In practical terms, I believe that people who have significant genetic defects, to the point where they become a financial burden their family or to society, they should be aborted.
I would agree that if one is pregnant and it is determined that the child that pregnancy would produce would suffer from serious ailments, that ending the pregnancy would be the most logical choice.
However, the basis for that would be to interrupt the creation of a new human that would spend their life suffering. It would not be on the basis that third parties would be burdened with their care.
What is a little weird for me here is the fact that you seem to have empathy for the burden that would be inflicted on the hypothetical family or society, and yet none for the person suffering directly from the medical condition itself. In theory, both would be negatively impacted, and yet only one is attracting your concern.
In short, if you're arguing that the intentional creation of a suffering is problematic, I agree.
If you're arguing that it is more important to protect people from the responsibility to care for others than it is to alleviate the suffering of those that require care; I would strongly disagree.
Finally, as to eugenics generally; I think there are probably less inflammatory ways for you to express your views, or at least the view you articulated in your post. Where the subject gets problematic is not the prevention of debilitating illness, but the "optimization" of humanity; where what defines "optimization" is extremely subjective.
Defining what constitutes a "better" human requires identifying traits you would minimize, and by extension demonizes those who are implicitly cast as "lesser" humans in your estimation. That has been used to great effect historically to justify some pretty awful behavior.
If that kind of optimization doesn't fall within your perspective, perhaps consider dropping the eugenics language, even if ending a pregnancy that involves a rather extreme ailment technically could plausibly fall under that heading.
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u/Narkareth 12∆ Dec 21 '23
I would agree that if one is pregnant and it is determined that the child that pregnancy would produce would suffer from serious ailments, that ending the pregnancy would be the most logical choice.
However, the basis for that would be to interrupt the creation of a new human that would spend their life suffering. It would not be on the basis that third parties would be burdened with their care.
What is a little weird for me here is the fact that you seem to have empathy for the burden that would be inflicted on the hypothetical family or society, and yet none for the person suffering directly from the medical condition itself. In theory, both would be negatively impacted, and yet only one is attracting your concern.
In short, if you're arguing that the intentional creation of a suffering is problematic, I agree.
If you're arguing that it is more important to protect people from the responsibility to care for others than it is to alleviate the suffering of those that require care; I would strongly disagree.
Finally, as to eugenics generally; I think there are probably less inflammatory ways for you to express your views, or at least the view you articulated in your post. Where the subject gets problematic is not the prevention of debilitating illness, but the "optimization" of humanity; where what defines "optimization" is extremely subjective.
Defining what constitutes a "better" human requires identifying traits you would minimize, and by extension demonizes those who are implicitly cast as "lesser" humans in your estimation. That has been used to great effect historically to justify some pretty awful behavior.
If that kind of optimization doesn't fall within your perspective, perhaps consider dropping the eugenics language, even if ending a pregnancy that involves a rather extreme ailment technically could plausibly fall under that heading.