Defective Babies Should Be Aborted, Bio-ethicist Says

CNS News ^ | 11-25-2002 | Robert B. Bluey

[Notwithstanding]

A scholar from the National Institutes of Health says America would benefit from aborting the blind and disabled.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I'd be willing to bet that *ALL* "bio-lack-of-ethicists" are VERY crafty serial killers.

[valkyrieanne]

Let's see - who could we eliminate?

Beethoven - deaf.
John Milton - blind.
Homer - blind.
Helen Keller - blind & deaf.
Stephen Hawking - paralyzed.
Charles Dickens - epilepsy.
Stevie Wonder - blind.
Ray Charles - blind.
Louis Braille - severely impaired vision.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - epilepsy.
James Thurber - severely impaired vision.

I'm sure there are many more.

[HamiltonJay]

When you live with a viewpoint of the world, where there is no God.... there is no innate value to life... therefor murder, before or after birth means nothign more than releasing some trapped carbon back into the ecosystem. Islam and Aetheism.. the worlds 2 great religions of Satan.

[Hobsonphile]

How dare this gentleman take on the title of bioethicist!

The value of human life is not determined by ability. When I was just out of high school, I had the opportunity to work with an autistic six year old child. There were so many things this child was unable to do, but my God, this little boy (and his older brother, who was not autistic) made such a deep and lasting impression on my life! So much so that I am now seeking a career working with disabled children.

I am also the older sister of a legally blind young man. My brother cannot drive, and will probably always require some assistance from others in his activities of daily living. But my brother is also an intelligent, accomplished man who, at the moment, is in the process of building his own computer. "Disabled" is not a word that comes to mind when I think of him. My brother is also a good man- passionate and thoughtful. The idea that this poor excuse for an ethicist would declare my brother's life not worth living is repulsive to me.

The faulty assumption that this "ethicist" operates under is the assumption that life was intended to be easy, and that we are all intended to have the same abilities. This is manifestly untrue, and the implications of such an assumption are, quite frankly, barbaric and inhuman.

[Desdemona]

You can add so many to that list. Beethoven, according to some guidelines should have been aborted.

Helen Keller actually was impared as a child, so, that's a different case, sort of, but there's no excuse for suggesting any of these people could not contribute to the world.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Maybe people with bad teeth should be aborted too, eh Danny.

Dan W. Brock
Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr. University Professor, Professor of Philosophy and Biomedical Ethics, and Director, Center for Biomedical Ethics at Brown University

Ph.D. Columbia University

Office: 201 Gerard House, 54 College St.
Office Phone: (401) 863-3204
E-Mail:Dan_Brock@brown.edu

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[WaterDragon]

I might agree to abortions when we can determine in utero the future idiots like this guy.

[Kevin Curry]

Meanwhile there is no shortage of healthy, fully-sighted, sound-sensitive murderers sitting in prison.

About the only way to get a liberal democrat to hesitate on the issue of abortion is to point out that in China female babies are aborted far more often than male babies. Or suggest to them that if homosxuality is ever found to have a genetic component, babies with a "gay" gene are more likely to be aborted. That forces them to pause.

The're all for child murder. They just don't want to lose future constituents.

In the future, if some liberals have their way, only male "straight" babies will be aborted.

[Alberta's Child]

Peter Singer lost alot of credibility even among his own supporters when it was revealed that he kept his terminally ill mother alive on artificial life support for many months. For all I know she may still be alive.

[Remedy]

I think Nazi Germany had the same attitude back in the 1930-40s. And I only thought conservatives were capable of being "fascists".

CBHD: Death as Deliverance: Euthanatic Thinking in Germany ca. ...

While it is commonly assumed that the moral atrocities associated with the Holocaust were the exclusive domain of Adolf Hitler and his loyal henchmen Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler and Albert Speer, this was only the final act, as it were, of a narrative whose beginnings are traceable to the turn of the century. Indeed it would appear, as authors as diverse as Alexander Mitscherlich, Robert Jay Lifton, Michael Burleigh, and Wesley Smith have documented, that the path to medical evil was prepared "long before Nazism was even a cloud on the German horizon." One of the tragic legacies of social Darwinism, rooted in the presupposition of biological determinism, is that it assisted in giving justification--frequently couched in the language of "compassion"--to the elimination of lebensunwertes Leben, life that is unworthy of living, or, in the language of Darwinists, life that is simply unfit.

Further justification for euthanasia in the pre-WWI era was provided by people such as social theorist Adolf Jost and Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. According to Ostwald, "in all circumstances suffering represents a restriction upon, and diminution of, the individual and capacity to perform in society of the person suffering." In his 1895 book Das Recht auf den Tod ("The Right to Death"), Jost set forth the argument–-an argument almost forty years in advance of Nazi prescriptions–-that the "right" to kill existed in the context of the higher rights possessed by the state, since all individuals belong to the social organism of the state. Furthermore, this was couched in terms of "compassion" and "relief" from one’s suffering. Finally, the right to kill compassionately was predicated on biology, in accordance with the spirit of the age: the state must ensure that the social organism remains fit and healthy.

[TxBec]

I've seen that post/email circling, though I don't remember all the details..

There is a woman with many, many children (10+?).. her husband has died/left her.. she is dirt poor.. and she has ?syphilis..

what advice would you give her? have the baby? get an abortion?

"If you picked that she should have an abortion, congratulations, you just killed Beethoven."

[Maigrey]

If this can of worms opens, where is the line drawn? Do you dispose of those who are less than perfect? What about who do not have conjenital defects, but acquire them during the course of childhood (such as hearing imparment due to childhood miningitis; loss of sight due to diabetes; etc)? What about those with a cleft palate?

Can we say, Gattica?

-Maigrey-

[mbynack]

Coupla Questions Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?

If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.

Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts.

Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler

Makes a person think before judging someone.

Remember amateurs built the ark - Professionals built the Titanic.

[TxBec]

ok! that's the one I meant :)

[OldFriend]

I was unaware of his mother's health condition. IMO, that would GIVE him a bit of honor.

However, he has recently published an article stating he sees nothing wrong with humans having sex with animals. Seems to me the drug culture has produced some mighty weird academics......

[dalereed]

His ideas are extreme and wrong but I firmly believe that the explosion of handicapped in the last 40 years can be blamed on the doctors. In the last 40 years they have gone to extremes to stop and prevent miscarrages, most misscarrages have a reason and a lot of them are a result from a malformed fetus.

[Kevin Curry]

One of the tragic legacies of social Darwinism, rooted in the presupposition of biological determinism, is that it assisted in giving justification--frequently couched in the language of "compassion"--to the elimination of lebensunwertes Leben, life that is unworthy of living, or, in the language of Darwinists, life that is simply unfit.

Indeed. It was the prime justification for the mass liquidations of ten of millions of human beings by "progressive" atheist governments in the 20th Century.

Social Darwinism has merely gone into a relatively quiescent phase. It still thrives in the ivory towers of America, as evidenced by this article.

It is also well-entrenched in the laws and social policies of the Netherlands.

[Charles Henrickson]

Dr. Danbrock: A computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top bioethicists and scholars be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Arrrrr! Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do.

[Maigrey]

I can see it now (as a socialist nightmare...)
(theme borrowed from a short story I read earlier this year)
Testing for 13 year old to make certain they are of low enough intelligence. Parents try to teach him wrong so he can pass his test. results came back, and since the child was too smart, he was eliminated.

-Maigrey-