In terms of growing old, this is—to steal from Mr. Dickens—the best of times and the worst of times. Medical science now has answers for things that sixty years ago weren’t even questions. Things like genetic engineering, injections that very specifically target the bad cells in our bodies, and technology that does surgery without really cutting you.

Because of this, some of us will live longer and perhaps function better.

On the down side, technology and science have created situations that those of us who are old have difficulty understanding and dealing with. The transgendered person, for instance. Someone who was born a male and became a female or vice versa. For something like that senior citizens have no real frame of reference.

In the forties and fifties, when I was learning about the differences between male and female, we subscribed to the binary theory of gender. You were born either male or female, and you were stuck with it. We knew this to be true even though we knew that some of these gender assignments didn’t seem to fit the individual they were assigned to. But it wasn’t really an ethical question, a legal question, or a legislative question.

Fast forward fifty or sixty years and one of the political crises that we’re faced with is whether a person who was born male and chose to become female should use the men or women’s facilities in public places. Laws were passed. Meetings and conventions were canceled. And probably elections will be swayed.

And, through all of this, I was just puzzled.

Transgender rights isn’t, of course, the only question. There is the on-going discussion regarding at what point treating babies for disease while they’re in the womb passes into creating “designer” babies? If there’s a way to make an unborn child more intelligent, is it right or wrong to do it? If we can, through machines, tubes, transplants, and other medical miracles, maintain life beyond actual living, should we do it? Or at what point should we not do it? If it’s possible to create life from a petri dish, how long can we keep from actually doing it?

When I was young, questions were much less complex. Six-cylinder or V-8. Pepsi or Coke. Baptist or Methodist. There were, I’m sure, very smart people who were pondering world-changing decisions, such as what role nuclear power should have in armed conflicts. But none of that really affected me. Nobody asked my opinion, and if they had, I wouldn’t have had one. But times have changed, and it appears that each of us is supposed to have an opinion, to be for against the law, the cause, or the campaign.

So here’s my solution. I will quickly concede that the person actually dealing with the problem, whether it be transgenderism, the timing and means of end of life, or curing a genetic defect before birth, is more capable of making a good decision for himself or herself that I am. And certainly more capable than a group of people essentially disconnected from the condition trying to make laws to tell them what to do.

Therefore, I support the rights of transgendered persons to use whatever bathroom they’re most comfortable with. I support the rights of people facing end-of-life choices to choose the time and means for themselves. And, generally, I support the rights of each person to make the important decisions for their own life without interference from society and the government so long as it doesn’t infringe on others’ rights.

Certainly, there should be ethical boundaries, else we might have people choosing euthanasia over going to the office one more time. But within those broad ethical boundaries, each person should be allowed to make the choices for his or her life.

Some people may consider my attitude a copout. It may be. But I prefer to think that it’s the most humane way to deal with questions that arise in a world where knowledge has far exceeded our wisdom.