Vers Libre | Wrongly assigning arbitrary value to human life

Brenna Gilbert Opinions Editor

If Vassar has taught me anything, it is that I am the sum of my experiences. So much of our education at Vassar goes to exploring the concepts of gender, sexuality and race as social constructs. When I leave our bubble, however, I am constantly appalled by the contrasting perception possessed by the majority of Americans. For so much of the country, the factors of race, class, sex and sexual preference function as the entirety of one’s identity. This phenomenon is used continually to oppress those who can be thus viewed as deviant from the “norm.” Why does America insist on basing the value of a human life on something so arbitrary as sexual orientation, race or gender?

An article in the Oct. 3, 2005 edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer entitled “Straight Science needed on Gay Issues” discussed the growing focus of the scientific community on sexual orientation. According to geneticist Dean Hamer, homosexuality is not a choice, but rather a genetic mutation. Hamer’s research is based on the studies of the sexual orientation of twins. “If a trait is shared more often by identical twins than by fraternal twins, it means there's some genetic component. If one identical twin is gay, there's about a 50 percent chance the other will be, too. That falls to about 20 percent if they're fraternal,” accoring to Hamer. The article goes on to suggest that, in the future, parents will be able to limit the chance of homosexuality through selective abortion once the linked gene is discovered.

This article illuminates two frightening tendencies in American culture: the desire to establish homosexuals as biologically inferior and the ranking of human worth based on aspects of their identity. This reminds me of the genetic study in the ’80s that tried to genetically link African American men to violent crimes in an attempt to justify racial profiling. Why is America so eager to condemn people that we try to link stereotypes to genetics?

A far cry from its radical roots, enormous factions of women’s liberation have been watered down into the bubbly “girl-power” movement. As a woman, I am encouraged that girls can do anything, that I am responsible for deciding my own self-esteem. My Women’s Health magazine smiles up at me every morning from my bureau, its eager headlines urging me to find self-worth and value through ten easy steps. Yet, how do we reconcile the new-age focus on self-worth with the misogynist media’s condemnation of those things that make us individual—our passions, our bodies, and our minds?

Even at Vassar, we are inundated with images of not only what we should accomplish in our lives, but also the person we should have been from birth. Consider the recent slew of advertising on campus for a local egg donation center looking for attractive, athletic women with SAT scores over 1300. Not only do these advertisements promote a procedure that is dangerous to a woman’s reproductive system, but they give voice to a wide-spread cultural anxiety. If you’re not a slim, pretty girl who happens to perform well on standardized tests, you’re not worthy of passing on your genes.

Nevermind the overwhelming evidence that standardized tests specifically marginalize all forms of intelligence that are not traditionally associated with white male aptitude. Nevermind the steady increase of eating disorders in the American female, a phenomenon closely linked to the dwindling sizes of fashion models and other demeaning portrayals of women in the media. The critical problem is that we have put set parameters on valuable life. Anyone outside that norm (read: everyone else who’s not a well-educated girl under 120 lbs) is of inherently lesser value.

We have all been taught that continuation of a species is dependent on diversity, yet for our own human race, we ignore the lessons on nature. Selective abortion, selective procreation, selective scientifically enforced stereotypes—when are we going to stop selecting and realize that we cannot determine the value of human life to suit our own agendas?