Oh, good grief. Man, what a tortured post that was. Not only is he wrong about support for "an unfettered right to abortion," but he's also wrong about just why progressives support access to abortion. Free hint: it's got not one damn thing to do with "eugenics."

Hey, if we supported eugenics, we'd be ponying up to pay for condoms and abortions all over red state America.

Conservatives have their own eugenics--Social Darwinism--it just takes place after birth.

A blanket ban on abortion would restrict its use to what it was pre-Roe: the well-off and well-connected, those able to travel abroad, etc.

The eugenic effects of that selection are hard to divine...

Because of course the only reason a single mom would choose to have an abortion is because she wants a blue-eyed girl and not a brown-eyed boy.

Yes, because the government deciding some people are unworthy of having children -- aka eugenics -- is exactly the same thing as letting women decide for themselves whether or not they have children without government interference.

Makes perfect sense ... if you're an idiot.

Are Republicans trying to beat out Lyndon LaRouche for a crazy prize?

Again, not to be crass, but I really don't think this argument helps Republicans because there is a not insignificant portion of their base that is xenophobic, racist, or at least feels threatened culturally by immigrants, liberals, atheists, etc. (Fox "news" even had stories about Hispanics 'out-breeding' white America, with Gibson ending the segment actually encouraging white people in middle America to have more kids!)

So if you're going to frame abortion as a way of getting rid of members of society that some of the Republican base already find undesirable, some will quietly see that as an unintended upside (cf. recent studies that claim part of the explanation for our lower crime rates have to do with increased abortions for members of society most at risk to becoming criminals, i.e. unwanted and neglected poor children).

Still not convinced? Think of the wink-wink, nudge-nudge racism that helps elect people like Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, and Tom "the tsunami killed those hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia because they weren't Christian" Delay. Think of the party's opposition to affirmative action, the homophobia, Islam, fear of immigrants, etc.

If you start framing abortion as a way to reduce the numbers of people THEY find undesirable, some will start to see abortion as having an upside, and they'll weaken - however minimally - that base. And we are all now keenly aware how elections can be lost when even less than 1% of the vote flips.

Or to dumb down the argument - Republicans have long capitalized on appealing to base emotions or fear, greed, and hate. Trying to appeal to the better nature's of THAT kind of base when it arguably goes against their own selfish interests and prejudices is more likely to hurt than help.

And oh yeah, there's a HUGE risk of this blowing up in their faces should these accusations make the mainstream. After all, these accusations aren't just crazy, they're LYNDON LAROUCHE CRAZY.

So not only are progressives eugenicists -- trying to trick "undesirables" into offing their own children -- progressives are also liars for denying it and hypocrites for supporting multicultural diversity.

Will their deviltry never cease???

Weirdly, I think Beck's position (when stated by people with opposible thumbs) has more intellectual credibility than Douthat's.

Beck is straining his pea-brain to make a civil libertarian argument, namely, that scientific consensus is insufficient reason to grant the state extraordinary powers over the individual. This is the critique legal historians level at Oliver Wendell Holmes, for his decision in the eugenics case, Buck v. Bell (1927).

By contrast, Douthat seems to suggest that favoring reproductive freedom makes all of us objectively pro-eugenics. After all, Progressives aren't _stopping_ people from ending downs-syndrome pregnancies.

Or, in any case, "eugenic-ish tendencies."

"Eugenics-related program activities", perhaps?

Eugenics did not always involve a government angle.
Some of the posters here clearly see nothing wrong with prenatal elimination of people with Down's Syndrome, as long as the parents voluntarily agree to it (although in reality there is often considerable pressure from doctors before the "voluntary" decision is made). They apparently have no concern about the fact that these days 80% of fetuses with Down's Syndrome are aborted. The hardier among them might support abortion of fetuses with all sorts of diseases. This may not be eugenics in the strict sense, but it's ridiculous to pretend that it isn't on the same family tree.

I know Ross Douhat is supposed to be well-respected as a sane and readable conservative, but I've only episodically found him so.

This idea that many conservatives have that life begins at fertilization is entirely a theological one and is completely unsupported by the science (at least half of fertilized embryos never implant in the uterus wall).

When I see this kind of nonsense, I have one test: what is the writer's position on in vitro fertilization (IVF)? IVF creates immensely more embryos that will be immediately discarded or will be left in freezers until later discarded than could ever be used in stem cell research. For this reason, a conservative who would ban stem cell research but not severaly regulate IVF is just an opportunistic hypocrite, willing to denounce those nasty scientists but unwilling to be seen standing against the cute babies and desperate couples.

It's abortion PLUS an ideological commitment to the empirico-scientific lifestyle that makes these tendencies "eugenic-ish".

" They apparently have no concern about the fact that these days 80% of fetuses with Down's Syndrome are aborted. The hardier among them might support abortion of fetuses with all sorts of diseases. This may not be eugenics in the strict sense, but it's ridiculous to pretend that it isn't on the same family tree."

As I noted on his site, unless you are willing to call non-randomly choosing a prospective mate eugenicish by the exact same light, then I'm going to have to call bullshit on that claim. All of these things prevent the coming into being of particular sorts of people.

Well, it's just the talking point of the moment and they're required to repeat it for a week or so or lose their club privileges--and that includes the secret decoder ring so you can see why they're pretty concerned about it.

Mr. Kabala, unless you are able to substantiate your claim ("80% of fetuses with Down's Syndrome are aborted") with some facts and attribution, I'll have to consider your comment 80% bullshit.

Shorter Douthat:

"Kevin Drum is the ethical equivalent of Hitler. Which is fine. But why doesn't he have the courage to admit it?"

CT: Google shows a lot of sites using this figure, such as CNS News, but it's not exactly as Kabala said:

"While the live birth rate of babies afflicted with Down syndrome has remained steady in recent years, studies have shown the abortion rate of Down syndrome babies is estimated at 80 to 90 percent when prenatal screening reveals the possibility or probability for the condition."

If this is true, 80% of fetuses known to have downs syndrome are aborted. I'm surprised it's not higher.

"... the way to defeat them in their imbecilities is not to fight them when they are right." H.L. Mencken.

I think the ethical issues are real, becoming more complicated, and not to be mocked. Some columnist (Kristoff?) wrote on this recently. The ethics are more clear cut for anti abortion people and views probably do split, at least slightly, along party lines. When I had my two children one reason for opting not to have an amnio was avoiding the choices that we might face.

Cynics could support a eugenics program directed at preventing over population with Neo-cons.

Ohhhh.

See my comments on this thread.

Auto-eugenics?

Some of the posters here clearly see nothing wrong with prenatal elimination of people with Down's Syndrome, as long as the parents voluntarily agree to it (although in reality there is often considerable pressure from doctors before the "voluntary" decision is made). --James Kabala

And your proof of that is ... where, exactly? Or are you just yanking stuff out of our ass?

The hardier among them might support abortion of fetuses with all sorts of diseases.

Again, you = facts-out-of-ass puller.

This may not be eugenics in the strict sense, but it's ridiculous to pretend that it isn't on the same family tree.

Actually, it's ridiculous to assert that it's even in the same fuqing galaxy. It's not.

Besides, Republicans have proven much, much bigger fans of eugenics based on their social and economic policies, most of which are just post-natal eugenics.

I'm not surprised that 80% or more of fetuses established to be Downs cases are aborted.

And I suppose one might call that a species of "eugenics".

But the problem for the crazy right is that even the 80% figure suggests that a majority of Americans might themselves be completely on board with such "eugenics".

And what about cases like spina bifida? It's eugenics is much the same sense to abort such fetuses. Does the right wing really think that they can manage to horrify the American public by calling a decision to abort a fetus with spina bifida "eugenics"?

You see, there really are hard choices that lie behind the cheap characterizations of these decisions as "eugenics", neo or otherwise. And the American public isn't going to just accept that cheap characterization and refuse to allow parents the freedom to make their own moral choices in these truly difficult cases.

I will only allow my wife to birth a child with kaleidoscope eyes...

They apparently have no concern about the fact that these days 80% of fetuses with Down's Syndrome are aborted. The hardier among them might support abortion of fetuses with all sorts of diseases. This may not be eugenics in the strict sense, but it's ridiculous to pretend that it isn't on the same family tree.

From the point of view of a believer in eugenics (which I am not), aborting a fetus with Down's Syndrome is useless. The point of eugenics is to improve the genetic makeup of the human race. Eugenics doesn't (directly) call for people with bad genes to be killed-it calls for them to be prevented from reproducing.

I don't claim to be an expert, but as far as I can tell, Down's Syndrome is ordinarily not the result of inherited factors--it results from an error in the development of reproductive cells or very early in fetal development. Eugenics doesn't address this type of accidental bodily injury, any more than it calls for the execution of everyone with a wooden leg.

There is apparently a very rare type of Down's Syndrome for which inheritance is important. Most people with this rare type of genetic susceptibility do not have Down's Syndrome themselves. Eugenics would would seek to prevent anyone carrying the genetic susceptibility--not just people with Down's Syndrome--from reproducing. A healthy child carrying the defective gene is a much bigger threat to the gene pool than a person with Down's Syndrome--because the healthy child is more likely to reproduce.

The problem is in the definition of Eugenics. It was merely the appropriation of 'better breeding'.

But it just isn't eugenics if it isn't a comprehensive program.

It's not like Buck v. Bell determined that there was a risk to the gene pool - they determined that it was a drain on the state to care for many individuals, no more. (Nor has it been overturned)

Calling abortion access eugenics is well... Rediculous. Abortion isn't mandated, doesn't even require foreknowledge of father or defect! It's a choice made by the pregnant woman on whether she can bear to term and or care for the resulting child.

And while a family friend is an athelete with spinabifida, I think he'd agree having a spine on the inside of the fetus is probably a good precondition for carrying to term!

Rea, thank you for pointing out the scientific reason why that's such a terrible analogy. Not that that's going to stop the "you want to abort all the Down's babies!" meme from making the rounds. I think a few people are posting it all over the place - I've seen very similar wording of comments on different blogs today.

Good.

It's about time conservatives tore Bill Bennett a new one for his "abort black babies" comment. But what does this have to do with progressives?

This is just amazing stuff. He apparently believes that fetuses with Down's syndrome are a gift from God to the grateful parents.

This abysmally stupid moron should work with an adult with Down's. They aren't cute. They aren't functional.

No one should feel a moment's pause about aborting a fetus with Down's.

"While the live birth rate of babies afflicted with Down syndrome has remained steady in recent years, studies have shown the abortion rate of Down syndrome babies is estimated at 80 to 90 percent when prenatal screening reveals the possibility or probability for the condition."

Exactly what would be the cost to society if 100 % of fetuses with Down's were aborted? What if all were aborted plus a whole bunch of non-down's?

The answer is NO COST at all. This would be very good.

This abysmally stupid moron should work with an adult with Down's. They aren't cute. They aren't functional...iNo one should feel a moment's pause about aborting a fetus with Down's.

Well, certainly people who are thought by you to lack cuteness and functionality ought not be allowed to come into existence. Perhaps we could simply clone you, and not be bothered with further imperfections to the species.

To put it another way: The old eugenicists generally believed that people could not be trusted to breed in a manner that was good for the human species or for the nation. They were worried that traits they considered bad were reproductively successful in the modern world, and (in some cases) that types of people they considered bad were carrying inferior genes into the country, and that wise men had to intervene coercively or at least persuasively to stop this.

This is miles away from the modern abortion-rights and contraception-rights movement, which believes precisely that people can and should be trusted to make their own decisions about their own reproduction. Some of those people may have motivations not everyone would approve of--some doubtless have motivations that progressives don't approve of; but that's no reason to force them to reproduce (or not reproduce) against their will.

The closest thing to actual liberal/progressive eugenicism that I know of is the occasional fretting about how conservatives are outbreeding us, which is sort of a partisan counterpart to eugenic "Marching Morons"/"Idiocracy" fears. But this doesn't spring from any ideology; it's mostly motivated by conservatives crowing "ha, ha, we will bury you, Democrats are aborting themselves to extinction" and the occasional gullible liberal actually believing it.

(An aside: If you're a liberal and you're actually worrying about being swamped by Marching Conservatives because of their greater birthrate, don't. Since the concepts existed, conservatives have always outbred liberals; liberals have always out-recruited conservatives. It's the circle of life.)

...Now, while it isn't eugenics per se, I also know that advocates for the disabled are often disturbed by the trend toward aborting fetuses who, if carried to term, will have severe disabilities.

I think that one thing they point out is actually valid. Aborting the fetus is sometimes justified by saying the resulting person would be better off not having lived. If you ask someone with a serious disability, though, you often find that this is not the case; they have tough lives but they're often glad they're alive and would not choose otherwise. Saying people with such and such a condition would be better off nonexistent can be disrespectful to the people who are already living with it.

However, I still don't think this justifies keeping people from aborting these fetuses. It just means that we may need to avoid that rhetoric. The fact is, "would the person I might produce someday prefer never to have been born?" is a bad criterion to use when deciding whether or not to have a baby. If taken seriously, it implies too much: because the vast majority of people want to live, it's an argument not just against abortion, but also against contraception and even abstinence. You'd have to have as many babies as humanly possible, until you can't any more, or until the resulting misery is so great that the next one would prefer not to have been born. This is not a good result.

If a fetus, at the age when these defects are usually detected, is not morally a person with human rights (and advocates for abortion rights generally believe it isn't a person), then I think it's legitimate to take into account the interests of the people involved when deciding whether to abort. Raising even a typical, healthy baby is hard; raising a child with a serious disability is extraordinarily difficult. To allow someone to choose not to become a parent under those circumstances is humane. We're conditioned to think of this attitude as callous and selfish, but there are limits to how nobly self-sacrificing someone should be expected to be for a person who doesn't exist yet.

Well, certainly people who are thought by you to lack cuteness and functionality ought not be allowed to come into existence. Perhaps we could simply clone you, and not be bothered with further imperfections to the species.

Another holier-than-anyone sanctimonious bullshitter.

How's your adoption record, bozo?

often disturbed by the trend toward aborting fetuses who, if carried to term, will have severe disabilities.

This is a totally insane and crazy idea. Are we to believe that there is a moral value in carrying such children to term? If so, then increasing the number of them is a good thing, and the conclusion to be drawn is that children with disabilities are more valuable than those without.

That's simply insane. As I have noted above, no one has yet demonstrated why 100 % of fetuses with down's SHOULD NOT be aborted. I'm in favor of it, since no one should be forced to care for such children.

If you ask someone with a serious disability, though, you often find that this is not the case; they have tough lives but they're often glad they're alive and would not choose otherwise. Saying people with such and such a condition would be better off nonexistent can be disrespectful to the people who are already living with it.

I agree with your larger points, but not with this particular one. I don't think it's disrespectful. For one, a fetus that will become a disabled person is not the equivalent of a disabled person. Aborting a fetus is not the same thing as killing a disabled person, and it's ridiculous to say so. And two, if you asked most disabled people if they could be cured tomorrow and live healthy and normal lives forever afterwards, most of them would jump at the chance. Disability is not an issue of diversity, like race or gender, and it's not something we should strive to retain in our society.

None of this is to say that disabled people have less value or worth than "normal" people. Of course they do. But we should admit to the fact that we accept disabled people because we have no choice. If it were possible to fix in the womb every fetus that presents a defect, of course we would, as it would be considered barbaric and cruel to deliberately raise a child with a disability that it needn't have.

I agree with your larger points, but not with this particular one. I don't think it's disrespectful. For one, a fetus that will become a disabled person is not the equivalent of a disabled person. Aborting a fetus is not the same thing as killing a disabled person, and it's ridiculous to say so.

This is well put. In addition to your comment, a belief that severely disabled children can be aborted with little moral qualms is not the same as a belief that a severely disabled 6 year old can be killed. The two are different.

Many disabled persons are threatened by the notion of aborting others LIKE THEM, because they feel an empathy. It's ridiculous.

I particularily remember John Porter East, senator from North Carolina. He often made this argument that, if abortion was allowed for disabled, he would not be here. It was a remarkably stupid argument. It became even more inane and moronic when, after bitching and moaning about abortion and the disabled, the idiot killed himself.

I wonder what horror must fill Doubt-that's mind when he ponders gay parents' planning and having single genetic parent offspring. Eugenic-ish.

I find fascinating that the term "eugenics" still has so much clout. It is guilt by association--its powerful negative valance is shared with the modern taboo against "racism" and, of course, the twin evils of eugenics and racism are both linked to the mega-evil Nazis.

In any case, a conservative charges that modern progressives favor a "new eugenics" (aka the murder of undesired fetuses throught abortion) and a thread of comments from people anxious to defend themselves against the heinous charge. Only 39 comments and so far I see denial, rationalization, projection, name-calling, and attempts at evasion through legalism and careful definitions.

well, I, for one, think eugenics is a dandy idea. Not eugenics as in exterminate the mudbloods, but eugenics as in ensuring healthy babies. This is something I hope everyone would want.

My response to the charge is, jeez, conservatives are so crazy, so incompetent, they even have problems with healthy babies. Why do Conservatives love disease and malfunction?