside would be very different from the world now, governed as it is by people who live in big cities. Knowledge of nature puts the value of human life in perspective. My sense after living in Brazil for nearly 15 years, is that country people do not sharply separate human life from other life. That’s what city people do, who observe nature on television or on holiday or in zoos, or when a wasp buzzes round their honey. In my May column I developed this theme, and reflected on the death of our cat Kenai, killed by a car in the road outside our house, and… After Kenai was killed we got another vira-lata, Safira. She was wild and dominated Korda. Pregnant at six months, she had five black kittens which I helped to birth, blind scraps that all died from her neglect. Party girl, I thought, she will come to no good, and two months ago she ran into the street and was killed. So now we have our second Cristal, extremely cute and also bold – hearing her panic mewing at dawn this morning I took a room apart and eventually saw her up at the ceiling, having climbed a bamboo structure. Kenai’s brother Koda is jealous, so he is getting family-sized love, sitting on my lap as I type. In January I reflected on the celebrations of Nelson Mandela’s life after his death: The people of South Africa commemorated the life, achievements and witness of Nelson Mandela after his death in December at the great age of 95. The mood has been a little like that of a Celtic wake, in which people come together when a loved person dies to sing songs, play music, enjoy themselves uproariously, and so become the midwives of the immortality of the person who has died. In sane cultures, people who die do not die. They live on in the minds and hearts of the living, and in the bodies of their descendants, and may live forever. Seen like this, death is not dreadful. There is a time to die, just as animals and plants and all living things die. The notion that human life is divine and that it must be preserved almost no matter what, fades away. And in my June column here, having lived through two long slow deaths in my family, I concluded: My own experiences make me sure that any society whose laws insist on keeping people alive almost no matter how appalling or terminal their defects, injuries or disease, is wrong. It asks too much of the people most involved to intervene. .And wel mourned the death of our new little cat Cristal 2, who Raquel believes died of a broken heart.



Second, the cat. Here is sad news about Cristal 2, an Angora, our second white cat with that name, who was very cute when tiny, as you see above. A month before this time of writing, she lost interest, and anaemia was assumed, but leukaemia was discovered, and so she died, less than a year old. For a couple of weeks previously she and our then cat-size Border Collie pup Zeus had been inseparable inside the house. She adored him and tolerated him biting out batches of her fur. But then it was time for Zeus to live outside the house, and my wife Raquel thinks she died of a broken heart. Perhaps so. Predictably I prefer to blame in-breeding plus cat chow. Our 10 year old son Gabriel cried, but we have a new vira-lata (mongrel) kitten now. In the midst of life we are in death, here in the tropics. The longer I live in a house open to nature and bordered by forest, the more awe I feel for the whole living world and the less difference I sense between trees, insects, birds, animals and people. So I say we have a duty to abandon and abolish the notion that humans are born in (the Christian) God’s image. Those who think they are made in God’s image are liable to behave like devils. The implications are infinite. We can start by accepting that how insects, birds and animals work in the world is how we should be also. So now I am now going to make some suggestions about how humans can become sustainable as a species. These contradict all that we hold most holy, especially if the phrase is referring to the human species. Those who accept the limits of humanity are liable to be humane.  Death rates. Much of public health teaching and practice is devoted to the notion that the lower the percentage of infant deaths, and the longer people live, the better. To some extent this is because data of this nature are easy to collect and compare. But the driving ideology includes the notion that human life is holy, which it is not. Long and productive lives enjoyed in positive good health, is a more rational measure. But mortality rates at the beginning and end of life should not be driven down artificially.  Ethics of death. It is also generally accepted in technically advanced countries that rescuing damaged newborns, seriously diseased people, and the infirm elderly from death, at almost all costs, emotional, practical and financial, is a prime duty of the medical profession, which is upheld by law and accepted and endured by parents and families. Such artificial extension of life and even of mere existence without consciousness, is all wrong. It is an intolerable burden on all concerned and societies as a whole. Now I will go further and make some suggestions designed to provoke discussion, which may shock readers. These imply the types of human society, culture and civilisation that were normal throughout almost all the story of our species, but were set aside in favour of the bizarre ideology of human life as holy. All the following



suggestions would work well within societies whose cultures accepted joyfully that humans are one species within the whole world. There is also a practical point here, which came to me when I first held the hornets’ nest in my two hands. A main aim of human societies now seems to be to eliminate the natural limits of life and balance between life and death. No wonder the world population is exploding.  Birth. Couples intending to have children should be told and asked fully to accept that if at birth their child is damaged in specified ways, it will not be allowed to survive. This should be done openly, with respect and kindness.  Children. Couples who have just one child should be supported with tax allowances and free nursery schools. Having two or more children should be discouraged. Abortion should be free on request or as required.  Death. Any adult who decides to die should be embraced and nourished and enabled to do so, again openly, having said their farewells to family and friends, in the company of those who are closest to them. Now for three suggestions which are more controversial, because they propose removing agency from adults. Those horrified will say they are examples of eugenics, the science of deliberate human selection, which is true, and that they are a step on a slope that slips down to the abominations of the Hitler regime, which is not true.  Execution. All those tried and convicted of specified serious crimes, with the conviction confirmed within six months, including but not limited to murder with no mitigating circumstances, to be put to death.  Sterilisation. All mothers and fathers of three or more children unwilling or unable to support their families from their own resources, and all those with genetically transmitted specified serious diseases, to be sterilised.  Euthanasia. All people with specified progressive deadly diseases to be encouraged to agree or accept that their life be ended, preferably by themselves. Those who have become completely incapacitated or unconscious to be put to death. Two obvious objections to any of these suggestions are first, that if taken seriously they would cause uproar, and second, that altogether they would anyway affect only a very small proportion of any population. True, on both counts. They make sense only in the context of a changed culture in which human decisions on life and death are openly discussed, shared and celebrated. Enacted, they would be examples of taking life and death more responsibly and seriously, in societies that embrace the vital truth that humans are part of the living and natural world.

Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred: 5 What do you think? [Column]. World Nutrition March 2015, 6, 3, 211-214 Cannon G. Birth, life, death. Human life is not sacred What do you think? [Column] World Nutrition 2014-2015