Asymmetrical Information

So much for "No more blogging today...". Though that's a commitment I'm happy to see you break.

It seems that "hyper-sanitized", "technocratic" and "happy cog" _could_ be used to describe the mother's that abort babies with congenital birth defects.

Also as someone who's listend to those who support eugenics and aborting babies with congenital birth defects the argument often distills to "Who's going to pay for the cost of these people? You?"

Hee! I was thinking the same think Shelby!

And Jane, I completely agree. But I can see how, if you view all lives as equal and abortion as murder regardless of the social benefits how this would be the same in his eyes.

I mean, you know me, I think he's wrong, wrong wrong, but I understand where he is coming from.

I think you are mostly right Jane, but because you come at it from a libertarian point of view.

The progressive point of view is very big on so-called 'personal' choices being controlled/influenced by powerful institutional messages. From that point of view, the very clearly eugenic background of Planned Parenthood becomes more relevant.

I think it's important to add that parents of disabled children seem to get a lot of heat out in public, up to being asked point blank why they didn't have an abortion. So I would suggest that "personal autonomy" doesn't seem to cover the phenomena.

Of course, is it not legitimate to ask at whose expense our personal autonomy is enlarged?

The argument is also put forth often that the baby with the congenital birth defect is aborted for its own good, because that's better than being alive with the defect..the old "quality of life" argument. This, of course, does not give the baby in question much personal autonomy, but I still don't think its related to eugenics.

The argument is also put forth often that the baby with the congenital birth defect is aborted for its own good, because that's better than being alive with the defect..the old "quality of life" argument. This, of course, does not give the baby in question much personal autonomy, but I still don't think its related to eugenics.

Oops.

I see your point and I agree that eugenics is about making perfect humans, not eliminating defective instances.

Aside from the obvious problems of state control of one's reproduction is that the standard for defective kids could drift here and there, and at any given time there could be people alive who would've been, ah, terminated under the current regime and/or terminations in the past that would've been permitted to live under (and therefore costs borne by) the current regime.

It's unfortunately quite easy to believe that public health will be used to justify infringements of reproductive rights.

So this segues into a question I've wondered about recently: does the government have the moral right to sterilize severely defective individuals who are wards of the state? Does it have an obligation to the taxpayers to do so?

I'm not talking about functional cripples, but rather those individuals who will, in all probability, never be able to support themselves or live outside of an institutionalized environment, yet are capable of reproducing. Admittedly such people are unlikely to breed, but the possibility exists, especially when one factors in the possibility of sexual abuse.

Hard to have personal autonomy convincing to the self-styled cognitive elite if you aren't average or above. Hence, fetus* or baby, what's the diff - "it" won't grow up to be as autonomous as we need to give "it" rights, will it? Poll tests, anyone, dragging in the racialist angle of the self-identified progressive movement?

*you've been writing for the Brits for too long!

LAN3, the idea of the state controlling reproduction is definitely here, in the form of the People's Republic of China being the most obvious example. There are a number of demonstrations against the draconian governmental edict to limit the number of babies in a family. There are an equal number of methodologies people are using to get around it.

Of course, since they're such a huge industrial/economic machine, shouldn't the people be given a pass on this problem? Maybe those who like governmental control over saying you can get rid of those with undesirable characteristics, be they deformations of mental qualities, or just preferences by the parents.

Those that want to live in a great financial machine could go there to live. That would allow your space to be taken by a young Chinese couple waiting to have more than one baby.

But philosophically, the two positions seem to me to be worlds apart, and I don't think you can trace any consistent lineage between the two.

Consistent, no. But whether philosophically consistent or no, there are modern people who have evinced an admiration of policies that go beyond choice and to discouraging, taxing, or prohibiting people from giving birth to children who will be an undue burden. At least practically, I think that a belief in socialist medicine does have a tendency to end up in that result as well, as repugnant as it is to many people who believe that state medicine should increase choice rather than limit it.

Certainly there is a world of philosophical difference between eugenics based on duty to society and eugenics based on personal freedom to fashion one's child, but in the real world people are rarely purely philosophically consistent.

This is not true. Only the Nazis killed off mental patients. All other eugenicists only favored sterilisation.

I withdraw my above statement that eugenicists did not support killing of mental defectives or other "useless mouths", except for the Nazis as an outlier.
Because we did have a fourth trimester abortion policy for orphans at some times and places in America around 1900.
Specifically they would put the newborn children in orphanages and forbid the attendants to touch the infants or handle them in any way for "sanitary" reasons. This caused failure-to-thrive syndrome and resulted in very high death rates.
This was not what we think of as defective children, this is what they thought of as defective children, ie, children whose mothers had misplaced their fathers.

You are a little off. Progressive ideology is not about personal autonomy as such: it's about valorizing a certain way of life. That is why, say, Matt Yglesias writes that although there is in some sense more personal freedom in Kansas in Manhattan (i.e., the government is much less intrusive in Kansas), the personal freedom that exists in Kansas isn't the type interests him, because people aren't using their freedom from government intervention to do the things a progressive thinker wants them to do.

And one of the major elements of the good life, to a progressive, is not to be tied to other people. That is why they frown upon marriage, fidelity within marriage, staying in bad marriages etc. If you have a disabled child, you have tied yourself to that child, which is bad, and you have permitted a life which will be forever tied to you, which is also bad. A person who exercises personal autonomy to choose to bear a disabled child had made a bad choice, the same way that someone who chooses to smoke has made a bad choice. Bad choices must be prevented.

My momma always told me "eugenicist is as eugenicist does."

My momma was always a little odd that way.

My momma always told me "eugenics is as eugenics does."

I thought she was just talking about people from Eugene, Oregon. She was always a little weird.

Now I see she wasn't. And she was right.

You're right, Jane. The two views are worlds apart. One is motivated by a desire to serve the common good and the other is motivated by selfishness. If we now agree as a society that it is wrong to prevent the propagation of disabled persons out of a desire to eliminate burdens to society and the human species, then how can we claim that it is acceptable to do the same thing out of a desire not to be personally burdened?

As bad as the old eugenicists were, at least they were thinking of others besides themselves.

And one of the major elements of the good life, to a progressive, is not to be tied to other people. That is why they frown upon marriage, fidelity within marriage, staying in bad marriages etc.

Nope. Most "progressives" (a label that has arguably become as ill-defined and ambiguous as "neoconservative") probably would insist that society (i.e., the State and civil society) not employ social or legal coercion against persons who wish to leave "bad marriages," especially those in which physical and/or emotional abuse are involved. In other words, society should remain silent on the issue. Of course, some progs would rather that society encourage persons trapped in bad marriages to leave.

But "frown upon" marriage itself and encourage infidelity? Come the fuck on.

Also as someone who's listend to those who support eugenics and aborting babies with congenital birth defects the argument often distills to "Who's going to pay for the cost of these people? You?"

Hmm. Sounds exactly like libertarians who attack the entitlement problems of the modern welfare state. "But who's going to PAAAAAAY for it????"

And one of the major elements of the good life, to a progressive, is not to be tied to other people. That is why they frown upon marriage, fidelity within marriage, staying in bad marriages etc.

Nope. Most "progressives" (a label that has arguably become as ill-defined and ambiguous as "neoconservative") probably would insist that society (i.e., the State and civil society) not employ social or legal coercion against persons who wish to leave "bad marriages," especially those in which physical and/or emotional abuse are involved. In other words, society should remain silent on the issue. Of course, some progs would rather that society encourage persons trapped in bad marriages to leave.

But "frown upon" marriage itself and encourage infidelity? Come the fuck on.

Also as someone who's listend to those who support eugenics and aborting babies with congenital birth defects the argument often distills to "Who's going to pay for the cost of these people? You?"

Hmm. Sounds exactly like libertarians who attack the entitlement problems of the modern welfare state. "But who's going to PAAAAAAY for it????"

Oh, monkeyballs. Sorry about the double post.

Immoralist, does using the f-word make you feel grown-up?

"The two views are worlds apart. One is motivated by a desire to serve the common good and the other is motivated by selfishness."

Dead is still dead. Or, if your consciences bother you, not born is still not born.

I have problems with others making decisions about my life. I have big problems with those motivated by a desire to serve the common good. It has been tried, often, and never turned out very well.

Some current "ethicists", including Peter Singer of Princeton, support the idea of both "fourth and fifth trimester abortions", so that sperm donors and egg donors who decide they have made an error, or have produced a "past-term foetus" with an inconvenient defect, can correct it.

How many steps is it from there to supporting the concept of "ill senior" terminations for those on Medicare or Medicaid who actually need expensive treatment or surgery (Why bother?); and, "senile senior" terminations for those who have lost their faculties (They won't know anyway.)? I suspect not many steps, several of which we may already have taken.

Immoralist: If you look into Queer and Gender Theorists, as well as most Womyn's Studies "scholars" you will find large numbers who denigrate marriage in and of itself. Where the professors go, the progressives follow. 20 years ago Gay marriage was a bad joke of conservative cranks who opposed de-criminalising homosexuality. I wouldn't be so confident to defend your position.

Given their support of genocide against inconvenient people, going after disabled children is no big leap. Ask someone who protested Vietnam if they're at all concerned abotu the deaths that they enabled in Vientam, Laos, and Cambodia. You might get a shrug, but more likely (as in my experience) they'll say "The bastards got what they deserved". Aiding and abetting genocide should be just as inacceptable when it's done by the left as when a white-supremacist of the Left does it (it was called national socialism FOR A REASON).

I think you're onto something, Ed.

It will be interesting to see whether the Boomers' attitude toward euthanasia changes as they age. The idea of "quality of life" sounds appealing when you're young and healthy, and age and decrepitude are remote notions, but as they creep closer I suspect we'll find a surprising number of them clinging to life with a bit more tenacity than they or we expect.

But if the attitude toward euthanasia changes, that's OK by me. The Boomers came around to Reagan, too, so as bad as they are in so many respects, I know that collective sense of self-interest that they have so memorably displayed on so many occasions can sometimes point them in the right direction.

Here is a Washington Post Story about a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that found that medical professionals emphasize the negative when they inform and advise patients about Downs Syndrome Children. This is not all individual empowerment.

More chilling, here is a blog post by Dean Barnett, who has cystic fibrosis, about an effort by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to promote abortion as a "cure" for CF. The CFF paid for research to develop a prenatal test for CF so people could abort their children and in this way, CF would be "cured." Dean points out that among the well-meaning people advocating this solution was his father. His father was on the board of the CFF, and when questioned, he assured Dean and his brother that although he and his mother would have chosen to abort Dean had a test been available back when, Dean would have been "reincarnated" in their next baby. Dean and his brother were not convinced, needless to say. Dean Barnett chooses not to call this "evil," which I can understand given the family issues involved. And while I'll grant that his father is probably, in most aspects of his life, a good person who loves his son, this campaign by the CFF was evil.

Pretty much all eugenics proponents have good intentions, and you're fooling yourself if you call what is happening today anything but eugenics. Of course it's eugenics, and of course all eugenics proponents mean well. That what the damn word means: prefix eu = well, root geni = born: "well-born." Defending eugenics, or claiming that what someone supports is not eugenics, based upon their goals or good intentions, or theories of individual empowerment is nonsensical and ignorant. Every eugenicist the world has ever known has presented the exact same type of defense. That the specific arguments and defenses made today are more palatable to our sensibilities simply demonstrates that the eugenicists are not stupid. They know that the arguments made in the 1920s sound archaic, bizarre, and obviously wrong today, so they came up with "better" ones that conform to the modern person's sense of empowerment and entitlement. But it all still comes down to better living through killing the weak and imperfect.

Finally, I'm not calling out Dean Barnett's father, and I do not wish to make Dean regret having posted a very personal story online. To be absolutely clear, let me emphasize that I am not calling Dean Barnett's father evil. To do an evil thing, to sin, to fail a moral challenge, does not make you evil. Rather it is human. I take Dean Barnett at his word when he describes his father as a good person. I expect he was a good person, who faced years of hardship, and undoubtedly made major sacrifices for his son, and did much good by volunteering for the CFF. But good people under stress sometimes falter and do evil despite their good nature.

My guess is that Dean Barnett's father is a better person as a result of dealing with Dean's issues. It is a shame that Dean was so severely afflicted that he was unable to function effectively as an adult. :-)

We have a granddaughter who is brain damaged after a multiple-physician failure to follow established treatment proceedures, first for our daughter-in-law and then for her. I will tell you that her older sister, her parents and her grandparents are better people as a result of her issues.

Our granddaughter was afflicted during the "fourth trimester", so this discussion hits rather too close to home.

I think there should be a distinction made between the personal moral (what you feel you should or should not do) and the societal moral (what things others have a right to force you to do or force you not to do). While you personally wouldn't date two people at the same time, we'd probably consider a society (ie, government) that banned such activity quite puritanical (or more timely, Muslimical).

Unless we are talking about a society where a mother must be forced to bear a grossly deficient child to term (and then forced to care for it if no one else will take it), it doesn't bother me all that much.

"Some current "ethicists", including Peter Singer of Princeton, support the idea of both "fourth and fifth trimester abortions", so that sperm donors and egg donors who decide they have made an error, or have produced a "past-term foetus" with an inconvenient defect, can correct it."

Singer believes that it is only immoral to kill an infant after it begins to display awareness of itself as an entity. He doesn't think that they are persons up until that point. Mature animals, on the other hand, are considered persons and must be treated as such.

"How many steps is it from there to supporting the concept of "ill senior" terminations for those on Medicare or Medicaid who actually need expensive treatment or surgery (Why bother?);"

Singer's published position is that if you aren't going ameliorate someone's suffering (such as starvation) then it is more humane, and thus more ethically justified, to kill them than to allow them to continue to suffer.

"and, "senile senior" terminations for those who have lost their faculties (They won't know anyway.)? I suspect not many steps, several of which we may already have taken."

Singer doesn't consider them to be persons either so killing them isn't wrong.

FFA: Sharia is fully approving of 4 wives and as many concubines as you can afford. Saudi only recently banned slavery, and even then only technically. Slavery is widespread in Muslim countries, especially Saudia Arabia, which is why so many Saudis are getting popped for slavery charges in the US - they're really, really, really evil to the help.

Much of this discussion, though ASSUMES that a fetus and/or infant is not a person who has any rights. Not everyone makes this assumption.

Peter Singer has specifically stated that the elderly should be treated in accordance to their wishes as expressed when they were in possession of their faculties. An elderly person who as requested to be put on life support, etc... should be put on life support, etc... This position seems to be incosistent with his beliefs on how children should be treated. But he's a little nuts. He tries to use logic to answer moral questions and appears to ignore the human aspect of the questions.

I am also a bit disturbed by a willingness to allow abortions for the sake of personal convenience but NOT for the sake of improving society. I'm not really for either type of abortion... but I suspect a lot of progressives would be horrified at eugenics but quite happy to allow someone to abort a kid they just don't want.

"I think there should be a distinction made between the personal moral (what you feel you should or should not do) and the societal moral (what things others have a right to force you to do or force you not to do). While you personally wouldn't date two people at the same time, we'd probably consider a society (ie, government) that banned such activity quite puritanical (or more timely, Muslimical)."

There are actually three levels of moral rectitude. Supererogatory actions are those actions which would be nice if we did them but are not immoral to fail to do. An example would be putting some of our small change in a 'need a penny' jar or a collection jar for a worthy charity.

Next are those actions which are morally desirable. We have good moral reason for doing them, and it is wrong to some degree for us to fail to act accordingly.

Finally, there are moral obligations or duties. These are those actions that are required in order to meet society's minimal standards of moral decency. I have found that Liberals and religious right wingers both like to put everything that offends them into this category. My main objection to that is that it expands this class far beyond what is reasonable to expect human beings to be able to follow. That's why there are only ten commandments, which carry a death penalty in Judaism. Everything else is still wrong but forgivable. If all the proscriptions were commandments, then we'd all be dead because nobody could live up to that minimal standard.

Of course it is always possible for an individual or group to have a different conception of what constitute moral duties than society in general does.

"Peter Singer has specifically stated that the elderly should be treated in accordance to their wishes as expressed when they were in possession of their faculties. An elderly person who as requested to be put on life support, etc... should be put on life support, etc... This position seems to be incosistent with his beliefs on how children should be treated. But he's a little nuts. He tries to use logic to answer moral questions and appears to ignore the human aspect of the questions."

The theory is that the physical body is a possession of the person. When a person dies we should follow their wishes to the greatest degree possible in disposing of their possessions. What I find most despicable is that because capping a bullet in grandma's Alzheimer-ridden brainpan is unacceptable to most people's moral intuitions, academics like Singer use sophistry to "prove" that their theories do not lead to that result. Biomedical ethics is full of that kind of crap. The author knows before he starts what result he is going to "prove" is moral. Even Josef Mengele could prove that his experiments were moral if you approach applied ethics that way!

Just to make Singer's distinction clear, because the infant is not and has never been a person by Singer's definition, ownership of its body must lie elsewhere. Additionally, the infant has never had the capability to express a desire about its body's treatment.

Singer is more than "a little" nuts.

But philosophically, the two positions seem to me to be worlds apart, and I don't think you can trace any consistent lineage between the two. Nor is it right to say that the ends are the same. One group wants to enhance personal autonomy; the other was trying to build some sort of hyper-sanitized, technocratic collective in which everyone was a happy cog--and the retarded didn't make good cogs. It is the means that are similar.

I don't think there is always (or even usually) a complete separation of the two positions. While some only advocate for the existence of a right to abort, many also argue a moral obligation to use that right in "appropriate" circumstances. For example, when my wife was pregnant with our third child, at business dinners she was often told she should abort the pregnancy (because we already had two healthy kids). In other contexts, I've heard well-meaning people advocate an obligation to abort children with known birth defects. "After all, if you are only going to have one or two children, they should all be healthy."

At some point, the mere freedom to make a personal choice to have an abortion becomes an obligation to use abortion to have the right number of healthy kids. That may not be eugenics in its most virulent form, but the difference is not one of kind, only of degree.

My cousin has been saddled with a seriously impaired child for many many years (I think he's like 10 now). She wheels him around all day and has to take care of all of his bodily functions for him (he cannot feed nor clean himself and he wears diapers.) She is a prisoner, and so is he. I cannot fathom why both of them have to suffer for the rest of his life (which at this rate could be a very long time).

She's found Jesus: that's how she copes. As an Atheist I think that the whole thing is twisted.

A compassionate society would have put him down the day his condition was uncovered.

Garth,
And some people like to have cats and dogs and even though they have to pick up their poop.

Hopefully Garth will never have to face any type of debilitating problems in his life. He clearly ties his selfworth and esteem to how well he can support himself without being a so called "drain" on others.

While those crazy Christian wackos not only believe that things like service, love for our fellow man and respect for humanity are worthwhile and noble traits but also that they should actually back up those beliefs with actions, such as taking care of those who can't take care of themselves. The bastards. Too bad you couldn't work the ever-present charge of "hypocrite!" in there and declare that although she is a Christian she chose to abort or euthenize the child because it was an inconvience.

Hopefully the time will never come when the moral people of this country don't have to actually do battle with people like Garth, but I'm certain if his opinion was ever more present and forcefully applied we'd end up with another civil war.

How have we lost our way to such great extent?

I take issue with Jane's characterization of the Left's position: "Current progressive support for aborting babies with congenital birth defects..."

I support abortion rights, but I do not support abortion. And yes there is a real difference. I think if a woman or a couple want to have an abortion, that's pretty much their own damn business. But you don't see me at clinics cheering the women as they enter and leave.

And as for the specific objection to abortion wrt birth defects, why exactly is it bad for the would-be parent(s) to actually put thought into the consequences of carrying a pregnancy to term and rearing the child, and then decide not to have the child upon receipt of additional information?

Why is "we don't want a baby" that much worse than "we don't want this baby?"

Once you've stipulated that's it's an individual decision, aren't you obliged to butt out of said decision making process? That's a rhetorical question -- I think the people here objecting to specific abortions are actually opposed to all abortions.

Immoralist: If you look into Queer and Gender Theorists, as well as most Womyn's Studies "scholars" you will find large numbers who denigrate marriage in and of itself. Where the professors go, the progressives follow.

You could be a little fairer to these "Queer and Gender Theorists" by acknowledging that their agenda includes more than just "denigrating marriage." Why not go check out beyondmarriage.org and read their position statements for yourself?

And it simply isn't true that hard left academic types are the forebears of progressives on every political and social issue. That's partly because you'll find that even the hardest of oldline Marxist professors (a rapidly dwindling lot, I might add) tend to disagree with one another to such an extent that progressives would have a hard time deciding *which* professors to take their policy cues from.

Immoralist, does using the f-word make you feel grown-up?

I feel grown-up enough after paying my numerous bills and high income taxes to spare a little vulgar profanity for you, y81. My reasons are the same as Dick Cheney's: we both enjoy doing it, and no one is going to stop us.

David Walser,

For example, when my wife was pregnant with our third child, at business dinners she was often told she should abort the pregnancy (because we already had two healthy kids). [emphasis added]

Kirk,

"Often" might have been an exaggeration. If I recall correctly, it happened at three charity events in a row. The first time, as everyone introduced each other around the table, the women sitting across from my wife politely asked (referring to Kathy's obvious pregnancy), "Is that your first?" In response to my wife's answer, "No, it's our third," the women blurted out in obvious surprise, "Good God! Are you trying to set a record? You really should consider an abortion." The last declaration was said almost sotto voce, as if she realized she'd said too much. I think she was just shocked that someone of our education would have more than two children. Others at the table tried to cover for her by making "polite" comments about how we all needed to be concerned about our use of natural resources, etc.

I didn't witness the rendering of advice at the other events. Some well-meaning women would take Kathy aside and tell her "it" was no big deal. The other kids would do better without the competition for our attention. We all had an obligation not to over populate the world. Etc.

In addition to being pregnant for the third time, the news that Kathy did not work outside our home did nothing to endear her to the other women. She said she never felt less welcome in any environment she's ever been in. Junior high was heaven in comparison.

In addition to being pregnant for the third time, the news that Kathy did not work outside our home did nothing to endear her to the other women. She said she never felt less welcome in any environment she's ever been in. Junior high was heaven in comparison.

As best as I recall it through very deep layers of psychosis and repression, junior high was primarily about confused persons with gross insecurities forming cliques as defense mechanisms for guarding those insecurities from closer examination, said cliques then lashing out at any other persons who displayed positive character and/or any sort of lifestyle traits capable of drawing out any simmering jealousies.

So, junior high may be a rather apt comparison here.

Possibly the sharpest retributive rebuke that could be delivered to those twits would be, "Save the earth for who? Low-income hispanics? They don't seem to misunderstand the concept of 'replacement rate'."

Hmm, some "ladies" need to learn some manners.

I'm afraid my reply wold have been "When we need your advice to manage our lives we will ask for it."

cdub,

First of all, I have a living will that states that of I am ever incapacitated I want no efforts made to save my life.

Second, I have every intention of killing myself when I start to become feeble or lose my faculties. If I were told tomorrow that I had some awful disease that would mean -- at best -- years of suffering I would simply snuff it.

Life is not as important as most humans think it is. I did not exist prior to birth and for most of forever I shall not either. This existence is only as good as it is.

As for cats and dogs. I have two wonderful dogs that I love very much and whose poop I scoop. But if they become very ill or are dying I will put them "to sleep" rather than have them suffer needlessly. I think we should be able to do the same for human beings.

cdub:

Hopefully Garth will never have to face any type of debilitating problems in his life. He clearly ties his selfworth and esteem to how well he can support himself without being a so called "drain" on others.

What's so wrong with that? We humans treasure our health and vitality dearly; more so, I dare say, than living simply for the sake of living. It's the Good Life we're looking for, not the Infirm Life.

And isn't there something redolent of noble sacrifice in Garth's sentiment that we should not want to burden our families, our loved ones, or even society in general with the extraordinary costs of "end of life" care that only prolongs an existence devoid of everything worth living life for?

Garth:

Second, I have every intention of killing myself when I start to become feeble or lose my faculties. If I were told tomorrow that I had some awful disease that would mean -- at best -- years of suffering I would simply snuff it.

Agreed. The day I can't remember the names of my children--rather, the day I can't remember that my children *are* my children--is the day I politely ask the nurse to pull the plug.

I'm not crazy about the idea of the government outlawing all abortions. I'm also not crazy about the idea of abortions being completely unregulated. Unfortunately, the middle ground is hard to define. "Progressives" seem to define the questions entirely as an issue of the mother's right. I see two other parties involved... the father and the child.

I find it ironic that the party of the disenfranchised that seeks to make sure that every minority, disadvantaged group, etc... has full rights completely ignores the unborn babies, dismissing them as irrelevant to the question.

EI

Wow, Jane, the ability to split hairs in so lawyerly and elegant a fashion would be treasured by both eugenicists and the abortion lobby. You could get a job with either.

O' course, real actual people who have to live with the real actual consequences might think subtle philosophical differences are of somewhat academic interest.

And you've also missed the glaringly obvious distinction between the two movements in practise as opposed to theory: eugenics was about the majority forcing a minority to die, or kill their children, against the latter's will. Abortion for birth defects is about a majority allowing a minority to kill its children in accordance with the latter's will. In one the state coerces the individual, in the other the state guarantees the individual a certain freedom from coercion. I suspect this distinction is far more important to real people than your philosophical nuances.

Are you people out of your minds? Where exactly is the "right to have the perfect child"?
How far are you going to take this. What if they develop a in-utero test for dyslexia, or autism? Damn, the baby has a defective heart valve that the doc can't fix and they might only live to 25.
You people are narcissistic ghouls.

so the difference is merely one of scale.

Rather than society's good, and society's burdens, it is my good and my burdens.

Its evil, either way.

On a historical note, I would point out that Eugenics was considered a "progressive" movement in its day. In the US, it began among the well educated classes in the "progressive" northeast. The only major US institution to oppose the laws was the Southern Baptist convention which successfully waged court battles against the laws in the 1920's.

Only with the rise of Fascism in Germany did eugenics acquire it current bad associations. Until then it was fully part of the new movement to use coercive state power to improve society. Even communist toyed with the idea.

Many of modern marriage restrictions, such as not allowing the marriage of 1st cousins, come directly from the eugenics movement.

As a cautionary tale, eugenics in the late 1800's and early 1900 rested on the "scientific consensus" of the day that the traits of parents blended like ink to create the traits of the child. Had that actually been true then the eugenist fear that inferior traits could eventually contaminate the entire population would have actually have been valid.

It is something of historical irony from the prospective of the contempory world that the legal defeat of eugenics happened at the hands of ignorant backwoods Christian fundamentalist.

They are rooted the same because both don't view the terminated lives as human. You see those classified as defective as human, where as the old progressives might not have.

Also, consider in Europe where some places have legalized euthanasia for very young children.

I think having a gay child would be personally inconveniencing, so I would like to have a test to screen and then abort any gay fetuses in the womb.

Its my choice, so its no big deal.

Rather than killing the unborn out of a godlike desire to re-engineer human society, it is done purely out of personal selfishness. Or "personal autonomy', if that euphemism makes you feel better.

That makes it soooo much better.

Shannon:

"scientific consensus", eh?

... Global warming, anyone?

"the right not to have a child that would be a massive burden"

I think that captures the abort-the-defective-fetus crowd's thinking about kids rather well. A child is a "that", not a "who". Or at least one growing and developing in the womb is a "that." "That"s don't have a right to life.

abortion is legal because of roe v wade.

roe v wade was decided based on the medical science at the time. (as much as if not more than constitutional law.)[according to woodward's account of brennan's process.]

science has advanced since.

therefore, AT THE VERY LEAST, the decision should be revisited.

viability is earlier; therefore limitations to abortions before the first trimester should be permitted.

using ultrasound and other techniques has recently allowed parents to discover things about their BABY in utero. like if the baby is a boy or a girl.

this has DIRECTLY led tio millions of girl babies being aborted/murdered. because the parents don;t favor girl babies; to them a girl baby is a handicap.

other folks don't mind having girls but so mind having blind babies or babies with other abnormalities. they want normal babies, and are wiling to kill the abnormal ones.

when we as a society permit this, then the society IS COMMITTING EUGENICS. in effect, at the very least.

in a larger sense, though, the basic moral question remains: where does the mother's autonomy end and the child's begin? the child for whom we must speak, because she cannot speak for herself.

the child is NOT the mother - or an extension of her tissue or organs; the child has unique dna and is not inside the mother, but in her womb.

and the womb is supposed to be a place for the most intimate and safe nurturing.

not the site of a murder. of infanticide.

after all, what is conceived at conception if not a new life? isn't that why we have always called that moment CONCEPTION?!

the best solution to the problem of abortions is not in the constitution. it is in science.

ultimately, the solution will come when medical science discovers who to end a pregnancy WITHOUT killing the baby. this could be accomplished by extracting the fetus and freezing it for later re-implantation. in the natural mother or an adoptive mother.

this solution is a win--win-win:

the woman who doesn't want to go full term gets to end her pregnancy; another woman gets to become pregnant; the baby gets to live.

THERE'S ANOTHER WINNER, TOO: US politics. we would finally be able to take this troubling issue off the table and put of the political debate.

the lobbying groups on both sides of this issue wouldn't like this. they'd be out of business.

the basic science is here today.

there are tens of thousands of couples who cannot conceive who are presently using IV to try to get pregnant.

this could help them.

I've actually had to make the decision that you brilliant theorists are having so much fun with.

I was an older mother (36) with a bad genetic history and thus had CVS done for all three of my pregnancies. The second pregnancy was a boy with trisomy 13, or Patau's syndrome.

Very few trisomy 13 children survive long enough to be born, perhaps 10%. Of those that are born, only 15% live to 1 month, of those only 15% of THOSE live to 1 year. Ultrasound showed ours had Holoprosencephaly, a severe deformation of the face and brain that is common in Patau's children. He had no eyes, nose, or forbrain.

Like some of the people who've posted, I have a living will. I don't want to spend my life in severe pain. I decided I couldn't force my son to live a short, awful life filled with pain.

We aborted him. If you like, we murdered him, and we will go to hell for it. Frankly, if your God wants me to force agony on my children, I'd rather go to hell.

Hell, even ignoring the issues with either viewpoint -- that the same logic makes eliminating 'fifth-trimester' fetuses or for that matter grown adults efficient in some cases -- I'll just fight it on the initial sample; eliminating these folks has a huge [i]negative[/i] societal and personal result that can overwhelm any 'benefit' that comes in place.

To put it simply, there are a lot of 'defective' people out there that have done a hell of a lot of useful stuff. Albert Einstein and Newton both showed signs of Asperger's Syndrome, and Einstein's brain samples actually look pretty heavily autistic. Tesla, whose inventions defined today's electrical systems, had so many conditions that we today can't even begin to classify them, and the Space Shuttle o-ring and ice water guy was pretty similar. In the more typical sense, 'defective' includes people with cosmetic defects or repairable ones.

"Defective" carries a long way these days.

Been there. Done that. perhaps you made the wise decision for yourselves. On the other hand, how do you know? It was certainly much more convenient for yourselves. Having lived a life of nothing but comfort, I cannot feel very superior.

On the other hand, I do know a couple who had a sick child who lived less than two years. They would have given anything for having their baby for even one more day. Who is wiser? You or them?

Not me.

Been there done that,

One thing I've discovered from reading blogs is that parents of disabled children have a disproportionately large presence on the internet. (I believe Laura McKenna of 11d.typepad.com has noted this.) Also, I've read some people online for years before discovering that they have a kid who's blind, or has Down's Syndrome, or has some autistic symptoms. So the odds being what they are, I expect that a number of the people who posted earlier are raising disabled children.

Ms. Love

Marriage among first cousin has been banned by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches for much longer than that. I beleive its older than that. It's is obviously older than the eugenics movement. People used to raise animals - they notice what inbreeding does.

Been there, done that

Maybe, maybe not. There always seems to someone making that claim kind of claim when abortion comes up. It does seem to damper the discussion which is I guess what you want.

Yes, I'm becoming quite cynical on comments.

Be as cynical as you like, K. Apparently in your world there aren't any hard decisions.

I've noticed that whenever there's someone with a problem on the internet, there are plenty of people ready to jump on them.

I've noticed that whenever there's someone with a problem on the internet, there are plenty of people ready to jump on them.

Probably for at least two reasons:

1. You most likely wouldn't share deep personal experiences with random strangers on the street; an even bigger community of random strangers -- and one that is lacking most contextual social cues -- is not likely to be conducive to the activity, either.

2. Irrespective of my opinion on your moral virtues, you are supplying the example of ONE tragic but rare case in a thread written around generalities. Rare and exceptional cases are no basis for deciding questions generally.

Been there,

God forgives all sins, except for unbelief against his Son.

Its not that the other posters are brilliant as you put it, its just that much of the abortion debate is flamingly obvious. We know that Eugenics is stupid, and bad for society, and immoral. It requires no vast intellectual powers to see that water is wet. Although, there have been many, well-presented points.

Let me ask you a question. If you were told you were going to have a child with some mild defects that would require therapy, and much pulling of hair (by adult to self), and would probably work out okay, what would you do? Mercy killing is a separate subset just as almost all soldiers are going to go to a MASH unit instead of getting their throat cut. In a normal difficult situation, what would you do?

k,

Marriage among first cousin has been banned by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches for much longer than that.

Yes, but the legal prohibitions against it definitely arose as a part of the eugenics movement as did testing for syphilis to get a marriage license. (Even after the discovery of the bacterial agent people thought it might still be inheritable.)

Actually, inbreeding is often done in animals. In humans, modern studies suggest that cousin marriages in a single generation probably pose little risk. It is the serialization of the marriges across several generations that causes problems.

We associate eugenics so strongly with the Nazi's that we forget just how popular it once was with the progressive elite.

I think that the following hypothetical would be useful. If you could whisk that unborn child into a mechanical womb, have the procedure paid for by the Catholic Church, and have it done at a lower medical risk for complications than abortion, would you still be in favor of aborting? I believe that a large number of "progressives" would say yes. Those are the clear cut eugenicists. I stopped laying out that hypothetical some time ago because it was simply depressing how quickly "progressives" shifted from personal autonomy talk to "burden on society" talk. This portion of the nazi program remains popular among progressives but they attempt to disguise it in order to avoid unsavory political associations.

There are people willing to adopt and raise disabled kids. I've met a couple in my years on this planet. Adoption, even for severely handicapped children, is a possibility. The "horror" of raising a child with biological deficits is not mandatory.

But let's not kid ourselves. Some abortions are done for fairly easily correctible defects. There was a case in 2003 in the UK where a 28 week fetus was aborted for cleft palate and harelip, conditions routinely corrected within months of birth with no lingering effects beyond postoperative recovery.

And finally a comment about inbreeding. The motivation for banning cousin marriages was not solely biological. Catholic prohibitions on incest extended out to 4th cousins at one point and such prohibitions had much more to do with avoiding the inter-generational concentration of wealth and power than any biological consideration.

The fact that there is a "debate" over whether to kill defenseless and the disabled children is about as frightening as the act itself.

I think that "your fetus is not going to live" is a different sort of thing than "your fetus isn't perfect."

I know someone who had two abortions in military hospitals when I know that abortions were illegal in military hospitals. Why? Because the embryo attached in the fallopian tube for at least one of them and the other, if it was something else, also simply could not be brought to term. The procedure was medically necessary.

I think it's unfair to equate a condition that will either result in a dead fetus or a dead baby and a condition that requires some therapy or developmental help.

Just as it's unfair to equate a "pro-choice" abortion with pregnancies that are aborted because they can not be brought to term.

Thing is that it's the pro-choice sorts that I hear suggesting that someone isn't going to be able to legally get a medically necessary abortion. And I think it's probably not those upset by the idea of aborting downs babies who are suggesting that someone isn't going to be able to (or shouldn't) end a pregnancy when the fetus doesn't have a brain or a face.

And most certainly if one thinks that "I don't want to be fat in the summer" is a perfectly adequate reason to get an abortion then restricting abortions for any other reason, to avoid having a disabled child, to chose gender or even hair color, to not have a gay child, is silly.

Two additional comments about the issue. I said before it was evil either way, and I stand by that.

Let me add a few grains to that. Its not only evil, but usually pretty stupid. Humans are shallow creatures and generally don't do a very good job when they take over on natural selection. Anyone who has read Darwin knows that Darwin bolstered his argument considerably by pointing out that "artificial selection"--i.e. breeding, goes on all the time. What breeding represents, then, is humans themselves inserting themselves in the place of nature in making the decision of which traits to favor, and which ones to disfavor.

So what is wrong with breeding? Well, I always like to sum it up this way: natural selection gave us the wolf, and artificial selection gave us the chihuahua. Its hard to explain why a wolf is a better creature than a chihuahua, but I think it self-evidently is. A chihuahua, by comparison, is a truly pathetic creature that only exists to be dependant on the largesse of humans.

Humans are shallow creatures. We will select out a gene because it makes a creature "so cute." Mother nature will select out a creature beause of genuine survivability. And often even when humans think they are selecting for survivability, we are fools in doing so.

Take, for instance, sickle cell anemia. It's exactly the kind of trait that eugenicists would think we should breed out of our species, and for the selfish people we are discussing here, they might think their lives would be short and miserable. But there is a reason why it is prevalent among african americans. That is because in certain parts of Africa the trait is actually downright useful, because of malaria. It works like this. If you have no sickle cell, then malaria kills you young. If you have a full dose of the gene, the anemia kills you young. But if you have a half dose... you die young, yes, but not as young as if you had either a full dose or no dose at all. There are many, many traits like this, with hidden benefits and truly you cannot expect humans to be smart or subtle enough to pick up on all of them.

Biodiversity is, simply put, a good thing. This is not in a feel good about being different philosophy. You need to diversify your gene pool for the same reason you need to diversify your investment portfolio. You don't want to be like the foolish workers at Enron who only invested in their mother company and thus lost their jobs and much of their savings at the same time. You don't put your eggs in one basket, so to speak.

A practical example of this comes back to the sickle trait. Imagine, for instance, that for one reason or another much of the world becomes more and more swamp-like. Like maybe it turns out that Al Gore is right after all, and global warming is real (although you might guess I have real doubts). Then it might turn out that this natural protection against malaria might literally save the human race. You never know what trait we today consider bad might turn out to have a hidden benefit. Humans are frankly too dumb to understand most of the time.

Besides, to be blunt, people greatly overestimate how much of a burden people with disabilities really are. I have several disabilities and have many friends who have disabilities. All of my life, I have seem normal people inflate in their imagination how disabled we are. This is indeed part of why I think humans are too stupid to know what traits ought to be selected out. The long list of disabled Americans who have made much of their lives should give us room for further pause. Who would have thought a deaf man could be a gifted musicial. But we acknowledge the genius of Beethoven. Who would have thought a dyslexic person could get far in life. But we have had several dyslexic presidents (Bush Sr., for instance), scientists (Edison, Einstein), and so on. And it goes on and on. The fact that people consider these people surprising demonstrates how we underestimate the disabled, demonstrating our essential shallowness when it comes to our species.

Btw, as a point of fact, the laws against incest are not about eugenics. That is a common misconception. The proof of this is that virtually every one of those laws define incest that includes "non-blood relatives"--as in those related by marriage and adoption. In other words, Martha and Greg Brady (of the Brady Bunch) couldn't marry. The concern is not that they will have messed up children, but that the relationship is outright creepy. I am sure the supreme court will wake up to that fact and allow people to adopt children and later marry them, since mere moral disapproval is no longer a valid basis for law (yes, i am being sarcastic, because of my disdain for the logic of the Lawrence opinion).

(P.S. Don't take my citation of Darwinism as necessarily a rejection of Biblical creationism. I am not sure if we were created in the literal way the Bible said so, or if it was more like that God created the single cell with an exact understanding of how evolution would turn out. Either way I have faith that we are here today because God wants us to be, and everything else seems like quibbling over details. But creationists need to separate out the issue of Darwinism as an origin theory and Darwinism *as a continuing process.* However we and all the other creatures on the earth got here, there is little room to doubt that we are right now, as we speak, in the process of evolution.)

"the right not to have a child that would be a massive burden"

There's a thing called adoption. You should look into it.

You're right that I'd fear living under a government that controlled reproduction for the benefit of society, just as I fear living under a government that controls healthcare or the economy.

But the difference between state sponsored eugenics and individual eugenics is much smaller than you claim. To the individual who is eliminated, it makes no difference whether it was the state or the individual doing the eliminating.

Let's not forget that progressives were/are socialists. If you're a socialist, the disabled burden your state healthcare system, among other "costs". Individuals make the same calculation, they don't want to bear the cost of having a disabled child. Morally speaking, it is the same thing.

To flip the state/individual situation around, let's say I know a man committed pre-meditated murder with 100% certainty because I know the man and witnessed it with my own eyes, and I live in a death penalty state. Am I doing nothing wrong if I execute the man, because the government will execute him after the jury trial. Or is it wrong for me as an individual to take on the role of judge, jury, and executioner.

I think you are defending the lesser of two evils.

Going back to the original post (I'm late to the party), it's true that these are different rationales for aborting defective children. But at another level they are similar in ethical format. Both are utilitarian, it seems to me. One, the old style progressive eugenicist, uses a standard corporate utilitarian calculus (most good for the most people), while modern "progressives" use a personal utilitarian (sometimes called egoism in ethics) justification. While such calculations are part of any ethical judgment (we can't be oblivious to consequences of actions), for any one who argues for classic deontological (rule-based; e.g., abortion is murder) or virtue (character based; e.g., you may become a better person by this experience) ethics - and in reviewing earlier comments it's not an inconsiderable number of people - this will not be persuasive. And as several people suggest, often the argument shift between the two positions on less than consistent grounds. In fact, it is only by bracketing out other arguments that utilitarian styles of ethics become the sole norm. Of course, in ethical theory there are serious criticisms of all these approaches, but no need to cover that ground here.

My goodness, I am troubled. I am not sure if you are using outrageous language to mock those who find a distinction between eugenics and abortion of the potentially disabled. Your phrases "knocking off the defectives," "burden they placed on resources that they thought could be better employed," "common human revulsion against people who, because of a facial deformity or a severe cognitive deficit" border on the disgusting. Once you start sorting human lives into "deserves to live" and "undeserving”, you have crossed a moral threshold.

Before we start to distinguish "functional cripples" from "unfunctional (?) cripples", we should weed out the moral cripples. Unfortunately, you and many of your commenters fall into the later category.

A couple of points, as I was one of the commenters over at Ross' site:

First, i think there needs to be a distinction drawn between "positive" eugenics and "negative" eugenics: Positive is selectively breeding for certain characteristics, and negative is either culling "defectives" or sterilizing them.

Another point is that while what you do may not be characteristic in a formal sense of a certain movement, the eventual result is. To trot out the good old Nazi analogy – you may not believe in a German fatherland based on the ancient boundaries of the Teutonic state populated by Aryans, but you can still be considered one if you display enough of the primary identifying traits. Fill in those yourself.

The point is that the current powerhouses of the “pro-choice” movement had their roots in Margaret Sanger’s philosophies, which were based on Eugenics. Steven Levitt’s “Freakonomics” postulated that crime declined due to the advent of legalized abortion in the 70’s. This engendered much thoughtful nodding of heads, I mean – sure makes sense, don’t it?

The upshot of the abortion it to allow women to control their reproductive tracts, and have or not have children as they choose. Covering abortion with the holy cloak of privacy makes it difficult to bring up motives in polite society. Motive are what are in question here, and to be frank, the majority of what passes for rationale for abortion (down’s syndromes, birth defects, health of *blank*, only have children that will be loved, etc) all polite fictions compensating for the fact that most all reasons for aborting a child are ultimately selfish.

It helps to have a fig leaf like eugenics.

It used to be a standard "deep thought" to say that humans were (compared to any reasonably imaginable ideal) a bunch of critters who were intrinsically weak, stupid, sickly, and mortal. Clearly, we were all deeply dependent on each other, the rest of Creation, and of course God.

Therefore, it did not behoove one to give oneself airs about being healthier, smarter, and stronger than others. All that was not particularly great anyway, and besides, even that marginal advantage could be gone in a moment. Misfortune always lay in wait, and timor mortis conturbat me.

People stopped thinking about it, but it isn't any less true.

So it's pretty funny to see people proclaiming how happy and healthy and superior they are, able to become arbiters of life and death on grounds of their own convenience. In fact they are just as fragile and burdensome to society as those they want dead. They depend for every breath on the goodwill of their neighbors, who refrain from slaughtering, poisoning, running them over, or infecting them.

Perhaps that's why some people so dislike the visibly weak and sickly. They hate seeing the skull beneath the skin. They fear the mirror.

"Nor is it right to say that the ends are the same."

You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding... Let's see; Justification A ==> Dead "Undesirable" Babies; Justification B ==> Dead "Undesirable" Babies

And those two ends are different... how?

"It is the means that are similar."

So, since they've come up with better marketing (personal choice or liberty rather than "societal good"), then it's ok, is that right? As long as we've got a good slogan...

Been There, situations like yours are ones that make even those of us who are firmly anti-abortion squirm. I realize the burden you have faced. I understand your decision, though I disagree with it. I think we'd all agree though that your case is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Suppose for a moment we could all agree that Been There has a case and it's OK for her to kill her baby, before or after birth, and let's further suppose that we could all agree that, were it possible to detect (and it may be someday soon), that it would not be acceptable to snuff a baby just because it is going to be homosexual, then there's one obvious question:

Where do we draw the line?

""Where do we draw the line?""

A better question might be why "we" believe that "we" have the right to use the coercive power of the state to force decisions on other people about child birth and fertility?

Maybe "we" should draw the line at interfering in the decisions of others regarding the circumstances and structure of their families. Maybe "we" should let families wrestle with genuinely difficult moral and ethical decisions internally, instead of trying to cram a "one-size-fits-all" law enforcement approach down everyone's throats on an issue over which there is massive social controversy and sharp disagreement.

Megan,
May be the stupidest, most self interested piece of irrelevant hair splitting I have ever seen on the internet.

I am sure the thread makes this point adequately, because I can't imagine who would defend the position, but let me pile on in the interest of amplification.

I say this as the father of a child with a hypoplastic left heart, whom I lost, and a child born with a defective right heart, who is a constant joy to me to this day, and the days weeks and months spent in the hospital with her was not a burden. Maybe somebody who does not have children could not understand that last sentence.

But hey, whether a "eugenicist" wants to take my right to have children away, or my father's right to have me, or a good hearted liberal would have aborted me makes a huge difference, I assure you.

I don't really care, for example, if the madmen who murdered 3,000 New Yorkers a few years back worship God or the Devil, honest I don't.

I have long thought that abortion is:
the murder of a parasite.

My pro-life wife doesn't like the parasite part, so I'm willing to revise it to "temporary" parasite. As said more poetically, we are all dependent, to one extent or another.

The Adoption choice means there is no real excuse for abortion.

In America, even the extreme case of Been There could have given birth and given the living, human baby up for adoption / institutionalization, and not been burdened by the care of the poor, doomed, genetically damaged human. I doubt that reasonable, humane care would cost as much as that spent on the next criminal going to jail.

Yet it's also true that I'm so thankful to have 4 healthy kids.

The USA is rich enough to offer every disabled person some minimal materialist "life", even if the poor human is without a face and will likely die soon a 'natural' death.

Either "we hold these truths to be self-evident ... that all men are created equal" -- or else we don't.

The pro-abortionists don't. Ever.
[Ross made this 'equality' point lately]

c.gray,

Who will represent the children in these decisions? Currently, the state does interfere in family affairs when removing children from abusive homes, for example. We would not allow a parent to kill a three year old. Is that acceptable interference by the state? The question is not whether or not the state should interfere in family decisions. The question is when the fetus/baby deserves protection.

Here's another question... is it wrong to slip a pregnant mother a drug that will cause her to miscarry? Assume the mother doesn't come to any harm herself. What kind of crime would it be for someone to cause a woman to lose her unborn child? Would the crime vary depending on how far along she was? Would it be any worse than forcibly shaving her head?

EI

You’re assuming they're being honest about their motivations (re: enhance personal autonomy).

Should I go down the list of the other things the same people claim to support? Say Che t-shirt wearing 60s kids chanting ho ho ho chi min, Mao red book in hand, claiming to be “pro peace”? It’s about as ridiculous.

Really, I’m not sure their motivation is mostly due to old historical eugenics memes bouncing around their ideological circles either… some of it is just reflexive support for abortion rights that is one of their core party line issues / goals (which, while it evolved out of eugenics, now has been around long enough to stand on its own as part of the left wing pantheon of beliefs). So, what I’m saying, the personal autonomy is just an argument… spin… to provide cover for their basically secular religious devotion to abortion (or what they call, with in group speak, ‘choice’).

BTW… I’m not anti-abortion and don’t support making it illegal… I just don’t trust leftists and their self proclaimed motivations…

Isn't "good cog" in our society described as enhanced personal autonomy?

In other words, ensuring enhanced personal autonomy is tied very closely to how we envision our responsibility to a good society. That being the case, I'm not sure the instincts or appeal of the two philosophical positions are that far apart. Maybe our version is a little more clever.

I have long thought that abortion is:
the murder of a parasite.

My pro-life wife doesn't like the parasite part, so I'm willing to revise it to "temporary" parasite. As said more poetically, we are all dependent, to one extent or another.

It would appear your wife has a better grasp of connotations than you do.

Every religion is nominally a 'cult', every school of opinion is nominally a 'heresy', every male of Chinese decent is nominally a 'Chinaman', and on the list goes. However, you won't get very far in society bandying those words in that fashion, because they carry connotative meanings and a consequent functional use that goes considerably beyond the most basic and literal definition of the word.

If you're a proud father of four, then I trust you have some basic understanding of the process by which a fetus is formed. It has nothing to do with a "paracitisim" as it is generally understood, and anyone using the word to describe the natural processes of human reproduction will be assumed to be pulling a rhetorical smoke-and-mirrors routine.

formatting: C-

The second paragraph of the above is, of course, intended to be italicized.

"I think it's important to add that parents of disabled children seem to get a lot of heat out in public, up to being asked point blank why they didn't have an abortion."

"does the government have the moral right to sterilize severely defective individuals who are wards of the state? Does it have an obligation to the taxpayers to do so?"

"I've heard well-meaning people advocate an obligation to abort children with known birth defects. "

"A compassionate society would have put him down the day his condition was uncovered."

Well, as long as we aren't promoting eugenics, we're just deciding who should live or die; and when people and fetuses should be killed.

I'm amazingly thankful that none of you got to make any choices for my family. Please keep it that way.

For the record, I can read the above quotes as "my brother should have been killed, my brother should be sterilized, my brother should have been killed, and my brother should have been killed".

Oddly, I beg to differ. The doctors told my parents he'd likely die in under 5 years, he turns 39 this winter. But that's ok, I'm sure killing him early would have been more compassionate, or something.

I'm just surprised, since his life is (by the definition of those who'd advocate having killed him young) so horrible, that he hasn't tried to kill himself...

Weird, it's like you and he have different concepts of the value of his life. But I'm sure you're right, and he's wrong. Confined to a wheelchair most days, and risking (although luckily avoiding) brain damage.

Yep, thanks for clarifying the view of many commenters here. Ghouls who would have willingly killed my brother without a second thought. Also people so convinced of their righteousness that they're willing to try to impose these beliefs on others and society as a whole without any real information.

Well, that's just as open-minded, tolerant, and rational as can be...

So...
Killing a child to benefit 1 person = personal autonomy = good
Killing a child to benefit 1,000,000 persons = eugenics = bad
...Have I got it right?

If my prior comment comes across as snarky I apologize. Obviously we want to accomplish worthy ends without any killing. Well, I do.

In the big picture, I see some benefits to "Eugenics Lite." By this I mean simply (1) that past social policies have actively incented dysgenics, i.e. the breeding of dummies, and (2) that with all our clever economists we ought to be able to come up with some gentle and humane system of incentives to discourage making quite so many dummies and encourage making a few more smarties.

I am not one of those clever economists, but for the sake of argument imagine Congress tweaking the per-child tax deduction so as to benefit high-income/high-IQ folks with lots of kids, while giving little/no benefit to low-income/low-IQ folks or to high-income folks without kids.

Discrimination? Social engineering? You bet it is.

But killing anyone? Forcibly sterilizing anyone? Count me out.

-Pro-life, anti-killing, pro-eugenics, atheistic POTH

The opening paragraph of this post is a creepy as those whe believed that the enslaved Africans or European Juden had no souls. One should be careful where one goes with this.

So, let's see if I understand you correctly. You're saying that the old time progressives, being public spirited individuals, wanted to make the human race better by removing bad genes from the gene pool.

Current progressives, being selfish jerks, think that when given the choice between personally helping the less fortunate, or killing them, think that killing the less fortunate is an appropriate option.

Or, in other words, forcing other people to pay to make you feel better about yourself is good (thus we get high taxes and lots of government spending, and therefore government control).

But being forced to actually do good yourself? That is beyond the pale!

Thanks for clearing that up, Megan.

Or, to put it a bit more plainly: a belief that everyone is entitled to "personal autonomy" is entirely incompatible with a preference for higher taxes or big government.

So the claim that progressives believe in personal autonomy is clearly false to fact.

(A claim that they believe in "personal autonomy for me, and the hell with everyone else", is not inconsistent with reality. But that's not the claim you made.)

Doesn't seem to me that we are too far from deciding that the elderly are also a burden to society. Should we just go ahead and euthanize them too? Wouldn't that be the most cost efficient method for dealing with scarce medical resources?

I shudder to think what is happening to our reasoning in the so-called "civilized" world. We may indeed be doomed - all in the name of convenience, of course.

"Doesn't seem to me that we are too far from deciding that the elderly are also a burden to society. Should we just go ahead and euthanize them too? Wouldn't that be the most cost efficient method for dealing with scarce medical resources?"

That might go a long way towards solving the health care problem. So how long until we decide to start killing people who are on public assistance for being a burden to society?

In response to been-there-done-that:

I'm not disagreeing with you, but...

Our doctors told us our baby had severe hydrocephalus and would most likely die before or shortly after birth. We ignored them (and weathered their Olympian disapproval). Our baby turned out to be beautiful, loving, a joy to us and her sister, overflowing with life and personality, and mildly disabled.

Not every situation is the same, but that was our experience.

One group wants to enhance personal autonomy [...the right not to have a child that would be a massive burden].

The [eugenicists] were bothered, not just by the fact that these people might reproduce, but also the burden they placed on resources...

...Burden on resources eh? Spot the difference? I can't.

You even make it sound as if the first lot object to the burden on themselves, which in some ways is more gross than bemoaning the social burden.

"Oh darling, we can't go to Alex's dinner party now, Simon has just had another fit. How tedious."

That's what you say, so presumably that's what you mean.

Oh, hell. Just kill all the defectives so the rest of us can have free health care and safe bridges.

Comments are Closed.