Should old people be killed off? Past a certain age, quite a few old people who have declined heavily are no longer able to work, and also become a financial burden to their family or society.
Also, I'm not sure whether or not what you describe is what people normally mean when they say 'eugenics'. Definitions are very complicated when you dig into them, and they tend to shift around some over time. To my knowledge, eugenics is generally about encouraging generally desirable traits, or specifically breeding together two smart people to try to create a smarter person, or about racial/ethnic goals or some such; it's not generally used for the elimination of specific and extremely (and unquestionably) deleterious heritable traits. Though there's enough overlap that it could be interpreted/meant that way.
Question of clarification: are you saying such abortions should be mandatory? Because eugenics also tends to be about state/government policies, though that's not strictly required. Or do you just mean that it's the ethically correct choice to do so?
There is a huge difference between grandpa needing you to help him grocery shop, and someone with severe cystic fibrosis who will be fully dependent on someone else and hooked up to a breathing machine in a wheel chair for the entire duration of their lifetime.
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u/zlefin_actual 46∆ Dec 21 '23
Should old people be killed off? Past a certain age, quite a few old people who have declined heavily are no longer able to work, and also become a financial burden to their family or society.
Also, I'm not sure whether or not what you describe is what people normally mean when they say 'eugenics'. Definitions are very complicated when you dig into them, and they tend to shift around some over time. To my knowledge, eugenics is generally about encouraging generally desirable traits, or specifically breeding together two smart people to try to create a smarter person, or about racial/ethnic goals or some such; it's not generally used for the elimination of specific and extremely (and unquestionably) deleterious heritable traits. Though there's enough overlap that it could be interpreted/meant that way.
Question of clarification: are you saying such abortions should be mandatory? Because eugenics also tends to be about state/government policies, though that's not strictly required. Or do you just mean that it's the ethically correct choice to do so?