I started a conversation with someone about Terri Schiavo. I thought we’d agree on the position. I was ready to say “Yeah. Totally, I couldn’t agree with you any more!” But when I started the conversation, I got a surprise. She has the exact opposite opinion from me.

But before all this, my opinion was split down the middle. This issue is not black and white; it is definitely in a grey area. I couldn’t decide on one way or the other convincingly because I had good reasons for both sides. But I was slightly leaning on one side more than the other. I’m on the side of keeping her alive on the life support.

I remember the time in grade 11, I wrote an essay on this topic. At that time, my position was that assisted suicide is morally right. At then, I didn’t realize that life is infinitely precious. Some may think that if we don’t make a purpose out of our life, life isn’t as infinitely beautiful as they say it is, and the person in vegetated state can no longer make a purpose out of her life, and therefore her life isn’t worth the 150 million dollars to keep her feed tube inserted. But if she can give someone else a reason to wake up in the morning, then there is a purpose to her life. Whether her life is a natural life or a life on artificial support, one can’t escape the infiniteness of life.

But I also understand why one would choose the side of natural death over artificial life. Prolonging her death for 15 years is cruel even if she can’t feel it. It’s not the cost that’s important. At one point or another, people must die. Our lives are beautiful because we are mortals. Cheating death is cheating life.

Out of this debate, I learned something bigger than this issue. My debate opponent was ridiculing those people protesting to re-insert the feed tube. That’s when I felt the uneasiness. I would have done the same thing when I was in grade 11, but now that my position has changed, I realized how wrong it is to ridicule people who have different opinion than mine. I used to think that my positions are informed, and the majority of the people hold popular yet uninformed positions, thus my position is right and their positions are wrong. I used to think because I’m right, I have the responsibility to pie a politician in the face. Was I ever that naive? Voltaire once said, “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.” I thought it was just a famous quote, but now I know what it really means.