They do not exist yet, but they will...Tomorrow, next month, next year, in the next decade, century or even millennium... children will be born again, but what does the future hold for them? What are our responsibilities, if any, towards them? What are their rights, if any? Where do our rights stop?
First of all, let’s define what a right is. According to Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a right is ‘something to which one has a just claim’. Therefore, the question is whether or not these future generations have a just claim to anything, to life for example. One could say that they do not because they do not exist yet, but when they will exist, won’t they have a right at least to life, as we all do? We certainly could not claim to have a right to something to which they wouldn’t naturally have a right as well. Therefore, if WE do have rights, THEY should have the same rights when they are here. Still, we cannot really say that they do have rights now.
Second, let’s see what our responsibilities are towards these future generations. If we do have rights, and that, therefore, they will have some too, then our responsibility is to protect these rights. If they will have a right to live, then we should make sure that life will still be possible when they will be. This means protecting our environment and solving the existing conflicts, as well as avoiding new ones, so that the planet won’t be half destroyed by the time they are born. Some would probably say that the past generations haven’t done it for us, but I would say that it was a big mistake, and of great consequences, which we should seek to avoid repeating as much as possible. To do anything else would be a violation of the future rights of these future generations.
Third, let’s see what their, or rather our rights are and, therefore, what their rights will be. The first, and certainly the most important and most widely recognised, is the right to live which I would say also includes the right to die in peace, death being a natural part of life. I would say that we also have a right to our own opinions and beliefs, we cannot control other people’s thoughts anyway, and no one should have to lie only to please others. Who could pretend to be so much better than anyone else and claim that we should think like him/her? Finally, I would add the right to choose, to decide for ourselves of what we will or will not do, though I would say there might be some restrictions here, or simply the consequences of our choices to be accepted. Here too, I would say that we simply cannot pretend to be so much better than someone else as to have a right on that somebody.
Last, but not least, where do our rights stop? I would say they stop where someone else’s rights begin. We are free to act as we please as long as we do not keep someone else from doing so. For example, we are free to like someone or not, but not to kill someone because we then deprive him/her from his/her own right to live. This is why we have responsibilities towards future generations. We can’t just do whatever we want without looking at the consequences because then we might be depriving them of their future rights, since the consequences of our actions are sometimes present for years and even decades.
In conclusion, I would say that if future generations do not have rights now, they will have some later. Also, that there is a limit to our rights, those of others that is and, therefore, we must try, as much as possible, to avoid doing anything that would deprive them from these rights, especially the most essential of these; life. Just think if past generations would have thought a little more of us, if they would have done more efforts to protect the Earth...
Copyright©1998 by Hélène Carrier. All rights reserved.
