Being pro-choice but anti-eugenics is contradictory

[Norsefire]

For the simple reason of, as many have used this argument here, "we wouldn't have [insert famous person here]"

This is the argument some have used to argue against eugenics; that, if we implement eugenics, we wouldn't have a certain genius or political figure because they are disabled.

Well, when you abort, it's far worse because the baby has actually began developing, so you are FOR SURE aborting a potential life. With eugenics, such life never comes to be and therefore it's irrelevant to talk about what "could've been"

 

[iceaura]

Try as I might I cannot predict this stuff. I'm always surprised, in a baffled sort of way.

 

[Tiassa]

A vital point you may have overlooked

For the simple reason of, as many have used this argument here, "we wouldn't have [insert famous person here]"

This is the argument some have used to argue against eugenics; that, if we implement eugenics, we wouldn't have a certain genius or political figure because they are disabled.

It seems to me that you're overlooking a vital consideration: with abortion, a woman decides what to do with what is taking place inside her own body. With eugenics, people decide what to do about other people's bodies.

It is, much like the anti-abortion argument, deciding what to do with other people's bodies. Like Gov. Palin, who might as well make the point honestly and directly, saying, "I chose life, but you should not even have a choice."

With eugenics, the second half of that is the point: "You do not get to choose."

I'm of the opinion that we ought to solidify our commitments to educating the populace before we consider engineering them.

 

[Cellar_Door]

Well, when you abort, it's far worse because the baby has actually began developing, so you are FOR SURE aborting a potential life. With eugenics, such life never comes to be and therefore it's irrelevant to talk about what "could've been"

And why does that prove that pro-choicers have to logically advocate eugenics? "What if" is a weak argument that is sometimes used against eugenics, but there are many more valid ones that show a vast difference between these two 'preventions of life'.
The strawman approach is getting a little boring, Norse.

 

[Norsefire]

My point was, you can't be pro choice and anti eugenics; you don't have to endorse or advocate eugenics, but being specifically against it is hypocritical.

 

[Cellar_Door]

My point was, you can't be pro choice and anti eugenics; you don't have to endorse or advocate eugenics, but being specifically against it is hypocritical.

I understand your point, but mine was that eugenics and abortion are still miles apart.

Being pro-choice isn't being pro-abortion - most try to avoid the use of termination whenever possible. Pro-choicers simply believe that it should not be criminalised and is necessary in cases like rape or incest (for reasons of the effect it will have on the mother and/or child).
Eugenics is all about trying to create a better human race by means of preventing those breeding who are not 'beneficial' to the gene pool.

Can you see the difference?

 

[Norsefire]

I understand your point, but mine was that eugenics and abortion are still miles apart.

Being pro-choice isn't being pro-abortion - most try to avoid the use of termination whenever possible. Pro-choicers simply believe that it should not be criminalised and is necessary in cases like rape or incest (for reasons of the effect it will have on the mother and/or child).
Eugenics is all about trying to create a better human race by means of preventing those breeding who are not 'beneficial' to the gene pool.

Can you see the difference?

I know there is a difference, but both fundamentally deal with reproduction. Eugenics, I think is smart and should be enforced, for the greater good.

 

[CutsieMarie89]

I think Eugenics does more harm than good. Some of the immunities that humans or any species develops are do to some people less than "desirable". Like I said before the whole thing with sickle cell. If you were to have sterilized everyone that got sickle cell, when it first came about then billions of people would be sick or dying now because they have no immunity to malaria. A gene that is not favorable in one individual my prove to be very beneficial to their offspring. Eugenics would be a form of artificial selection. So say it had been implemented and everyone had pale skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. People with little to no melanin in their skin are prone to developing lots of skin related problems. This epidemic would sweep the world killing off everybody because no one has any genetic variance that might give them the edge to continue survival.

 

[Ophiolite]

I'm of the opinion that we ought to solidify our commitments to educating the populace before we consider engineering them.

Speaking as a leftwing, tree hugging, commie-sympathising liberal I'd euthenase the whole lot. Fight fire with nuclear conflagration.

 

[Tiassa]

They are independent questions

My point was, you can't be pro choice and anti eugenics; you don't have to endorse or advocate eugenics, but being specifically against it is hypocritical

I think, Norsefire, you're looking at the question, well, wrongly.

The most basic difference I can tell between you and I in this context of abortion is that an anti-abortion advocate can counterpoint my outlook by saying that a pregnant woman who aborts is deciding what to do with someone else's life.

Even acknowledging this point, though, there is a difference. The abortion is a decision made by one person in regards to—as the anti-abortion crowd would have it—one person.

Eugenics involves a small number of elite persons making certain decisions about everyone within a society.

Even the concept of "noble" eugenics—e.g., can we breed cancer out of humanity?—is suspect. Nature abhors a vacuum, and will, in its blind, insensate, yet systematic manner, fight back. The Universe compensates in a basic manner: what happens on one side of the equation must, necessarily, be reflected on the other. Perhaps that reflection is distorted, and returns by a long and convoluted route, but we should always bear in mind the general principle. How much of history, for instance, seems so strange inasmuch as certain solutions—that is, better alternatives to the route humanity has taken—present themselves so clearly. Alas, there is nothing we can do in most of these cases, as the symptom manifested so long ago that our current perspective is influenced by compensations that have occurred 'twixt then and now.

In a fantasy of the future, we might speculate that some triumph of our age has wrought devastating effects on humanity, yet those effects would be of such diversity and magnitude as to present in any solution a risk of causing another disaster. The recent cinematic remake of I Am Legend, for instance, included the implication of a possible "happily ever after" ending, yet we cannot pretend that the cure, or immunization, for the zombie disease that grew out of a cure for cancer will not give rise to new problems. The greatest hope, of course, would be that those problems are less severe and more easily addressed than a planet full of zombies.

The early history of Planned Parenthood included eugenic ambition no less sinister for noting that many considered the merits of such an approach. Nonetheless, the organization as it exists today is philosophically divorced from certain inclinations of its founder. There is a relevant sense of symbolism in this: unless we are considering abortion as a eugenic method, the questions of abortion and eugenics are as independent of one another as can be within the interconnected species, planet, and Universe.

The Universe is in equilibrium; therefore He that is without it, though his force be but a feather, can overturn the Universe.

Be not caught within that web, O child of Freedom! Be not entangled in the universal lie, O child of Truth!

—Perdurabo, "ΚΕΦΑΛΗ Κ — Samson"​

​

 

[vslayer]

its not contradictory at all, they are the same thing really, an opposition to interfering with someone elses ability to breed, or not.

 

[Betrayer0fHope]

My point was, you can't be pro choice and anti eugenics; you don't have to endorse or advocate eugenics, but being specifically against it is hypocritical.

One is still not even alive in my eyes. Whichever you think I mean IS alive, that's irrelevant. One's alive, one isn't. There's the difference.

 

[Cellar_Door]

but both fundamentally deal with reproduction.

So that's the basis of your point? Well so does sex, and sperm banks and even condoms to an extent. Are you saying that you can't be pro any of these unless you also accept eugenics? Your point is ridiculous.

As for eugenics, it is a grand scheme dreamt up by those who don't understand genetics.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Being pro-choice isn't being pro-abortion- most try to avoid the use of termination whenever possible.

Thank you so much for making this distinction. Some have a hard time understanding that.

Some also think that "Pro-Life" means "Anti-Choice" or "Anti-Abortion", which is also not the case. There are some that are "Pro-Life" that don't wont take away a woman's choice, but would just prefer her to choose adoption instead of abortion. They don't necessarily want to overturn Roe V. Wade or are they all religious nuts either.

The proper names for both movements are "pro-choice" and "pro-life". Using alternates with "Anti" in it, is just trying to demonize the opposition's position through name calling.

 

[wesmorris]

For the simple reason of, as many have used this argument here, "we wouldn't have [insert famous person here]"

This is the argument some have used to argue against eugenics; that, if we implement eugenics, we wouldn't have a certain genius or political figure because they are disabled.

Well, when you abort, it's far worse because the baby has actually began developing, so you are FOR SURE aborting a potential life. With eugenics, such life never comes to be and therefore it's irrelevant to talk about what "could've been"

With eugenics, who says what traits are valued, and who forces its implementation? Mustn't one then endorse forced sterilization? That does not support the notion of individual liberty, nor is it very practical I'd think. Then again, do they do something like that in China to enforce their population control policies?

With abortion, should the government be able to force a woman who has decided to get an abortion, not to? Could they?

Either way, is it better for the species if government is even involved in that decision?

Regardless, the argument you cited against eugenics is eronious and irrelevant to your conclusion. "Certainty about whether a potential life is known or unknown" isn't related and doesn't support "someone who believes women should be able to terminate their own pregnancies must also believe forced sterilization (or whatever form of eugenics) is good policy."

 

[Raven]

The NAZIs attempted an experiment with eugenics. They bred "pure" teenage girls from their youth organizations to equally "pure" SS officers. The result was abou 20,000 children produced over the course of the program in an attempt to create a pure Aryan race that would be superior to all others.Their efforts were a failure. A majority of the children were of at best average in every concievable way, intelectually and health. Eugenics is not a guarentee of anything.

 

[q0101]

Why do most of you insist on associating eugenics with negative things like Nazis and forced sterilizations? The Nazis were not practicing real eugenics.

 

[wesmorris]

Why do most of you insist on associating eugenics with negative things like Nazis and forced sterilizations? The Nazis were not practicing real eugenics.

Because if you have a policy wherein you dissallow reproduction on a section of the population that is agreed to be 'undesirable' by those who have decided they have the authority to make such decisions... you can't really expect all people to just say 'oh hey no problem I'll just stop fucking or something". Therefore to ensure the desired control, force must be applied.

 

[Norsefire]

That section of the population can leave, then.

 

[Raven]

Why do most of you insist on associating eugenics with negative things like Nazis and forced sterilizations? The Nazis were not practicing real eugenics.

It was an example of an attempt to breed human perfection. It didn't work but they tried it. In the technical sense it wasn't very scientific. They took one thing that measured up to their standards and bred it to another. Eugenics is not reliable. If you look at the animals world, particularly people that show animals, they try to breed the perfect dog or horse or cavy, whatever. We'll discount back yard breeders and puppy millers but a good breeder will take two bright, shining specimines of the breed. They have to look good in both physical appearance and be as free from genetic disease as possible. Even in breeding these two fine examples it's possible to get the next champion or pet quality offspring. It's also possible that genetic disease may occur even though the parents were from good lines. It's just unreliable.