"Extending the healthy lifespan through medicine would be unnatural."
How natural are, for example, computers, cars, cell phones, antibiotics and vaccinations? It is natural for humans to do unnatural things. It would be unnatural for us to see a problem that causes a lot of suffering and not solve it.
Many people are therefore strongly opposed to the idea of fighting the aging process as such, because they believe that humans should not interfere too much with natural processes. Instead, they argue (see also "pro-aging trance") that we should not even try to treat aging in any way, but rather understand it as an expression of the coming into being and passing away of every living being that has ever existed, and accept it as a process given by nature that is part of life and makes room for new life.
Apart from the fact that it is not a naturally preprogrammed and universal law that living beings age (hydra, for example, do not age and die only from age-independent causes 1 2), and that death is not part of life but its absence, the same could also be said about diseases that are already treatable or have been eradicated, such as smallpox. Hardly anyone would think of claiming that the eradication of smallpox was not something desirable and meaningful, or that we should even bring this plague back; likewise, hardly anyone would be against curing Alzheimer's disease or cardiovascular diseases - even though these are just as natural as aging. The fact that aging has so far been inevitable for most living beings, and dying for all of them, is no argument for leaving it at that, and it certainly does not mean that this fact is good. To conclude from this that it is acceptable or even a good thing that old living beings die and thereby make room for new ones means making the value, or the right to exist, of living beings dependent on the time they have spent in the world, which seems highly questionable from an ethical and moral point of view.
If you follow the logic that we should not interfere with nature, you would also have to reject all medicines and most of the technologies that are widespread and in use today as unnatural interventions. According to commonly accepted social standards, conditions that cause suffering should be remedied. From a rational point of view, there is no reason why aging should be an exception here.
It is in human nature to overcome the limits of our environment by means of technologies we have created. How natural is it, for example, that you are reading this text right now on an internet-enabled digital device? It would be downright unnatural for humans to leave nature as it is and not change it to their advantage. It is precisely the drive to manipulate nature and to expand our originally limited abilities with the help of scientific knowledge that has enabled us to master fire, build houses, stop being eaten by predators, invent the wheel, develop vaccines, split the atom, fly to the moon and evolve from the primitive dry-nosed primate in the African savanna into the advanced species we are today.
- Martínez DE. Mortality patterns suggest lack of senescence in hydra. Exp Gerontol 1998 May; 33(3): 217-25. doi: 10.1016/s0531-5565(97)00113-7. PMID: 9615920
- Jones OR, Scheuerlein A, Salguero-Gómez R, Camarda CG, Schaible R, Casper BB, Dahlgren JP, Ehrlén J, García MB, Menges ES, Quintana-Ascencio PF, Caswell H, Baudisch A, Vaupel JW. Diversity of ageing across the tree of life. Nature 2014 Jan 9; 505(7482): 169-73. doi: 10.1038/nature12789. Epub 2013 Dec 8. PMID: 24317695; PMCID: PMC4157354
External links on the topic of unnaturalness
Article by the Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation:
https://www.lifespan.io/news/unnatural/
Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation: Is Life Extension Natural? | LifeXtenShow