I Am Going to Say Something Controversial

@ravenwind43 You hit the nail. This is Nazism at its best. Some are called Nazis, and others are the real Nazis.

@Cierzo Yes it is. The Nazi's also destroyed handicapped people after experimentation and they didn't mind them being of any age. Hey, it took care of a "problem" so all good right? We'll know society is over when we start seeing the handicapped and elderly used in this regard, all in the name of betterment of society. Sci fi movies have gotten it right as well.

This is a false equivalence here that gets in the way. The Nazis engaged in eugenics based on ideology-- without choice. Women have the legal right to choose to terminate pregnancy.

@CopperCicada I said it was "the start." Every reasonable idea will eventually go awry left unchecked. Many women at that time also chose to abort because the alternative was much worse. A choice made in desperation was not a choice to them.

@CopperCicada The Nazi's also experimented on children and the handicapped, and often the handicapped were regardless of Jewish ethnicity, they simply considered them "not relevant."

@CopperCicada I understand your point, but when we think that only healthy kids are 'worthy', isn't there some ideology behind too? Perhaps not a political ideology, but a vision of human being as mainly a productive force?

@Cierzo I don't think this is a question of abortion. I think that's a false flag.

It's a question of how we regard people with disabilities. And that is related to how we frame health and relate to the human body.

I know you hate Marx, but he would say that the human being has come to have no value outside of its capacity to produce capital. People with disabilities are seen as drains on the family and social systems. Because of their (real or imagined) diminished capacity to produce capital and their larger care needs (real or imagined). In America our elective officials openly refer to people with disabilities as drains.

We are also exceedingly materialistic and shallow regarding the human body. Healthy men and women neurotically participate in B$ industry of self-care and are shamed for fitting outside a very narrow bandwidth of "normal". So where do people with disabilities fit in? If you aren't acceptable if you don't shave your pubic hair, you're not acceptable if your bones never hardened.

And where are people with disabilities portrayed positively in the media? In films? In TV shows? Where are the messages and images that somebody with a disability can be smart, hot, sexy, beautiful, cool to know, fun? There are artists and photographers going there, but it's so far from the mainstream that it's invisible.

And on top of this our conservative elected officials wish to roll back laws that guarantee the rights of people with disabilities. From libertarian grounds. It's too many regulations. Laws that give people with disabilities access to public accommodation and which prevent job discrimination. It's a burden on businesses and employers.

So I can see a woman being pregnant with a child with a disability, whatever it might be, thinking-- FUCK. This kid is doomed.

And let's not forget our Calvinist heritage that a kid with a disability is probably damned.

I have a friend who is a disability advocate. She herself is disabled. She would be the first person to admit that this amounts to "eugenics". But she would be the first person to point out that this is more complicated than "abortion" and "genetic testing". At the root is a pretty global disregard of people with disabilities.

@CopperCicada Abortion provides the (too easy) way out, but I agree that the main issue is our vision of people with disabilities. Not only Marx, capitalism too values people according to their ability to produce and consume. And disabled people are neither good producers nor great consumers

@Cierzo Before abortion people just committed infanticide or hid people away in the back room or wards. None of those are good outcomes.

I don't know about Europe, but in America the abortion rate has steadily decreased over the last 10 years.

@CopperCicada You are right. Abortion is just the means.Now we don't need to use our hands to get rid of babies, it is cleaner. Progress 😄🤢

Centuries pass and we do not learn to love life in itself, without referring it to a superior being (now called market or state)

@CopperCicada As I stated to Pherick further down, I see the way of millennial's as being a financial and aggravating drain on society. Has the average 18-25 year old improved with medical and technological advancements? Hardly. Aside from a small minority, most of them are lacking social and functional skills on a grand scale. Many of their attitudes are sociopathic. I fail to see how many of them are more deserving or likely to benefit society as a whole. Maybe the answer is to pretty much not allow anyone to procreate anymore and save the world a bundle. lol