Right to Life?
During the fervor of the abortion debate, a lot of voices speak out about human rights. To diminish a person by denying their human rights is to objectify them, to dehumanize them.
Yet, if there is such a thing as a right, wasn’t it first derived from nature?
There are movements to enshrine natural rights into laws, but they are not overwhelmingly popular. To give a river the right to exist unencumbered is never going to work for people intent upon using the water, the hydroelectric power, or any other resources provided by the river.
We objectify nature. Even when we personify Earth as our mother, or as Gaia, people seldom, if ever, see “her” as anything other than an “it.”
Still, a serious question arises, does life itself have any right to life?
Reversal of fortunes
For the rights of nature to be recognized requires a complete reversal of our historic traditions of conquest and exploitation. This, in turn, would mean a revolution of seeing the earth as a true part of all we are rather than as “our resources.”
Even as more people see the need to protect themselves during the climate crisis, most people see a threat to their resources or livelihood than see a concern for the ecosystems that sustain all life.
Those nations which have begun to recognize the rights of nature include Columbia, Canada, and many united indigenous people of Mexico and the United States.
To alter whole world views and behavior is possible during a crisis, and can alter whole societies. It happened with COVID-19, and has happened with World Wars and II. Changes in laws, however, proceed much more slowly than attitudes, even during periods of accelerated change.
Changing legislation requires new modes of education to investigate possible pathways to natural rights. These new ways of education require eco-centric law classes and are being introduced in several law schools.
The most powerful profiteers tend to be protected by governments, which is how much of the Amazon, and some high-profile murder cases of activism, have come to public knowledge. But, every year, the plight of indigenous people, the illegal logging and mining, and the persecution of activists is becoming realized and sympathized with every time another concerned person learns what is at stake.
It is not just the land or waterways that are in peril, people finally come to realize human lives and human cultures are at risk. As this new perspective becomes more and more evident, especially as senses are alerted and disasters are indisputable, people rally for belonging not to the plundering elites, but for recognition of human habitat rights.
When public attitudes change, it will not be the case that we all become environmentalists, rather it will feel as though we are just human beings with a self-preserving outlook.
We will naturally see a supportive biosphere as what makes us part of nature.,
What will have changed is our perception of our world.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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