Atheism apologist Dawkins: Down Syndrome abortions are moral

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While the Merriam-Webster definition of "eugenics" is "a science that tries to improve the human race by controlling which people become parents[,]" the practice has been anything but that. For example, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger infamously wrote that "[w]e must make this country into a garden of children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds." She included "...those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers" as those among the "weeds." She described "[m]any of this group [as] diseased, feeble-minded, and [...] of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." And, that "[e]ugenics is ? the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems." She admitted that she "...accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing."

Clearly, then, her idea of the kinds of undesirable people she wished to euthanize, abort or sterilize were (in her own words): "those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers[,]" the "diseased, feeble-minded, and [...] of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support[,]" and the "racial, political and social problems" or other "human weeds." As a leading eugenicist, it appears that no one escaped her scrutiny.

Beyond Sanger, eugenicists in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsor ... ted_States (and worldwide) targeted "the intellectually disabled and the mentally ill, but also [...] under many state laws [...] the deaf, the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed. According to the activist Angela Davis, Native Americans, as well as African-American women were sterilized against their will in many states, often without their knowledge while they were in a hospital for other reasons (e.g. childbirth)."

I believe wholeheartedly that what Dawkins wrote is completely in line with the eugenics programs of Sanger, Hitler, and those who still persist to regulate by law the lives and reproductive abilities of those they have repeatedly called "human weeds," "race defilers" and "unenhanced." Evil is still evil no matter how fashionable or how many crowds (of klanswomen, Nuremberg stormtroopers or crowd-meming Twitterheads) cheer it on.

Obviously, Sanger said some controversial things. And I'm not defending Dawkins. To say that not aborting a certain kind of baby is immoral is the same thing as saying abortion is immoral. It should be a choice either way.

But there is a grain of truth to what Sanger was promoting. Without birth control, there is a certain lack of control over your life. Women can't pursue a career. Religious women may be destined to be perpetual baby making and raising machines. And even if you want kids, having too many means less resources available for each one. And, in the past, pregnancy could put a mother's life at risk to a much greater degree than today. Also, Sanger specifically rejected the Nazi approach. I think she was well meaning if prejudiced by the prevailing attitudes of the time, but in no way symbolic of evil. Indeed, she was praised by MLK Jr..

She was opposed to abortion.

So then anti-abortion havens are hellholes.

Have you been to Alabama?

I am only slightly more pro-life than I am pro-choice (pro-choice only because I don't want the government that can't seem to operate a postal service or a department of motor vehicles as well as an average 7-Eleven making decisions about anybody's private health and medical care), But, morally, I oppose abortion, and I do live in one of the so-called "anti-abortion havens[.]" I wouldn't call Utah (with its above-average individual health, low crime, low unemployment rate, healthy economy and high public-school test scores, not to mention hosting the annual Sundance Film Festival and 2002 Olympic Winter Games) a "hellhole[.]" If it is, then I wish every state and nation would become as much a "hellhole[.]"

Doesn't mean women aren't having abortions. There are two clinics in Utah, and people may go out of state. I'm certain all the movie stars do.

Well that is disappointing because Dawkins should know how unscientific Eugenics is.

I'm quite sure his reasons have nothing to do with eugenics.

dawkins is an ignorant disablist prik;DS adults contribute more to the economy and society than he ever will.

I stand firmly against the selective abortion of people with disabilities, and I completely agree with the previous posts in this thread.

However, it has to be said that the phrase "atheism apologist" in the title seems like a sneaky and misrepresentative attack against atheists. I don't know if that was your intention, but it certainly looks that way.

Fair enough. Of course, an apologist is a person who sympathizes with and attempts to rationalize the topic about which the person is know for supporting or "apologizing." Dawkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins is an "ethologist, evolutionary biologist" who is known for his "controversial" "advocacy of atheism." He is, therefore, an atheism apologist, among other things. In the context of his recent advocacy of the morality of aborting fetuses known or believed to have Down Syndrome, he claims that it would be "immoral" not to do so. Morality is something that many anti-abortion advocates consider as one of their primary characteristics. So, when they learn that an atheism apologist suggests that abortion of any kind, especially of the "wrong disability" kind, to be moral, the anti-abortion advocates look for the reasons and experiences that inform him of his opinion. Where he finds his moral certainty is up for discussion. Clearly, as an atheism apologist, he finds some certainty of his sense of morality within his atheistic beliefs and opinion. If so, as it appears it is, relating his atheism apologetics to his opinion of the morality of aborting fetuses known or believe to have DS is appropriate for the description of the discussion, in my opinion.

Of course, I could be wrong.

There are no such things as "atheistic beliefs." Atheism is characterized by the lack of theistic belief. At best, strong atheism consists of ONE belief (the belief that there is/are no god(s). Therefore, it is not clear how anyone could derive any sort of morality from atheism.

Then, how does a person express support for atheism? What are the tenets or core ideas of atheism? Are ideas and opinions, and the support of such ideas and opinions, really just beliefs by different names?

There's nothing to support because atheism isn't a cause. There are no tenets because it isn't an ideology.

All ideas and opinions are founded on beliefs, but I don't know if we could say that they are themselves beliefs. I'd look at them on a case-by-case basis. But I don't know what this has to do with atheism because one cannot form an opinion based on a lack of belief.

It's very hard for me to separate atheism from the concept of a cause.

Perhaps you are confusing it with so-called New Atheism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/

but there are atheists who are not New Atheists.