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I am an Autistic person,not a person with autism. I am also not Aspergers. The diagnosis isn't even in the DSM anymore, and yes, I agree with the consolidation of all autistic spectrum stuff under one umbrella. I have other issues with the DSM.

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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Abortion and Eugenics are not the same thing.

Trigger Warning: Eugenics, abortion

That doesn't mean they never intersect. But you can support the right of people who can get pregnant to have abortions without supporting eugenics. I don't know why this needs explaining, but I have seen evidence that it does, so I am explaining.

Abortion: When someone is pregnant and does not want to be pregnant, they get one of these. Or sometimes when someone is pregnant and society thinks they shouldn't be pregnant, that someone is pressured/forced into getting one of these.

Eugenics: Preventing people who are considered to have inferior genes from reproducing because these genes "shouldn't be passed on," generally at the societal level. Individual decisions can be based on eugenic principles, but it actually being eugenics at the individual level is iffy.

There are four categories here: Something could be abortion AND eugenics, or it could be abortion AND NOT eugenics, or it could be eugenics AND NOT abortion, or it could be NOT abortion AND NOT eugenics. I'm writing this because someone thinks that the "abortion AND NOT eugenics" set is the empty set, which just isn't so. I can give examples for all four categories.

  1. Abortion and eugenics: Society forces someone with "inferior" genes to get an abortion. Also, society pressures someone to get an abortion because their child has inferior genes (most genetic disabilities with currently extant pre-natal tests.) If it is not societal pressure, but is because the child will have a disability, it is based on eugenic principles, but iffy on actually being eugenics.
  2. Abortion AND NOT eugenics: Person gets pregnant. Person does not want to be pregnant/have a child. Possibly person who has medical reasons for not giving birth, possibly someone who can't support a child, possibly someone who knows how messed up the adoption system is and won't put someone there. Essentially, if the abortion isn't because of the fetuses genes, the abortion goes here. Not the empty set, but actually MOST abortions. And yes, sex-selective abortion is here, not in 1.
  3. Eugenics AND NOT abortion: Legal/ socially acceptable forced sterilization of those with "inferior genes" or making sure these people never have sex. The idea that this sort of thing should be done.
  4. NOT abortion AND NOT eugenics: Your friend walks the dog. I go to school. Most things.
And that is how someone can be pro-choice and not pro-eugenics. It works because category 2 is not the empty set. YAY LOGIC.

3 comments:

  1. So, if a woman decides to have a wanted baby aborted because she finds out it has Down syndrome it that actually eugenics? She is not pressured by society to make this decision. She makes the choice to terminate the pregnancy based on the quality of life for the child, the potential variability in how severely the baby will be effected by Down syndrome which NO prenatal test can answer, her values, her age, her family life situation (existing number of other children), her financial situation, her suport (or lack of) and her love for the actual child not to want to put them through mental, physical & sexual abuse situations such as group homes that are notorious for neglect and/or abuse. Is THAT eugenics? Because I don't think it is.

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    Replies
    1. I actually answered this in the post...
      "If it is not societal pressure, but is because the child will have a disability, it is based on eugenic principles, but iffy on actually being eugenics."
      Some of the reasons you gave are based in eugenics, some don't even have anything to do with disability.
      The only one that is neither is the group homes thing, which is a "And that's why you don't PUT someone in them, plus any argument that aborting a fetus is for the sake of the fetus is malarkey, always."

      Delete
  2. Getting a lot of views from a post about my comment. Seems like someone took "any argument that aborting a fetus is for the sake of the fetus is malarkey, always," to mean that aborting over disability is malarkey, always and for all arguments? That is a failure of logic.
    There are other arguments that can be made.
    Some of them are for the sake of living children. Some of them are based in eugenics. Some of them have nothing to do with disability. But if it is based on the well-being of the fetus that you are aborting, it is an excuse to make you feel better. Go think about the REAL reason, cause the kid ain't it.
    I'm pro-choice. I just think you should be honest with yourself about why you are making your choices, and some reasons are just excuses to not think about the real ones.

    ReplyDelete

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