No life is expendable

It is tempting to measure the value of a life by what it provides: whether it is productive, healthy, useful, or desired. But a person's dignity does not depend on that. They are valuable for being who they are, from their first instant, not for their output or whether they fit into others' plans. When people start deciding which lives are worthwhile—the unborn, the critically ill, the elderly, or whoever gets in the way—something basic breaks: respect for life as a boundary no one should cross. Defending this is not fanaticism: it is protecting the most fragile, those who cannot defend themselves. A society is measured by how it treats the weakest, not the strongest.