The Right to Life

Within the past decade and a half, Canada, alone, has seen a drastic increase in death rates. In 2000, approximately 7 390 people died. Coming into 2012, it was estimated that the death toll had increased to 8 090 people (http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=ca&v=26). Furthermore, in many other countries around the world, like Jamaica, Honduras and Saint Kitts and Nevis, the death rates in 2012 were at an all time high as well (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/jun/24/10-world-cities-highest-murder-rates-homicides-in-pictures).

Many of these deaths happened because of natural causes. However, the greater portion of people who had passed away throughout the world most likely died from suicide, homicide, abortion and capital punishment (http://www.acbr.com/causdeat.htm). In this essay, I will argue that no matter who an individual is or what an individual looks like, has done or is convicted of, no moral code is suffice to an unnatural death of a person.

Suicide is one of the main killers of today’s society. This is when an individual decides to take one’s life. In the journal article, Sexual Orientation and Risk Factors for Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts Among Adolescents and Young Adults, it states that individuals, especially in their youth, who claim to be homosexual, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersexual, asexual or anyone who can not be identify under the LGBTQIA community and is not heterosexual, tend to have higher incidences of suicide attempts and successes.

In my opinion, this statistic is atrocious. The human beings who do have an attraction towards someone who is ally or from the LGBTQIA community, should not feel that they are outcasts in their community. In our day and age, we, as a society, should realize that people can not choose what their sexual orientation is, and we should accept that. We need to celebrate

everyone’s differences since the human race is so diverse in culture, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc.

I feel that many people are too stubborn to accept that our world is changing. We need to make sure that people are able to embrace who they are, instead of hiding their true self, or even going as far as trying to kill themselves.

In my opinion, depression can be incorporated with suicide. In the media, we are told that the perfect body image for a women is someone who is super thin and super pretty. For men, it is said that they have to had rock-hard abs and a gorgeous jawline like most male actors and models. If an individual does not have one of these attributes, then it is consider that you are not a beautiful human being to society.

It is said that their are certain depictions, specifically, of females in music videos and movies which are seen as the ideal, beautiful women. They ladies generally have a thin body type, but with a bigger bust and a bigger gluteus maximus (http://nedic.ca/sites/default/files/files/Impact-thin-models-music-videos-adolescent-girls-body-dissatisfaction.pdf). Generally, all the men seem to like this body type, so adolescent teens strive to have a body image like these unrealistic models so they too, can be liked and seen as beautiful.

When some males and females realize they can not always achieve this certain body type that the media displays as being “truly beautiful”, individuals can become depressed with how they generally look (I understand this is not the only way people become depressed). These people tend to become so insecure that they rather kill themselves then to accept that they are beautiful in their own, unique ways. We need to educate, not only our youth, but also our

community as a whole, so that we can become more understanding of certain issues that play a key factor in contributing to the rise of suicides. This could help save lives of many civilians on the planet.

The right to live is an important aspect in everyone’s life. No matter what an individual looks or feels like, I truly do not believe that suicide is the answer. There are so many resources available today that can help a person who is, in fact, thinking about ending their life. With the help of doctors and medications, and making these resources more accessible to people who need it, it really makes me believe that we can decrease the death rate at the expense of suicide (http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/v131/n2/abs/jid2010264a.html). However, I do understand that with certain people, they can have secondary influences (like mental illnesses or diseases) that can help contribute to wanting to end their life sooner than expected, and ultimately, there is no stopping the individual in this mind set.

Another very common form of unnatural death is homicide. This is when one person kills another. In 2005, it was reported that there had been 450 000 homicides committed worldwide. Looking at the statistics from 2012, the rates had increase to 840 000 homicides (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/countries?display=graph).

There are many forms of a homicide. This includes murder, which displays a killing with a clear intent; manslaughter, which displays a killing through recklessness or passion without previous thought to committing this act; noncriminal homicide, which displays a killing through an accidental manner; and excusable, negligent or accidental homicide, which displays a killing through unforeseen complications - ex. someone dying during a surgery (http://www.faqs.org/

health/topics/19/Homicide.html).

Many homicides that are committed are due to self-defence, to aid an officer of the law, or from stopping someone from committing a more serious crime. However, the majority of homicides committed worldwide are driven by hate/harassment, racism/sexism/homophobia, culture/religion and retaliation (http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/19/Homicide.html).

Many people still have the mindset of the traditional values viewed back in the twentieth century, but a lot of things have clearly changed from that era. This is why I believed there are so many homicides driven by negative feelings and old fashion views.

If our world truly learned how to properly forgive, I believe that there would be less hate, harassment and retaliation killings. Also, if we, as a human race, learned how to accept change with the evolution of society and embraced different ethnicities, cultures, sexes and sexual orientations, we could instantly decrease the global homicide rates as well.

There really is no need to kill another person for any of these reasons. In my opinion, it is so immoral and selfish to end someone’s life. In most religions, that is the only life that individual will live, so ending their life before they actually need to go is cruel on so many levels. I believe