wanky pontification incoming but while I definitely agree with the spirit of this statement whenever I see it I think that we don’t really ‘deserve’ to be alive by the letter of the word. I think more spiritually minded people than me can easily make an argument that we do fit the strict definition of ‘deserving’ to live but from a material perspective I don’t see how humans inherently deserve to spawn into this random chaos world. It’s just a random chance thing that happened and continues to happen.

but my brain has wrinkles so my take doesn’t just end there. My material stand-in for the more spiritual idea that human beings deserve life is that any human born is owed humane treatment and actualization by the humans that came before, because the human born never asked to live but the actions of the humans before them brought them into existence. therefore, every parent owes their child a dignified, healthy and happy life. stepping back further, every generation owes the next a dignified, healthy and happy life. every society owes the next blah blah you get it.

basically I’ve always seen the right to life as something owed to you by others, a mounting debt humanity must continue to repay, not necessarily something that is based within our character or inherent essence. you don’t deserve to be alive but you don’t earn that right yourself, either. it’s collectively owed to you and in stable societies you get your pay out.