musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?


It seems like years ago now when I first read the thought experiment about the drowning child posed by the philosopher Peter Singer. I don’t remember the exact wording but the gist of it was: on seeing a child unable to escape from a shallow pond, you decide not to wade in to rescue it because, although it would be an easy thing to do, the water might damage your new, expensive shoes and pants. Obviously saving the child is the right thing to do -not making the effort is unconscionable; so why is it different from using the same money you spent on your new clothes for things that matter more -like spending it on the unfortunate others who might die without your help?

Of course, that example is pretty easy to parse -it’s a child in the here-and-now, not some group of people you’ve never met. So what about, say, an exhausted dog struggling to get back onto a floating dock? Is that the same? Similar? Most people (I hope) would extend a hand to the dog, but why? Is it because you love dogs; because can see it is frantic; because it seems the right thing to do…?

What about an earthworm struggling to squiggle off a concrete sidewalk after a brief rain but now in the heat of a noonday sun? You could flick it off the sidewalk without much effort… clearly the worm seems uncomfortable; it appears to be suffering -or at least feels a need to escape to the soil just centimetres away. But is it worth the effort to save it? After all, is it sentient enough to know it needs to get off the concrete? Can it feel pain? And does it really matter…?

You almost stumble over a dazed bird lying on a busy sidewalk after being stunned by flying into a window pane. Would you gently move it to a safer place to recover? How would you know if you should intervene; how could you decide if it needs rescuing?

Why would it likely not be as difficult to decide the proper course of action with some creatures and not others? To whom do we award moral privilege?

The painting which graces the beginning of this essay is William Blake’s ‘The Ghost of a Flea’ and attempts to depict how a child, say, might interpret the initial horror of what they’ve just noticed on their skin. Rather than accepting the possibility that something as tiny as an adult flea might have agency (in the Great Chain of Being, everything needs to eat) it is far too easy for the naïve little child to reject the idea of themselves being eaten, no matter the flea’s needs…

But, why is not all life sacred and worth preserving? Why does it seem to need sentience, consciousness, to be deserving of our consideration? Does empathy only work if it is bidirectional; only work if, like a gift given, it imposes on the recipient an unstated obligation to reply in kind at some point? Otherwise, I suppose, concessions to foster the survival of some needy creature merely amount to sympathy, benevolence; requiring no reciprocal acknowledgment of largesse.

The other day, in late November, I was sitting in my kitchen reading when I noticed something moving on the couch beside my leg. When I turned my head to look, I saw that it was a bee -perhaps a wild bee; it was obviously exhausted with its failed efforts to escape outside and perhaps find the nest where it intended to spend the coming winter.

I stared at it for a moment or two; far from aggressive, it seemed to accept that I posed no threat, and I, on the other hand accepted its closeness to me like a parent seeing someone’s lost child wandering on the street. I knew right away what I should do; it didn’t require much thought: it was vulnerable, and so bewildered that it seemed to have lost any fear of a large alien like me. Perhaps I was its last hope.

Strange as it seems in retrospect, I suppose, I felt honoured that it crawled so close to me. It didn’t seem bothered by my eyes inspecting it -although I’m sure it could see them. I would either help, or put it out of its misery; somehow I felt its vulnerability as a last ditch cry for mercy; for salvation; for… understanding.

I got up carefully from the couch in search of a glass to trap it under, and then to slip a piece of paper under the glass and carry them all to the porch where I could liberate it. By the time I made it back to the couch, though, it had disappeared. I searched under the cushions, and under the couch, but it was gone. I felt I’d let it down, somehow: its desperate bid for succour wasted. Like the child in the pond, I’d failed to wade in to protect it in time.

I sat back on the couch and every so often I thought I saw it flying near the ceiling light, but it never came back to where I waited. I left the room eventually, unwilling to thrash at the light with a fly swatter; I hoped it might nest somewhere near the ceiling waiting for the daylight it hoped might provide a new chance.

For some reason, I couldn’t forget about the bee that night though, and in my dreams I sensed that I had missed an opportunity to transcend the boundaries which separate species. What was the difference between us? And when I awoke during the long and restless night, it came to me that sometimes it is appropriate for Life to speak to Life: two fellow travellers who, for a magical moment, realized they were on the same shared path. I don’t know how I sensed it felt the same, but there are times when the veil is lifted, if only for a moment.

Despite my troubled night, by the time I’d had my shower the next morning and my coffee was brewing, I’d almost forgotten about the bee. Almost! I still felt troubled that I had not been able to wade further into the pond. It had not landed beside me on the couch by accident, I felt sure; Life, knows Life; there are times when the threads that connect all things become palpable -and their fragility makes them all the more valuable.

 I sat at my table with my coffee, and for some reason my eyes were drawn to the edge of a large wooden cabinet that hides my TV during the daytime. It is a structure that disappears from conscious notice until the evening, or boredom brings it to mind; the cabinet is not a creature of the day; I would likely only take notice of its absence should it disappear.

But there, as if waiting for me on its shiny surface was the bee; it didn’t move as I approached; I had to wonder if it had found a place for warmth overnight and then, landed on a place where it hoped it would, again, be noticed.

I found a little drinking glass and a sheet of paper to slip under it if I could manage to place the glass over the waiting bee. It didn’t move as I approached, and calmly accepted being trapped beneath glass. I had no difficulty getting the assemblage out the door and onto the porch.

I couldn’t see if it flew away when I emptied the glass onto the grass beyond the porch -it was still dark outside- but I sensed it was grateful; I was too. It’s not often that opportunities arise that allow different phyla to interact meaningfully.

I felt I had finally waded into Singer’s pond.

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gozzter

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