Euthanizing the severely disabled?
- Thread starter Norsefire
- Start date
I think anyone with a disability is depressed.
I suppose all are. Its a depressing diagnoses. But once you forget who you are, you get a whole new life. Every day, a whole new life, all new experiences.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
I don't think I agree, will have to look it up though. Tomorrow.
Sort of true, in a blissful and ignorant kind of way, but not so much with MS.
Besides, Alzheimer's isn't all: "Hmm, nice day - who are you again?" Sufferers often get angry and frustrated with their inability to do things that they could manage quite perfectly before ((ie) using a spoon). Plus, they can get vicious towards those who fail to understand their warped logic.
how so? You make MS sound like ALS
I voted an outright "NO", what you people tend to neglect is that every person that has a disorder or suffers some form of impairment can potentially reap the benefits of medicine and technology. Currently the only problem is that those medicines and technologies are not necessarily funded enough for research or are taking the wrong routes in research currently.
In time there might be fixes, but the only way people are going to be able to take advantage of these fixes is if they hold out as long as they can. Obviously killing themselves or being killed doesn't grant them that chance.
In time there might be fixes, but the only way people are going to be able to take advantage of these fixes is if they hold out as long as they can. Obviously killing themselves or being killed doesn't grant them that chance.
Just because it is not the worst condition known to man, doesn't mean it makes for an enjoyable existence.
In the final stages of the disease the sufferer can barely carry out any physical task at all. Plus, there's a fair bit of pain involved too.
HOWEVER (and let me get this straight) this does not mean they forfeit the right to live, as well as losing so much else to the condition.
wanting people to stay alive against their will for your own gain is selfish and cowardly. someone's right to commit suicide is FAR more important than other peoples right not to be hurt emotionally.
I don't think so, there will always be anomalies, also many disabilities happen in other ways than breeding.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
It's not that this idea sounds cruel and inhuman, it's that it *is* cruel and inhuman. There is no "seeming" no "sounding" nor any "maybe" about it. Eugenics has been rejected for several reasons. First and foremost, who gets to pick the "defective" traits? I know people who think that garden variety stupidity is enough. Then, I am sure, there are those who think that specific races or "the Lebanese" are "inferior."
Again, though, power tends to corrupts, so I would not expect those in a position to grant life or death upon those around them to wield that power fairly forever. I certainly would not leave the decision of what is genetically useful to the majority, and leaving it to an individual would be even worse.
Suppose we take something like severely impaired intelligence, is that sufficiently inferior to weed it out of the species? If we ever find ourselves in a food crisis, a lack of intelligence may be a survival advantage. Brains are expensive things, requiring lots of protein and consuming a huge number of calories. It's inevitable that there will be a global crisis on the Earth some day.
Second, and more importantly, we already have natural selection functioning, so who the Hell needs euthanasia? What's the rush? Why do we need to intervene at all? If the traits a specific individual has are truly maladaptive, natural selection will take care of them, and if they are *not* truly maladaptive, then there goes the whole premise behind euthanasia. (Or is it? In general euthanasia proponents have not been concerned with the enhanced survival of the species so much as with eliminating traits they did not like. That said I see no reason to be against dumb people under starvation conditions to the extent they are out-competing the smart people.)
Thirdly, you also have to bear in mind that euthanasia, even when targeted at a clearly maladaptive trait with no redeeming offsetting values is like using a shotgun to kill a mosquito. You get the bad trait all right, but you also kill off countless other genes, most of whom one presumes were perfectly fine. Gene therapy is eminently superior to euthanasia, so you should focus your efforts there, if anywhere.
Fourthly, who's to say that a happy life isn't worth living? Perhaps a disabled person will never do the things a non-disabled person will do, but perhaps he or she would find happiness anyway. If you feel pity/repugnance when you look on them, that's more of a reason to kill yourself than to kill them. If you think they are less likely to be happy, so are people born into poverty, statistically speaking, and we don't put them to death. We have long since flipped the evolutionary paradigm from maximizing "reproductive success" to maximizing utility (personal happiness) in western culture.
So, it seems to me, that hypothetically, so long as the expected net present value of the a person's current and future utility (happiness) is > 0, there is still no need to kill them under that rubric. Their life overall may not be as happy as you will be, but yours will not, I guarantee, be as happy as Michael Jordan's. The relative happiness does not matter so long as the next amount, properly discounted, is still positive.
There is yet another non-survivability rubric under which we value only their net expected contribution to society. If we expect them to take more than they given, we eliminate them. If they are expected to give more than they take, we keep them. I don't believe that you propose that as the measure, though, so I ignore it save to say that I find it unappealing. To boil a life down to "have they done good by the State" is, to me, appalling since the question should be reversed...what has the State done for them.
If they are happy, let them live. But when I look at severely disabled people, they don't seem very happy to me
Also eugenics is smart. You say "who gets to decide", scientists get to decide. We wouldn't be deciding superiority by race or emotion, but by logic. i.e, people with high risks of disease or problems dont' breed, and people who are naturally fit and healthy do.
Also eugenics is smart. You say "who gets to decide", scientists get to decide. We wouldn't be deciding superiority by race or emotion, but by logic. i.e, people with high risks of disease or problems dont' breed, and people who are naturally fit and healthy do.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Silly. People who are fit and healthy all, every one of us, have defective genes too. People who have overt manifestations of a defective gene have lots and lots on non defective ones. As I said, you are using a shotgun to kill mosquitoes. Also, for every one you kill, you thin our already unimpressive genetic diversity.
Advancing the state of gene therapy is a better solution than eugenics.
Also, again, on what criteria would scientists be making their decision? Athleticism? Sorry guy-with-a-limp, we have to murder you or at least cuts your nads off. Intelligence? What's the cut off point? How dumb do you have to be to be killed or castrated? There is no absolute logical science to that, just arbitrary distinctions.
Worse, if you breed for single traits like that, you eventually encourage abnormalities and thin the local genetic diversity. There is no "breed primarily for strength but also avoid other problems" if you breed the natural way.
If the decision making factor is reproductive success (which is an amalgam of many different traits and therefore safer than breeding for any one), then we have no way to measure that, except either retroactively or by guesswork. No objective measure, no scientific input to guide us. Add to that that nature can and will do that without us, so why impinge anyone's rights? At best, you can do what nature would do without you. At worst, you'd just get it wrong.
orleander you really dont know what your talking about
People can have a disability and class themselves as Healthy and well, look at the para-oylimpians
Acording to the WHO health is defined as "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"
So you can be disabled and still be healthy, infact as i said in the other thread some deef people woulldnt want to hear even if you offered it to them
Now onto MS and Alzimers
I have watched my aunt die from alzimers and no there is NOTHING good about that disease. Watching the her cry because she couldnt rember how to even go to the toilet anymore among other things
I have a friend with MS as well, and for the moment she seems stable (thankfully).
People can have a disability and class themselves as Healthy and well, look at the para-oylimpians
Acording to the WHO health is defined as "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"
So you can be disabled and still be healthy, infact as i said in the other thread some deef people woulldnt want to hear even if you offered it to them
Now onto MS and Alzimers
I have watched my aunt die from alzimers and no there is NOTHING good about that disease. Watching the her cry because she couldnt rember how to even go to the toilet anymore among other things
I have a friend with MS as well, and for the moment she seems stable (thankfully).
Allowing only the best physical specimines to breed would not eliminate any illness or affliction. There are many people that are carriers. A historical example would be Queen Victoria. She had a gene for hemophelia. She was not afflicted with the disease but the gene carried to her offspring like Prince Leopold and future generations as well like the Czarivich Alexi. So in order to eliminate genetic disease, in theory at least, of any sort you would have to be rid of or neuter anyone who carries the genes. Even then that would not be a guarantee because sometimes there could be a mutation or anomoly that can just happen. There is no perfect human race and there probably won't be. Things can improve. We may find cures or treatments for various ailments but there will most probably always be people that are afflicted with some sort of illness, genetic or otherwise.
I voted yes-with the following caveat: Anyone who volunteers of their own free will for euthanasia should be allowed to receive it for any reason.
Asguard -
Exactly.
Norsefire -
Sorry, forgive my memory, aren't you Jewish?
Exactly.
Norsefire -
Sorry, forgive my memory, aren't you Jewish?
No, I am not
Where does 'Semites Rule the World' stem from then? (I'm not talking about faith here).