I’ve been watching Battlestar Galactica with my roommate and it has prompted some very interesting debates. In the most recent episode the Humans were given the chance to exterminate the Cylons. And I do mean exterminate. I’m not sure I could do it. Yes, they are at war and yes the Cylons have been trying to exterminate the Humans for three seasons now, but does that make it justifiable? If it is a matter of life and death can one completely exterminate another race of sentient beings?
Another question raised just today, had to do with abortion. Humans would die out in eighteen years if they didn’t start having babies so the President declared abortion illegal. My roommate said you could not start limiting freedoms. It wasn’t enough just to survive, you had to be worthy of it.
Now here’s the kicker: she was pro-extermination and anti-outlawing abortion. I was the opposite. Why is that surprising you ask? Well, how is protecting our freedoms worthy of survival but exterminating a race not? Because the Cyclon are neither human nor part of the human government the removal of their freedom, of their race is somehow more justifiable than outlawing abortion?
I am (obviously to those of you who know me) very pro-choice. I will fight to my dying breath for a woman’s right to choose. But in this particular scenario we are faced with the extinction of the human race. No one can have babies but women. Does that reduce us to mere breeding cattle? Perhaps. What other option is there I ask you? My roommate says so be it; it is better to die than to start taking away freedoms. There is also all the typical stuff—women will find a way to do it themselves and probably suffer and die; women who suffer from rape or whose life is in danger will have no recourse etc., etc. So what is the answer?
If we preserve the freedom and the probable cost of the human race—do we not have to do the same thing for the Cylons? If we are going to be “worthy of surviving” doesn’t that include avoiding mass genocide? In war people die and that is, to some extent, to be expected, but where is the line? Where and how does biological warfare “break the rules”?
I’m not sure I have an answer. I believe in survival and yet while I understand the outlawing of abortion I can’t countenance the destruction of the Cylons. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that pregnancy is to some degree avoidable. Not always, but some. Furthermore, pregnancy only lasts for nine months and no matter how unpleasant is over. Granted one can die giving birth and the changes to the body are permanent but in a life or death situation, truly, a situation where the survival of the race is as stake and every new child is needed it’s a price I could pay. But destroying the Cylons—an entire race—that’s permanent. Yes, the Cylons brought it upon themselves; yes, if we don’t kill them they’ll probably kill us, but what does that make us? But, then again, what does taking away a woman’s right to chose make us?
Taking away people’s freedoms “for their own good” is a very, very dangerous path to walk indeed.