To be clear, I don’t think you’re advocating for eugenics. So I hope you don’t feel attacked/defensive by any of the following:
I can’t speak for anyone who’s living with an impossibly difficult disease, but the fact that so many people are living their lives, finding happiness, and making contributions despite everything they have to get through every day says enough to me that denying their right to exist isn’t solving a problem and is denying the world of their life.
The problem with eugenics (aside from the obvious history of racism) is that it’s looking at the problem from the wrong angle entirely. Instead of working to make things easier for people with disabilities and working towards cures, advocates for it think the problem is contained and solved by pruning the “problem” vines. We’re people, not produce. People that are neurodivergent, differently abled, or even severely disabled, all belong because we have enough to make room for them to thrive in whatever capacity they can. Whether we’re doing enough is a different conversation.
Iceland isn’t mandating people to abort chromosomal anomalies, that’s a choice the families make for themselves. So it’s beside the point. More so, it’s not like that can be eradicated either because anyone can parent a kid with DS. Huntingtons might be a valid concern, but sterization is a decision for those suffering it to determine themselves. That’s not eugenics.
Equating eugenics with family planning is irresponsible because it validates one very bad and widely rejected avenue of science because it’s slightly adjacent to a human right that is valid. Supposing that they are the same ignores history and risks spreading ideology that leads to making those same mistakes again.
To be clear, I don’t think you’re advocating for eugenics. So I hope you don’t feel attacked/defensive by any of the following:
I can’t speak for anyone who’s living with an impossibly difficult disease, but the fact that so many people are living their lives, finding happiness, and making contributions despite everything they have to get through every day says enough to me that denying their right to exist isn’t solving a problem and is denying the world of their life.
The problem with eugenics (aside from the obvious history of racism) is that it’s looking at the problem from the wrong angle entirely. Instead of working to make things easier for people with disabilities and working towards cures, advocates for it think the problem is contained and solved by pruning the “problem” vines. We’re people, not produce. People that are neurodivergent, differently abled, or even severely disabled, all belong because we have enough to make room for them to thrive in whatever capacity they can. Whether we’re doing enough is a different conversation.
Iceland isn’t mandating people to abort chromosomal anomalies, that’s a choice the families make for themselves. So it’s beside the point. More so, it’s not like that can be eradicated either because anyone can parent a kid with DS. Huntingtons might be a valid concern, but sterization is a decision for those suffering it to determine themselves. That’s not eugenics.
Equating eugenics with family planning is irresponsible because it validates one very bad and widely rejected avenue of science because it’s slightly adjacent to a human right that is valid. Supposing that they are the same ignores history and risks spreading ideology that leads to making those same mistakes again.
TL;DR: GATTACA!