No.2 Death Education

Speaking of voluntary infertility, the first thing that comes to my mind is death education. After all, the reason for having children is often mentioned as the continuation of life. One of the ways to fear and relieve death is to reproduce, so that one’s own genes can be continued. Go down and get the inheritance and continuation of life from the children and the children of the children. Many people choose to have a child to ease their anxiety about aging and death, not to mention that the real impact of childbirth on the female body is an accelerated aging process and involves all kinds of other risks. I have also walked again from children and adolescents to middle age, and there is an "opportunity" to rejuvenate. However, children are also destined to face aging and death after all. As parents, relying on reproduction to relieve their own death anxiety has extremely limited timeliness. There will always be a moment when you will understand that the only person facing death is yourself, and death education is more important and easy to be ignored at this moment.

We have always avoided talking about aging and death, as taboo as sex education. In the book "The Best Farewell" by Atul Gawande, the aging process that everyone must go through is described in detail: "In the normal life course, the jaw muscles lose 40% of their mass, and the mandible loses 20% of their mass. The bone becomes porous and weak. As the ability to chew is weakened, people turn to soft foods, which are generally rich in carbohydrates and are more likely to cause tooth cavities." "While softening our bones and teeth , the rest of the body hardens. Blood vessels, joints, heart valves, and even the lungs, because they absorb a lot of calcium deposits, they become hard.” The rate at which bone density is lost, the brain shrinks, and the heart’s ability to pump blood decreases. , even in today's scientific progress to turn aging and dying into the field of medical intervention, no process of dying from old age, infirmity, sickness can be terminated, only to alleviate and hedge the damage, and no one can escape the fate of death.

The experiments on social-emotional choice theory mentioned in the book are also interesting. In the two studies of the 9/11 attacks and the SARS virus, cultural differences were not significant. The researchers said that when "the fragility of life is highlighted," people's Daily life goals and motivations can radically change. Attitude is more important here than age. Under the influence of the current epidemic, there must be many people who have shifted the focus of their lives and live as freely as possible according to the life they want.

This got me thinking about the connection between life and autonomous infertility. How do parents know that their children want to come into this world? Do they have the right to decide for themselves? What qualifications do I need to make this life-and-death decision for my child? Are those who already exist deprived of their freedom of choice from birth? If life is not a gift but a punishment, how can parents compensate and bear the consequences? "I don't want to be born at all / I never asked to live in this world" These words are not cruel and vengeful but true in many cases. I don’t like going to school, I don’t like work, I don’t like being stressed, I don’t like being materialized by my parents in projects and pension financial products, I don’t like being forced to do things, I don’t like the current stage of life, and I’m even world-weary to the point of depression and fantasy death. . There are always various conditions for a happy and free life, and people cannot choose their origin. In the movie "Capernaum", the twelve-year-old boy Zane who lives in the slums of Lebanon takes his parents to court in desperation. For him, all He has tried all the attempts and hard work, but escaping from his original family and breaking through the shackles of class is something that can be achieved through hard work. He questioned his parents for giving him life but abused and abused him, and was never able to provide him with food and clothing. Frequent environments let alone education. Do parents naturally think that their children are willing to be born, and that their children must live the best life they can offer?

Is it a "gift" or a "kidnapping" to arbitrarily decide to bring a child into this world without the child's consent? Personally, I have always felt that good things are not for nothing, but due to the constraints of money, power, regional culture and other factors Inborn human suffering cannot be ignored. People who are poor and struggling to support themselves certainly have the right to have children, and of course those who abandon and abuse those who only give birth but don’t support themselves also have the right to have children. Everyone’s body is in charge of themselves. It’s easy to be a parent without exams, but from the child’s point of view , if the suffering is too deep, desperate, too utterly hurtful, too pure, maybe they would prefer that it never existed. Even if children hold their parents accountable for their lives and experiences, is there any practical way to reverse it. Step back 10,000 steps, everything is going well, and there are educational resources and financial support. When children grow up and step into their old age, how will they feel when they face death? What kind of attitude do they/they have towards death who have a family history of genetic diseases, or congenital diseases that have seriously affected their ability to work and self-care? Will it be because everything else goes well and only because of health problems? If you endure and blame your parents, will you be reluctant and unwilling to be full of regrets, or will you feel that death is a means to end the pain? The individual differences between people make it impossible for us to draw a definite conclusion.

If we say that the reason for having a child is fear of death and aging, then is it because we face death, have an education on our own death, and know the inevitability and irreversibility of old, weak, sick and death, we can look at the issue of childbirth more rationally, and do Make the decision you really want.