Why is the world so eugenics-happy? (rant)

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I've given up trying to convince others that people with disabilities are worthy of life. Most babies with Down Syndrome are aborted, and when they find the autism gene most babies with autism will be aborted as well. Mothers who murder their disabled children are given sympathy, not punishment. Since when was it so acceptable to kill "undesireables?" It's kind of ironic that society hates neo-Nazis (don't get me wrong I don't like them either) but supports people who advocate for killing disabled children or allowing neurotypical children to die from horrible diseases rather than risk them becoming disabled. Sorry this post is so negative. The direction society is going in really does scare me.

There’s a crucial difference between killing and letting die. The latter has been very much acceptable for most of history, as life is hard enough without spending valuable resources trying to help those too weak to make it on their own.

Of course, if you actually wanted to kill someone weaker than you, it used to be easy enough to force them to fight you in a duel.

Since forever. Eugenics is as American as apple pie. What they do not teach you in school is that Eugenics was hugely popular among academics, politicians and the general populace in the the first half of the 20th century. Thousands of compulsory sterilizations were preformed legally. There was a Eugenics Record Office set up on Long Island. The Nazi's were hugely inspired and influenced by American Eugenicists. Nazi Eugenics was so outragous it fell out of favor and went underground for a few decades but it is coming back. It will not be called eugenics because of the lingiring stigma of Nazi eugenics. Keep and eye on gene editing technology which is rapidly improving. The technology will cure and treat a lot of diseases thus giving it a positive image but some of it will invariably slip into eugenics.

Eugenics in the United States - Wikipedia

New Gene-Editing Tool Zeros in on Multiple Genes Simultaneously

Chinese Scientists Will Perform First CRISPR Human Gene Editing Trial In August

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 28 Jul 2016, 4:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

@ASPartOfMe

Wow, that explains a lot. Very informative and does nothing to help my faith in humanity. And they say people with autism have no empathy.

Humans have always killed babies who had something obviously wrong with them and would be a burden to the group.

Because generally most non-neurotypicals are passive when neurotypical society treats us badly.

Babies used to be left in fields to die. I wonder what they did with babies who weren't appearing to develop normally?

This also happens with animals too, the mother animal will abandon her baby if there is something wrong with it. If they think there is something wrong with it, they do the same to that baby animal.

I think eugenics/gene editing will come to pass and I think it's a good thing. The species will be stronger without the burden of malformed people. It's practical and it allows for greater functioning and growth of civilization.

Or, it will be a bad thing because people will be allowed to control how they want their children to see the world, which will make the world much less diverse. Diversity of perspective and neurotype is what allows society to function, not homogenization. We're not a hive mind and we shouldn't be.

It will be a robotic or mutant species not a human one. And there will be mistakes leading to who knows what. The eugenisits might be wrong in thier judgement as to who are better humans and make things worse. And since genetics does not determine everything who people who would have become "correctly formed" will not be allowed to live.

And by the way it is murder.

I think abortion for disability is ok, it's the parents' choice whether to birth a disabled child, but murder of already born disabled children should not be condoned.
However, I think I understand why people condone it.
I think many humans have a deep-seated disgust for the disabled, even more so in cases of severe disability, where the lives of disabled are viewed as not worth living.
Overcoming the disgust probably requires conscious effort.

I agree that disgust is apparent, but also pity. No one likes to see others suffering.

In the US, I can abort a perfectly fine fetus with no genetic or medical issues. Why should the disabled fetus have more rights than that?

In my state it's a three day wait period for an abortion, and I don't even think you have to give a reason why you want to terminate the pregnancy. Under your rule (pick what ever percentage you want health fetus vs disabled fetus) this many women with no issue fetuses can get an abortion, but if your fetus has Tay Sachs, Down Syndrome, Autism...you just won the f**k My Life lottery. No abortion for you since it's eugenics?

If your are Pro Life, it's no abortions for any reason. Supposedly life is sacred whether your fetus seems "normal" or has half it's spine missing. An Autistic fetus should have no more rights than any other one if abortions are legal.

The camel is already under the tent with fertility treatments. Those eggs get screened for everything under the sun, and no one is boo hooing how unfair that is to the embryos.

Gene editing technology will work for after birth at any age. Most of the emphasis has been on post birth to revert or treat diseases. So far attempts to cure Autism with genes have failed because there are to many genes, too complicated. As linked above CRISPR-CAS9 gene editing works for multiple genes at once.

Counter points:

That would be assuming that man would be able to intelligently understand how to do this, and do so without mistakes or negative side effects. The greater probability would be that if such practices were developed, they would be placed in the hands of those with imperfect understanding and biases. Thus such practices would come with the possibility of creating horrible mistakes.

Genetic diversity, including those which are viewed as malformed, benefit the survival. Changes in conditions can make what was previously a strength or a dominant can change to become a weakness and make a species endangered. Likewise what was previously considered a weakness can turn into a strength and a salvation for a species. For instance there once was a bug in Brittan, which had a mostly light colored population, with a minority of dark colored. When Brittan underwent the industrial revolution, the darker bug thrived, and the lighter bug was driven nearly to extinction.

Furthermore, maladaption and the disadvantaged help drive the advancement of civilization. It is often the people who have difficulty with the current condition of things, who understake the efforts to create new advances. A society with normative uniformity would become socially stagnant. Furthermore, there a number of natural and social scientists who regard the developing of caring for the supposed maladaptive as a key force in driving evolution and in making ciuvilization possible.

I myself would disagree. I would contend that selective abortion, whether for disability, race, gender, or any other natural variation in humanity, is a form of discrimination and contrary to the principles of human rights.
It is one thing for someone to decide whether or not to have an abortion based on whether or not they want to have a child. It is another thing to decide to have an abortion for a selective reason. At that point no longer about the liberties of the individuals having abortions. It is about them deciding what type of person deserves to live and acting to deny a potential human being life on the basis of the type of individual that would enter into the world if not prevented.