Is unconditional love impossible?
In this society, the primary sense, “I was allowed to be born to this world under certain conditions,” is going to be stored in the deep layer of people’s consciousness. This sense erases from people’s mind a certain emotion—the emotion of love. To be loved means to be given the conviction that one’s existence is affirmed by someone even if he/she does not satisfy certain conditions; in other words, to be given the conviction that one’s existence is affirmed and welcomed just as is now the case.
However, in the society described above, it is very hard for people to acquire this kind of conviction. People are born after being examined about their quality of life, and when they give birth they impose conditions upon their children. In that society, people talk about unconditional love; yet they know that they themselves were allowed to be born because they satisfied certain “explicit” conditions imposed by their parents. They perceive the mark of “conditional love” as just beneath their own existence. “Am I, in fact, not loved by anyone?” This is the sense shared by ordinary people in an unspoken way in that society. It is the society that systematically deprives people of “conviction of love.” As is now clear, the greatest problem of prenatal screening and the genetic manipulation of unborn children is that those technologies deprive people of “conviction of love” in a crucial way. This is, I believe, what lies at the heart of an uncomfortable feeling when hearing the justification for selective abortion. Probably this feeling exists even in the hearts of the people who justify selective abortion. This should become the basis for the criticism of human reproductive medicine. It is the “possibility of love” that lies under the ethics of reproductive technology.
>> To read more please visit:
Painless Civilization and Fundamental Sense of Security
(2005)
(You can read the entire text)
However, in the society described above, it is very hard for people to acquire this kind of conviction. People are born after being examined about their quality of life, and when they give birth they impose conditions upon their children. In that society, people talk about unconditional love; yet they know that they themselves were allowed to be born because they satisfied certain “explicit” conditions imposed by their parents. They perceive the mark of “conditional love” as just beneath their own existence. “Am I, in fact, not loved by anyone?” This is the sense shared by ordinary people in an unspoken way in that society. It is the society that systematically deprives people of “conviction of love.” As is now clear, the greatest problem of prenatal screening and the genetic manipulation of unborn children is that those technologies deprive people of “conviction of love” in a crucial way. This is, I believe, what lies at the heart of an uncomfortable feeling when hearing the justification for selective abortion. Probably this feeling exists even in the hearts of the people who justify selective abortion. This should become the basis for the criticism of human reproductive medicine. It is the “possibility of love” that lies under the ethics of reproductive technology.
>> To read more please visit:
Painless Civilization and Fundamental Sense of Security
(2005)
(You can read the entire text)
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