Showing posts with label Eugenics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eugenics. Show all posts
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Time travel filicide
A young couple learns that there is a 50% chance any child they conceive will be born with a terrible, untreatable disease which will result in the child's painfully slow death in a matter of weeks or months. Under those conditions, *is it morally wrong* for them to have a child?— Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) March 17, 2019
1. Wouldn't the same logic justify eugenic abortion?
2. Since Rauser is fond of thought-experiments, here's a test-case: suppose a couple has three kids. The first kid has a congenital untreatable disease which will result in the child's painfully slow death in a matter of weeks or months. His younger siblings are healthy.
Suppose a time-machine is invented. The couple can travel back into the past and erase the first child from the original timeline. But that action will automatically erase their two younger children from the original timeline. All three children never existed in the new. Would it be wrong to do that to their healthy kids? Would that be tantamount to filicide?
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Must God make the best?
This post is a sequel to my previous post:
In Describing Gods: An Investigation of Divine Attributes, Graham Oppy expands on the question of whether God is a free agent. The motivation is to attack theism by posing a dilemma for the theist, viz. positing tensions between two or more divine attributes. In addition, there's the question of whether God is still praiseworthy if he cannot do otherwise.
To his credit, Oppy realizes that the question is ambiguous. The answer depends in part on whether we define freedom in compatibilist or incompatibilist terms. So he says:
Suppose, first, that motives are causes. In this case, we suppose – at least roughly – that an agent acts freely just in case she acts on appropriate motives in the absence of relevant defeating conditions; and that an agent chooses freely just in case she chooses on appropriate motives in the absence of relevant defeating conditions. On this conception of freedom it seems unproblematic that God’s actions and choices will be free: after all, there are no external constraints on God’s initial actions and choices, and only irrelevant constraints on God’s subsequent actions and choices; and there are no defeating conditions that could apply to God’s acquisition of motives; and there can be nothing deviant about the connection between God’s actions or choices and God’s motives (258).
Clearly, Rowe’s argument depends upon the assumption that an agent acts freely just in case she causes her actions, and hence upon denial of the competing assumption that an agent acts freely just in case her motives cause her actions. If we suppose that an agent acts freely just in case she acts on appropriate motives in the absence of relevant defeating conditions (concerning acquisition of motives and external constraint), then we shall have no difficulty with the idea that God acts freely in creating the best possible universe that God can make, or one among the best possible universes that God can make, even if it is true that God could not have had motives other than the ones that God actually possesses. It is only if we suppose that an agent acts freely just in case she is, but her motives are not, the non-deviant cause of her action in the absence of relevant internal and external defeating conditions – and, in particular, if we suppose that it follows from this view that an agent acts freely just in case that agent could have acted differently in the very circumstances in which she acted – that we shall suppose that God cannot act freely in creating the best possible universe that God can make if it is necessary that God should perform this action (261).
However, even if compatibilism is a satisfactory model for creaturely freedom, it is not a good satisfactory for divine freedom. Although Calvinism is deterministic, it is typically defined in terms of conditional necessity rather than absolute necessity. Given predestination, the outcome cannot be otherwise; however, predestination might be otherwise, had God chosen to predestine a different outcome. Typically, Calvinism does grant that God chooses between alternate possibilities. So Calvinism doesn't have that out.
If, for any possible universe that God can make, there is a better possible universe that God can make, then, necessarily, there is a ‘cut- off’ on the goodness of universes that God can make below which God cannot stray, and necessarily, God creates one of the universes above this ‘cut-off’ (262).
I think there's some truth to that, although I'd put it differently:
Possible worlds range along a continuum from very good to very bad. For reasons I gave in the previous post, I don't think there's a best possible world. Rather, there are better worlds and worse worlds. A "collection" of better possible words from which to choose. A good God will not create a world with no redeeming values. That's the cut off. A wise and benevolent God isn't free to act contrary to his wisdom and benevolence. It would be defect if God were free in that respect. A God who was free in that sense would be imperfect.
[Premise #5] is perhaps not quite so compelling, but there is quite a bit to be said in defence of it. If there is an infinite collection of actions, any one of which God can perform if God arbitrarily selects it from the collection, and the best meta-action that God can perform is to arbitrarily select an action from the collection in question, and God is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient and essentially perfectly good, then how could God fail to arbitrarily select one of the actions from the collection, and then perform it? (264).
A problem with that premise is Oppy's failure to explain why God's selection must be arbitrary. Since different possible worlds are different, having alternate histories–like stories with different plots and characters–there's no reason to assume God's selection must be indiscriminate.
Either there is a best possible universe that God can make, or there is a collection of best possible universes that God can make, or for any possible universe that God can make, there is a better possible universe that God can make. If there is a best possible universe that God can make, then God must create it, and hence is not free with respect to creating it. If there is a collection of best possible universes that God can make, then God must create one of them, and hence is not significantly free with respect to the creation of universes. If, for any universe that God can make, there is a better possible universe that God can make, then, whatever God does, God is not perfectly good. So either God is not perfectly good, or God is not significantly free to create a universe other than ours (260-61).
First, can theists reject one or more of the principles that are assumed in the reasoning?…[Premise #1] seems compelling. If there is a unique best possible action that God can perform, and God is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient and essentially perfectly good, then how could God fail to perform that action? (263).
That's the key assumption. Unfortunately for his argument, Oppy fails to defend his key assumption. He gives the reader no reason to believe that God must select a better world rather than a lesser world. He says that seems "compelling". By contrast, I don't find that assumption even plausible. I don't find it theologically or intuitively plausible. Indeed, I find it highly implausible.
i) I think the assumption is persuasive to people like Leibniz, Rowe, and Oppy based on a specious but appealing parallel between divine perfection and his handiwork as a counterpart to divine perfection. If God is perfect, then whatever God does is perfect. I suspect that's the unspoken intuition, but it's vitiated by equivocation. Given the categorical disparity between the Creator and the creature, the world can't be perfect in the same sense, or even similar sense, that God is perfect. Anything God makes will be incomparably inferior to God himself. That doesn't make it morally bad or defective. It's not a flaw for a creature to be creaturely. But there's no parity between the Creator and the creature.
ii) There's another equivocation. Suppose you have two good possible worlds, but one is better overall. Nevertheless, it isn't absolutely better. Indeed, in some respects, the better world is worse than the lesser world. Suppose the lesser world has heavenbound people who don't exist in the better world. So the better world isn't better for them. If God creates the better world, he does so at the expense of people who were left out. So we have to ask, better in relation to whom? And there is no single answer, since that's relative to the winners and losers, depending on the world in question. There's no uniform standard of comparison that's applicable to both scenarios, because different possible worlds have different people with different destinies.
iii) In addition, the whole notion that God must create "the best" is actually inimical to Christian theology. In Christian theology, God deliberately creates messed up people, then redeems them. The notion that a good God must create "the best" reminds me of those utopian science fiction stories about a world populated by "perfect" men and women. In that world, parents don't make children the old fashioned way. For that would run the risk of making ordinary or defective kids. Rather, you have reproductive technologies to ensure the production of kids without congenital disease. Indeed, genetically enhanced offspring. In this utopian world, no one has birth defects. In fact, no one is "ordinary". Everyone is a specimen of physical perfection. Smart. Pretty. Handsome. Athletic. Good at chess. Artistically talented. Everyone has perfect hygiene. Perfect teeth. Moreover, people are euthanized when they pass their prime, because imperfection is intolerable in utopia.
The notion that God must create "the best" implicitly operates with a eugenic criterion of excellence that's antithetical to Christian theology. Moreover, in utopian stories of this genre, perfection comes at the cost of moral development. You only have to put these "perfect" people in a survival situation to expose their lack of character. Because everything comes so easily to them, because they lead an ouchless, painless existence, they have no altruism. They are selfish spoiled people who can't be inconvenienced by others. They will leave an injured friend behind because he slows them down. The notion of personal sacrifice for the benefit of others is alien to their psychological makeup. It's a perfect world so long as their nonexistent virtue isn't put to the test.
And this isn't just hypothetical. Abortion, "after-birth abortion," euthanasia, and transhumanism reflect this eugenic notion of "the best". Frankly, you have to wonder how people like Oppy would perform in a lifeboat situation.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
The new eugenics
Due to amniocentesis (which is unobjectionable in itself), I expect there will be increasing pressure to euthanize the developmentally disabled. Indeed, bioethics is moving beyond abortion, which it takes for granted, to infanticide ("after-birth abortion").
I expect the pressure will be due to increasing hostility towards the developmentally disabled. Parents will be publicly shamed for having developmentally disabled kids. Social disapproval will be extended to them and their kids, functioning as a deterrent to other prospective parents who flout social convention by daring to have developmentally disabled kids.
In other words, you might have parents who, left to their own devices, would bring a developmentally disabled child to term, but there will be an external disincentive in the form of peer pressure. If the power elite succeeds in secularizing law and culture, this will become a very dangerous world for the weakest, most defenseless members of society. Indeed, we're already well-advanced in that direction.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Redefining death
Ideally, the law should be changed to describe more accurately and honestly the way that death is determined in clinical practice. Most doctors have hesitated to say so too loudly, lest they be caricatured in public as greedy harvesters eager to strip living patients of their organs. But their public silence was broken on 24 September at an international meeting that included physicians, transplant surgeons and bioethicists at the Italian Festival of Health in Viareggio. The meeting concluded that lawmakers in the United States and elsewhere should reconsider rigid definitions of death, and called for a wider public debate.
The time has come for a serious discussion on redrafting laws that push doctors towards a form of deceit. But care must be taken to ensure that it doesn't backfire. Learning that the law has not been strictly adhered to could easily discourage organ donation at a time when demand for organs already vastly exceeds supply. Physicians and others involved in the issue would be wise to investigate just how incendiary the theme might be, perhaps in contained focus groups, and design their strategy accordingly.
Few things are as sensitive as death. But concerns about the legal details of declaring death in someone who will never again be the person he or she was should be weighed against the value of giving a full and healthy life to someone who will die without a transplant [emphasis mine].
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7264/full/461570a.html
The time has come for a serious discussion on redrafting laws that push doctors towards a form of deceit. But care must be taken to ensure that it doesn't backfire. Learning that the law has not been strictly adhered to could easily discourage organ donation at a time when demand for organs already vastly exceeds supply. Physicians and others involved in the issue would be wise to investigate just how incendiary the theme might be, perhaps in contained focus groups, and design their strategy accordingly.
Few things are as sensitive as death. But concerns about the legal details of declaring death in someone who will never again be the person he or she was should be weighed against the value of giving a full and healthy life to someone who will die without a transplant [emphasis mine].
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7264/full/461570a.html
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The fallacy of futility-care theory
There are many things I could talk about in the raging debate over what is euphemistically called “health care reform,” but for now I wish to focus on one issue. And that is “end-of-life” care. This, in turn, is bound up with “futility-care theory.”
The argument, in a nutshell, is that, at best, there’s no point pouring medical resources into a lost cause. Moreover, since medical resources are finite, we’re depriving others who’d benefit from such care.
In application to end-of-life care, so the argument goes, we devote inordinate medical resources to patients in the final year of life. It would be more responsible to divert those resources to other patients with a better chance of survival, improvement, or cure.
There’s a certain moral and logical appeal to this argument, is there not? If you have one donated liver, and two patients with liver disease, they can’t both have the same liver. So shouldn’t you give the liver to the patient with better prospects for recovery?
Now, I don’t deny that it’s sometimes necessary to make those life-and-death decisions. However, I would like to point out that there’s a fallacy running through a lot of this debate.
How do you know that medical care is futile or not? Is that a prospective judgment or a retrospective judgment? If despite your best efforts, the patient dies, then your efforts were futile. But, of course, that’s something you only find out after the fact.
Same thing with “end-of-life” care. How do you know that a patient is in the final year of life? Well, if he dies, then, by definition, he died in the final year of his life. But do you know in advance of the fact that this year will be the final year of his life?
Consider all of the patients who are wheeled into the ER with life-threatening injuries. The staff pours all their medical resources into saving their lives. In some cases they succeed, and in other cases they fail. In hindsight, they wasted finite medical resources on some patients who turned out to be a lost cause. But that’s with the benefit of hindsight.
To examine this from the opposite end of the spectrum, consider the patients whose lives they saved by throwing all their medical resources at the patient. Patients who would have died absent their heroic efforts to save them.
So the whole question of futile-care theory or end-of-life care is coasting on a tautology. The only patients who are counted are the patients who die. The patients who recover are never counted.
Yet, were it not for the same resources devoted to both sets of patients, the rate of mortality would be far higher. Those not presently counted–because they were cured (as a result of medical treatment)–would suddenly become an actuarial statistic.
So the underlying tautology cannot justify the rationing of care, for the rationing of care involves a prospective judgment (on whether or not the patient is not a lost cause), whereas the futility of care which is used to justify the rationing of care involves a retrospective judgment.
The argument, in a nutshell, is that, at best, there’s no point pouring medical resources into a lost cause. Moreover, since medical resources are finite, we’re depriving others who’d benefit from such care.
In application to end-of-life care, so the argument goes, we devote inordinate medical resources to patients in the final year of life. It would be more responsible to divert those resources to other patients with a better chance of survival, improvement, or cure.
There’s a certain moral and logical appeal to this argument, is there not? If you have one donated liver, and two patients with liver disease, they can’t both have the same liver. So shouldn’t you give the liver to the patient with better prospects for recovery?
Now, I don’t deny that it’s sometimes necessary to make those life-and-death decisions. However, I would like to point out that there’s a fallacy running through a lot of this debate.
How do you know that medical care is futile or not? Is that a prospective judgment or a retrospective judgment? If despite your best efforts, the patient dies, then your efforts were futile. But, of course, that’s something you only find out after the fact.
Same thing with “end-of-life” care. How do you know that a patient is in the final year of life? Well, if he dies, then, by definition, he died in the final year of his life. But do you know in advance of the fact that this year will be the final year of his life?
Consider all of the patients who are wheeled into the ER with life-threatening injuries. The staff pours all their medical resources into saving their lives. In some cases they succeed, and in other cases they fail. In hindsight, they wasted finite medical resources on some patients who turned out to be a lost cause. But that’s with the benefit of hindsight.
To examine this from the opposite end of the spectrum, consider the patients whose lives they saved by throwing all their medical resources at the patient. Patients who would have died absent their heroic efforts to save them.
So the whole question of futile-care theory or end-of-life care is coasting on a tautology. The only patients who are counted are the patients who die. The patients who recover are never counted.
Yet, were it not for the same resources devoted to both sets of patients, the rate of mortality would be far higher. Those not presently counted–because they were cured (as a result of medical treatment)–would suddenly become an actuarial statistic.
So the underlying tautology cannot justify the rationing of care, for the rationing of care involves a prospective judgment (on whether or not the patient is not a lost cause), whereas the futility of care which is used to justify the rationing of care involves a retrospective judgment.
Monday, August 03, 2009
The cryonicists versus the eugenicists
Not only is humanism at war with Christianity, it’s also at war with itself. On the one hand, humanism brags about how medical science has extended the quality and duration of the human lifespan. We live longer and better. Not only do we live longer, but due to medical science, we are able to sustain a higher quality of life over a longer span. Indeed, there’s a life extension movement.
And that’s only natural. After all, a humanist thinks this life is all there is. More is better and better is more.
On the other hand, we have the eugenicists. They worry about the “Population Bomb.” About squandering scarce medical resources on the elderly. We also have environmentalists who think humanity is a threat to the biosphere. We even have antinatalists who think it’s immoral to have babies.
One set of humanists is trying to pull the plug while another set of humanists is pinning its hopes on suspended animation, mind uploading, &c. The cryonicists versus the eugenicists.
And that’s only natural. After all, a humanist thinks this life is all there is. More is better and better is more.
On the other hand, we have the eugenicists. They worry about the “Population Bomb.” About squandering scarce medical resources on the elderly. We also have environmentalists who think humanity is a threat to the biosphere. We even have antinatalists who think it’s immoral to have babies.
One set of humanists is trying to pull the plug while another set of humanists is pinning its hopes on suspended animation, mind uploading, &c. The cryonicists versus the eugenicists.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
"C. S. Lewis: Science and Scientism"
Fritz Schaefer's article on CSL and scientism is worth reading. It offers a good review of CSL's Space Trilogy as well (particularly That Hideous Strength).
Eugenics: coming to a neighborhood near you!
In the past, eugenics was the purview of Nazi mad doctors, science fiction stories, and academic debate. But now it’s rapidly moving from theory to policy.
The Obama administration is quietly appointing eugenicists to key positions in gov’t:
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Barack Obama has named the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department. Thomas Perrelli, who won an award for representing Schiavo's former husband, had served on Obama's transition team.
The incoming president made Perrelli an associate attorney general and his appointment is generating scorn from pro-life advocates.
Perrelli provided Michael Schiavo with legal advice during his response to the Congressional bill that President Bush signed allowing the Schindler family to take their lawsuit seeking to prevent Terri’s euthanasia death from state to federal courts.
He led the legal team that developed the legal briefs for Michael opposing appeals and he ultimately received the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Pro Bono Award in October 2006 for representing Terri’s former husband at no cost.
http://www.lifenews.com/bio2685.html
I have been doing a little reading about Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the head bioethicist at the NIH and brother of the president’s chief of staff. He is a supporter of health care rationing, which is relevant to the current health care debate.
The same can’t be said of an article he wrote in the Hastings Center Report, in which he explicitly advocates rationing based on what appears to be a quality of life measurement. From the piece:
“This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/what-does-ezekiel-emanuel-really-believe-about-rationing-age-maybe-quality-of-life-yes/
I note with dismay your appointment of Dr. John Holdren as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
In 1977 Dr. Holdren and his colleagues Paul and Anne Ehrlich published the book Ecoscience. In it, Holdren and his co-authors endorse the serious consideration of radical measures to reduce the human population, particularly third world populations, such as India, China and Africa. The measures include:
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• Women — particularly women of insufficient means due to poverty, nationality, marital status, or youth — could be forced to abort their children and undergo sterilization.
• Implementation of a system of "involuntary birth control," in which girls at puberty would be implanted with an infertility device and only could have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.
• Undesirable populations could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into drinking water or in food.
• Single mothers and teen mothers who managed to have their children despite measures to prevent fertility should have their babies seized from them and given away to others to raise.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” and a transnational police force should be assembled to enforce population control.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/an_open_letter_to_president_ob.html
Holdren also once wrote that a baby was not yet a human being. From the story:
“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”
This is radical personhood theory, beyond Peter Singer even, in which full moral status may not accrue until years after birth.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/obama-science-adviser-trees-should-be-allowed-to-sue-babies-not-yet-human-beings/
This could be bad. Cass R. Sunstein, just appointed by President Obama to be “regulatory czar,” is a big “quality of life” guy in determining the cost/benefit ratio of government regulations. This is the executive summary of a paper he wrote back in 2003 for the Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, entitled “Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay.” From the paper:
“In protecting safety, health, and the environment, government has increasingly relied on cost-benefit analysis. In undertaking cost-benefit analysis, the government has monetized risks of death through the idea of “value of a statistical life” (VSL), currently assessed at about $6.1 million. Many analysts, however, have suggested that the government should rely instead on the “value of a statistical life year” (VSLY), in a way that would likely result in significantly lower benefits calculations for elderly people, and significantly higher benefits calculations for children. I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people. The hard question involves not whether to undertake this shift, but how to monetize life-years, and here willingness to pay (WTP) [what one would pay to obtain a good] is generally the place to begin…In fact, a focus on statistical lives is more plausibly a form of illicit discrimination than a focus on life years, because the idea of statistical lives treats the years of older people as worth far more than the years of younger people.”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/02/06/president-obamas-new-regulatory-czar-a-believer-in-quality-of-life-health-care/
Obama is recommending that the successor agency, IMAC, be smaller and potentially more decisive. Under his plan, the president would name five physicians or other health-care-savvy members to serve for five-year terms on its board, picking one of them as chairman. Like the nominees to the Fed and the Supreme Court, they would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Each year, IMAC would have two responsibilities. First, it would recommend to the president updated fees that Medicare would pay doctors, hospitals, rehab centers, nursing homes, labs, home-care and ambulance services, equipment manufacturers, and all other providers. That is now done by Congress itself, and the lobbying by potent hometown individuals and institutions is one reason Medicare costs keep growing. To control costs, IMAC's recommendations could not exceed the "aggregate level of net expenditures" under Medicare.
Second, IMAC would annually recommend a set of broader reforms to improve the quality or reduce the cost of medical care. On each report, the president would have 30 days to approve or reject the recommendations, but he would have to act on the whole package, not pick it apart.
If he approved, the package would go to Congress and could be overruled only by joint action of the Senate and House within 30 days. Absent that, the secretary of health and human services would order the changes into effect.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR2009072402079_pf.html
Given that such a board would consist of the ilk of Ezekiel Emanuel, Dan Brock, and Alta Charo–all prominent left-leaning “quality of life” bioethicists–we permit the IMAC to gain control at all our peril.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/27/obamacare-the-attack-of-the-bioethicists/
THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.
Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.
Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.
Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.
Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).
Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.
He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).
The bills being rushed through Congress will be paid for largely by a $500 billion-plus cut in Medicare over 10 years. Knowing how unpopular the cuts will be, the president's budget director, Peter Orszag, urged Congress this week to delegate its own authority over Medicare to a new, presidentially-appointed bureaucracy that wouldn't be accountable to the public.
Since Medicare was founded in 1965, seniors' lives have been transformed by new medical treatments such as angioplasty, bypass surgery and hip and knee replacements. These innovations allow the elderly to lead active lives. But Emanuel criticizes Americans for being too "enamored with technology" and is determined to reduce access to it.
Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending.
Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they're "associated with longer waits" and "reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices" (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it "debatable" whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you'll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)
Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.
In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist "embedded clinical decision support" -- a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.
Americans need to know what the president's health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: "Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians' offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms" (JAMA, June 18, 2008).
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/deadly_doctors_180941.htm?page=0
Bioethicist Dan Brock–one of the radicals in a radical movement–pushes health care rationing over at the Hastings Center Report. (To give you an idea about his views: In Children of Choice, a book he coauthored with two other bioethicists, Brock argued that the state has “a eugenic role…as guardian of the genetic well-being of future generations.”)
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/21/full-court-press-continues-for-health-care-rationing/
Three bioethicists–G. Owen Schaefer, Ezekiel J. Emanuel (Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuael’s brother), and Alan Wertheimer, argue in the JAMA (”The Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research,”July 1, 2009—Vol 302, No. 1) that we all have a moral “obligation” to “participate in biomedical research.” From the article (no link):
“The obligation to participate in biomedical research makes reasonable demands on all individuals in a society. Participating in research is much less burdensome than contributing to many other public goods; joining the army is more risky and time-consuming than any clinical trial that has been approved by a well-functioning institutional review board. Indeed, paying taxes may be much more burdensome than participating in many research trials…The standard view of research participation must be changed from one in which participation is supererogatory to one in which individuals need to give a good reason not to participate. The shift should be from participation in biomedical research being, like charity, above the call of duty, to such participation being a moral obligation for everyone to do his or her part.”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/13/do-you-have-a-moral-obligation-to-be-experimented-on/
In addition to the Obama administration, Congressional Democracts have been quietly including eugenic provisions in healthcare legislation:
This current legislation, however, seeks to prevent such costly overuse of health resources through a program of "advance care planning consultation," wherein those on Medicare, or their families, could meet with a "practitioner of advance care planning" every five years, or sooner if illness supervened. Such an adviser need not be a physician, either.
This specialist would discuss care issues such as "the individual's desire regarding transfer to a hospital ... the use of antibiotics and the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration."
The discussion may, in fact, be triggered if "there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual, including diagnosis of a chronic, progressive, life-limiting disease."
I would be loath to talk a person on dialysis or in a wheelchair from a stroke into forgoing antibiotics for a pneumonia that may itself be treatable.
HR3200 has created tiers of administrators, who do not necessarily have medical experience. They will attempt to facilitate your end-of-life care, probably with the assistance of the electronic medical records each medical facility will shortly be required to use.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/29/EDV218VMTQ.DTL
The Obama administration is quietly appointing eugenicists to key positions in gov’t:
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Barack Obama has named the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department. Thomas Perrelli, who won an award for representing Schiavo's former husband, had served on Obama's transition team.
The incoming president made Perrelli an associate attorney general and his appointment is generating scorn from pro-life advocates.
Perrelli provided Michael Schiavo with legal advice during his response to the Congressional bill that President Bush signed allowing the Schindler family to take their lawsuit seeking to prevent Terri’s euthanasia death from state to federal courts.
He led the legal team that developed the legal briefs for Michael opposing appeals and he ultimately received the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Pro Bono Award in October 2006 for representing Terri’s former husband at no cost.
http://www.lifenews.com/bio2685.html
I have been doing a little reading about Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the head bioethicist at the NIH and brother of the president’s chief of staff. He is a supporter of health care rationing, which is relevant to the current health care debate.
The same can’t be said of an article he wrote in the Hastings Center Report, in which he explicitly advocates rationing based on what appears to be a quality of life measurement. From the piece:
“This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/what-does-ezekiel-emanuel-really-believe-about-rationing-age-maybe-quality-of-life-yes/
I note with dismay your appointment of Dr. John Holdren as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
In 1977 Dr. Holdren and his colleagues Paul and Anne Ehrlich published the book Ecoscience. In it, Holdren and his co-authors endorse the serious consideration of radical measures to reduce the human population, particularly third world populations, such as India, China and Africa. The measures include:
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• Women — particularly women of insufficient means due to poverty, nationality, marital status, or youth — could be forced to abort their children and undergo sterilization.
• Implementation of a system of "involuntary birth control," in which girls at puberty would be implanted with an infertility device and only could have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.
• Undesirable populations could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into drinking water or in food.
• Single mothers and teen mothers who managed to have their children despite measures to prevent fertility should have their babies seized from them and given away to others to raise.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” and a transnational police force should be assembled to enforce population control.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/an_open_letter_to_president_ob.html
Holdren also once wrote that a baby was not yet a human being. From the story:
“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”
This is radical personhood theory, beyond Peter Singer even, in which full moral status may not accrue until years after birth.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/obama-science-adviser-trees-should-be-allowed-to-sue-babies-not-yet-human-beings/
This could be bad. Cass R. Sunstein, just appointed by President Obama to be “regulatory czar,” is a big “quality of life” guy in determining the cost/benefit ratio of government regulations. This is the executive summary of a paper he wrote back in 2003 for the Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, entitled “Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay.” From the paper:
“In protecting safety, health, and the environment, government has increasingly relied on cost-benefit analysis. In undertaking cost-benefit analysis, the government has monetized risks of death through the idea of “value of a statistical life” (VSL), currently assessed at about $6.1 million. Many analysts, however, have suggested that the government should rely instead on the “value of a statistical life year” (VSLY), in a way that would likely result in significantly lower benefits calculations for elderly people, and significantly higher benefits calculations for children. I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people. The hard question involves not whether to undertake this shift, but how to monetize life-years, and here willingness to pay (WTP) [what one would pay to obtain a good] is generally the place to begin…In fact, a focus on statistical lives is more plausibly a form of illicit discrimination than a focus on life years, because the idea of statistical lives treats the years of older people as worth far more than the years of younger people.”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/02/06/president-obamas-new-regulatory-czar-a-believer-in-quality-of-life-health-care/
Obama is recommending that the successor agency, IMAC, be smaller and potentially more decisive. Under his plan, the president would name five physicians or other health-care-savvy members to serve for five-year terms on its board, picking one of them as chairman. Like the nominees to the Fed and the Supreme Court, they would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Each year, IMAC would have two responsibilities. First, it would recommend to the president updated fees that Medicare would pay doctors, hospitals, rehab centers, nursing homes, labs, home-care and ambulance services, equipment manufacturers, and all other providers. That is now done by Congress itself, and the lobbying by potent hometown individuals and institutions is one reason Medicare costs keep growing. To control costs, IMAC's recommendations could not exceed the "aggregate level of net expenditures" under Medicare.
Second, IMAC would annually recommend a set of broader reforms to improve the quality or reduce the cost of medical care. On each report, the president would have 30 days to approve or reject the recommendations, but he would have to act on the whole package, not pick it apart.
If he approved, the package would go to Congress and could be overruled only by joint action of the Senate and House within 30 days. Absent that, the secretary of health and human services would order the changes into effect.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR2009072402079_pf.html
Given that such a board would consist of the ilk of Ezekiel Emanuel, Dan Brock, and Alta Charo–all prominent left-leaning “quality of life” bioethicists–we permit the IMAC to gain control at all our peril.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/27/obamacare-the-attack-of-the-bioethicists/
THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.
Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.
Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.
Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.
Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96).
Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.
He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).
The bills being rushed through Congress will be paid for largely by a $500 billion-plus cut in Medicare over 10 years. Knowing how unpopular the cuts will be, the president's budget director, Peter Orszag, urged Congress this week to delegate its own authority over Medicare to a new, presidentially-appointed bureaucracy that wouldn't be accountable to the public.
Since Medicare was founded in 1965, seniors' lives have been transformed by new medical treatments such as angioplasty, bypass surgery and hip and knee replacements. These innovations allow the elderly to lead active lives. But Emanuel criticizes Americans for being too "enamored with technology" and is determined to reduce access to it.
Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending.
Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they're "associated with longer waits" and "reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices" (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it "debatable" whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you'll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)
Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.
In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist "embedded clinical decision support" -- a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.
Americans need to know what the president's health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: "Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians' offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms" (JAMA, June 18, 2008).
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/deadly_doctors_180941.htm?page=0
Bioethicist Dan Brock–one of the radicals in a radical movement–pushes health care rationing over at the Hastings Center Report. (To give you an idea about his views: In Children of Choice, a book he coauthored with two other bioethicists, Brock argued that the state has “a eugenic role…as guardian of the genetic well-being of future generations.”)
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/21/full-court-press-continues-for-health-care-rationing/
Three bioethicists–G. Owen Schaefer, Ezekiel J. Emanuel (Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuael’s brother), and Alan Wertheimer, argue in the JAMA (”The Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research,”July 1, 2009—Vol 302, No. 1) that we all have a moral “obligation” to “participate in biomedical research.” From the article (no link):
“The obligation to participate in biomedical research makes reasonable demands on all individuals in a society. Participating in research is much less burdensome than contributing to many other public goods; joining the army is more risky and time-consuming than any clinical trial that has been approved by a well-functioning institutional review board. Indeed, paying taxes may be much more burdensome than participating in many research trials…The standard view of research participation must be changed from one in which participation is supererogatory to one in which individuals need to give a good reason not to participate. The shift should be from participation in biomedical research being, like charity, above the call of duty, to such participation being a moral obligation for everyone to do his or her part.”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/13/do-you-have-a-moral-obligation-to-be-experimented-on/
In addition to the Obama administration, Congressional Democracts have been quietly including eugenic provisions in healthcare legislation:
This current legislation, however, seeks to prevent such costly overuse of health resources through a program of "advance care planning consultation," wherein those on Medicare, or their families, could meet with a "practitioner of advance care planning" every five years, or sooner if illness supervened. Such an adviser need not be a physician, either.
This specialist would discuss care issues such as "the individual's desire regarding transfer to a hospital ... the use of antibiotics and the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration."
The discussion may, in fact, be triggered if "there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual, including diagnosis of a chronic, progressive, life-limiting disease."
I would be loath to talk a person on dialysis or in a wheelchair from a stroke into forgoing antibiotics for a pneumonia that may itself be treatable.
HR3200 has created tiers of administrators, who do not necessarily have medical experience. They will attempt to facilitate your end-of-life care, probably with the assistance of the electronic medical records each medical facility will shortly be required to use.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/29/EDV218VMTQ.DTL
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Eugenics, Obamacare, & frontmen
Victor Reppert recently did a post on Obamacare. Now he’s upset about how his post was treated at Tblog.
The primary problem with Obamacare is that Obamacare is a Trojan horse for euthanasia. In the ’08 election, I myself issued a prescient warning to that effect:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/09/victor-reppert-every-baby-butchers-best.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-improving-moral-tone-of-political.html
Predictably, if unfortunately, my warning came true. Wesley J. Smith, for one, has been cataloguing the implementation of a eugenic agenda under Obama:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/31/john-holdren-the-unreported-story/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/what-does-ezekiel-emanuel-really-believe-about-rationing-age-maybe-quality-of-life-yes/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/obama-science-adviser-trees-should-be-allowed-to-sue-babies-not-yet-human-beings/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/29/obamacare-mandatory-counseling-provision-really-a-pay-the-provider-provision/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/29/obamacare-physician-worries-about-the-reeducation-camps-for-seniors/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/29/obamacare-aarps-betrayal-of-senior-citizens-and-support-of-end-game-counseling/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/27/obamacare-the-attack-of-the-bioethicists/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/24/obama-health-care-advisers-support-invidious-rationing-of-health-care/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/21/full-court-press-continues-for-health-care-rationing/
And what did Reppert learn from his negligence? Nothing. When he got around to blogging on Obamacare, what was the thrust of his post? “I would hardly consider my question a critique of sophisticed Obamacare critics such as Sowell, or even Vallicella, or even as a defense of Obamacare at all. It was a criticism of a certain type of popular but misguided criticism of health care reform.”
That tells you something about his incorrigible, moral priorities, does it not?
And let’s not forget that this was on the heels of two proabortion posts he recently did:
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-defining-murder.html
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/07/getting-away-with-murder.html
Not to mention all the other proabortion posts he’s done.
You see, Reppert is a frontman for the eugenicists. And as long as you’re a nice, polite front man for the eugenicists, that’s all that matters.
The primary problem with Obamacare is that Obamacare is a Trojan horse for euthanasia. In the ’08 election, I myself issued a prescient warning to that effect:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/09/victor-reppert-every-baby-butchers-best.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-improving-moral-tone-of-political.html
Predictably, if unfortunately, my warning came true. Wesley J. Smith, for one, has been cataloguing the implementation of a eugenic agenda under Obama:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/31/john-holdren-the-unreported-story/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/what-does-ezekiel-emanuel-really-believe-about-rationing-age-maybe-quality-of-life-yes/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/30/obama-science-adviser-trees-should-be-allowed-to-sue-babies-not-yet-human-beings/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/29/obamacare-mandatory-counseling-provision-really-a-pay-the-provider-provision/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/29/obamacare-physician-worries-about-the-reeducation-camps-for-seniors/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/29/obamacare-aarps-betrayal-of-senior-citizens-and-support-of-end-game-counseling/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/27/obamacare-the-attack-of-the-bioethicists/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/24/obama-health-care-advisers-support-invidious-rationing-of-health-care/
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/07/21/full-court-press-continues-for-health-care-rationing/
And what did Reppert learn from his negligence? Nothing. When he got around to blogging on Obamacare, what was the thrust of his post? “I would hardly consider my question a critique of sophisticed Obamacare critics such as Sowell, or even Vallicella, or even as a defense of Obamacare at all. It was a criticism of a certain type of popular but misguided criticism of health care reform.”
That tells you something about his incorrigible, moral priorities, does it not?
And let’s not forget that this was on the heels of two proabortion posts he recently did:
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-defining-murder.html
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/07/getting-away-with-murder.html
Not to mention all the other proabortion posts he’s done.
You see, Reppert is a frontman for the eugenicists. And as long as you’re a nice, polite front man for the eugenicists, that’s all that matters.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Living in a perfect world
We live in the age of eugenics. Eugenic abortion. Eugenic infanticide. Eugenic “mercy-killing.” The eugenic outlook on life is becoming more mainstream, and therefore more radical-–since the movement is incremental. It warns against “alarmist” language while it quietly, but diligently, phases in its radical and homicidal policies.
The eugenic worldview helps us to put the problem of evil in perspective. For the eugenic worldview is pursuing an ideal. It’s ideal of a perfect world. Its version of the best possible world.
From a eugenic perspective, the perfect world resembles one of those new teen dramas you see trailers for every year. Every year we see trailers for a new teen drama, which is interchangeable with the last teen drama.
The perfect world is usually set in Orange County or the Florida Gold Coast. It’s a world where every high school student has perfect teeth and a Mercedes convertible.
Mind you, even this perfect world has its ups and downs–as the TV trailers preview the many trials and tribulations of being young, rich, and beautiful. It’s enough to make you cry.
This is the utopian vision of someone like Peter Singer. For example, Singer thinks it’s for the best if we abort all the hemophiliacs. A hemophiliac has a lower quality of life than a normal, healthy baby. His life is fraught with peril.
Singer justifies this position on the grounds that people are replaceable. You’d be replacing the hemophiliac with a normal, healthy baby.
I suppose he’d extend his reasoning to babies who are congenitally blind or deaf.
Now, from a biblical perspective, some of these genetic defects are, indeed, natural evils. It is, however, better to be born blind or deaf than never to be born at all. Sensory impairment scarcely negates the value of being alive.
In addition, these natural evils supply the occasion for certain virtues to manifest themselves. If your brother is blind or deaf, then he requires more attention. You don’t take him for granted to the same degree. Because he’s vulnerable, he’s more dependent on his parents, friends, and siblings to look out for his interests. And that, in turn, supplies an opportunity for a more loving and caring and close-knit family or circle of friends.
Of course, that’s also more time-consuming and “burdensome.” It puts a crimp in our lifestyle. Infringes on our freedom.
Eugenics is, in large part, about eliminating inconvenient people. People who make too many demands on us–thereby transgressing our sacrosanct autonomy.
So this goes to the question of what is important in life. What’s the source of personal fulfillment? Is it a matter of investing your life in other people–or retaining a certain level of detachment, so that you can pull the plug at any time?
Do people get in the way of what you want in life, or do people contribute to the value of life?
Finally, the Christian worldview is also concerned with the healing of broken bodies. But Christianity can have the best of both worlds.
In a fallen world, redeemed by grace, God can cultivate certain virtues which are only possible in such a world. A world with natural and moral evils.
Those virtues can then carry over into the world to come, where birth defects are eliminated without eliminating the individual.
The eugenic worldview helps us to put the problem of evil in perspective. For the eugenic worldview is pursuing an ideal. It’s ideal of a perfect world. Its version of the best possible world.
From a eugenic perspective, the perfect world resembles one of those new teen dramas you see trailers for every year. Every year we see trailers for a new teen drama, which is interchangeable with the last teen drama.
The perfect world is usually set in Orange County or the Florida Gold Coast. It’s a world where every high school student has perfect teeth and a Mercedes convertible.
Mind you, even this perfect world has its ups and downs–as the TV trailers preview the many trials and tribulations of being young, rich, and beautiful. It’s enough to make you cry.
This is the utopian vision of someone like Peter Singer. For example, Singer thinks it’s for the best if we abort all the hemophiliacs. A hemophiliac has a lower quality of life than a normal, healthy baby. His life is fraught with peril.
Singer justifies this position on the grounds that people are replaceable. You’d be replacing the hemophiliac with a normal, healthy baby.
I suppose he’d extend his reasoning to babies who are congenitally blind or deaf.
Now, from a biblical perspective, some of these genetic defects are, indeed, natural evils. It is, however, better to be born blind or deaf than never to be born at all. Sensory impairment scarcely negates the value of being alive.
In addition, these natural evils supply the occasion for certain virtues to manifest themselves. If your brother is blind or deaf, then he requires more attention. You don’t take him for granted to the same degree. Because he’s vulnerable, he’s more dependent on his parents, friends, and siblings to look out for his interests. And that, in turn, supplies an opportunity for a more loving and caring and close-knit family or circle of friends.
Of course, that’s also more time-consuming and “burdensome.” It puts a crimp in our lifestyle. Infringes on our freedom.
Eugenics is, in large part, about eliminating inconvenient people. People who make too many demands on us–thereby transgressing our sacrosanct autonomy.
So this goes to the question of what is important in life. What’s the source of personal fulfillment? Is it a matter of investing your life in other people–or retaining a certain level of detachment, so that you can pull the plug at any time?
Do people get in the way of what you want in life, or do people contribute to the value of life?
Finally, the Christian worldview is also concerned with the healing of broken bodies. But Christianity can have the best of both worlds.
In a fallen world, redeemed by grace, God can cultivate certain virtues which are only possible in such a world. A world with natural and moral evils.
Those virtues can then carry over into the world to come, where birth defects are eliminated without eliminating the individual.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Victor Reppert: every baby-butcher's best friend
Victor Reppert, tireless shill for the liberal establishment and the Democrat party, continues to live up to his well-earned reputation and a political flack and philosophical hack:
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2008/09/barack-biggest-baby-killer-of-them-all.html
Let’s look at some of the highlights—or should I say, lowlights?—of his latest post:
It also abrogated the rights of parents.
Let’s see: whose parents are we talking about, exactly? In context, this would have reference to the parents who tried to abort their own child!
Yes, Victor, conservatives do believe in removing the children from the custody of murderous parents.
In other words, there appear to have been various reasons for voting against this legislation besides wanting the accidental survivors of abortion dead.
Notice that Reppert doesn’t even attempt to establish that this was Obama’s reason for opposing the bill.
That assumes that we can naively assume that a bill does what its title says that it does. That's absurd, as No Child Left Behind demonstratively proves.
That’s really rich coming from an intellectual day-tripper like Reppert. Here’s a little experiment: just compare Reppert’s flyby piece with Jeremy Pierce’s painstaking analysis of Obama’s record on abortion, then ask yourself: which writer did the real spadework?
http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/obama-abortion.html
http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/obama-born-alive.html
One final point: although abortion is a very big issue, the stakes are even higher than abortion alone. Abortion is just one element of a eugenic agenda that encompasses abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, stem-cell research, organ-farms, &c.
If Reppert were a real Christian and a real philosopher, instead of a goose-stepping apparatchik for the liberal establishment, he would appreciate the moral dimensions of this debate. Perhaps we should start calling him the Red Philosopher, in honor of his Marxist philosophy—as well as all the innocent blood on his hands.
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2008/09/barack-biggest-baby-killer-of-them-all.html
Let’s look at some of the highlights—or should I say, lowlights?—of his latest post:
It also abrogated the rights of parents.
Let’s see: whose parents are we talking about, exactly? In context, this would have reference to the parents who tried to abort their own child!
Yes, Victor, conservatives do believe in removing the children from the custody of murderous parents.
In other words, there appear to have been various reasons for voting against this legislation besides wanting the accidental survivors of abortion dead.
Notice that Reppert doesn’t even attempt to establish that this was Obama’s reason for opposing the bill.
That assumes that we can naively assume that a bill does what its title says that it does. That's absurd, as No Child Left Behind demonstratively proves.
That’s really rich coming from an intellectual day-tripper like Reppert. Here’s a little experiment: just compare Reppert’s flyby piece with Jeremy Pierce’s painstaking analysis of Obama’s record on abortion, then ask yourself: which writer did the real spadework?
http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/obama-abortion.html
http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2008/08/obama-born-alive.html
One final point: although abortion is a very big issue, the stakes are even higher than abortion alone. Abortion is just one element of a eugenic agenda that encompasses abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, stem-cell research, organ-farms, &c.
If Reppert were a real Christian and a real philosopher, instead of a goose-stepping apparatchik for the liberal establishment, he would appreciate the moral dimensions of this debate. Perhaps we should start calling him the Red Philosopher, in honor of his Marxist philosophy—as well as all the innocent blood on his hands.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Self-spiting liberalism
Roger Ebert doesn’t like Sarah Palin. Among other things, he says “I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic in November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.”
At one level, his reaction is entirely predictable. As a member of the liberal establishment, he mirrors the groupthink of his social circle. Indeed, there seems to be a roll call vote underway, in which members of the liberal establishment must renew their membership and reaffirm their liberal bona fides by the ritual stoning of Sarah Palin.
But at another level his reaction is deeply ironic. Of course, the irony is lost on him. Ironic, I say, because—for the last several years—Ebert has suffered debilitating complications from thyroid cancer. And he recently broke his hip.
If the eugenic culture which targets Terri Schiavo and little Trig had its way, people like Ebert would be weeded out.
Of course, if you swear by liberal orthodoxy, and you’re rich enough not to be a “burden” on anyone (e.g. Robert Ebert, Christopher Reeve, Michael J. Fox), then the liberal establishment will turn you into a posterboy for its eugenic agenda (e.g. stem cell research). But once the eugenic regime is firmly ensconced, even defective celebrities will lose their market value.
(Incidentally, one wonders how dependent Ebert may already be on the kindness of Catholic doctors and nurses who will be voting for Palin.)
A man in Ebert’s condition should be gratified to have someone like Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.
At one level, his reaction is entirely predictable. As a member of the liberal establishment, he mirrors the groupthink of his social circle. Indeed, there seems to be a roll call vote underway, in which members of the liberal establishment must renew their membership and reaffirm their liberal bona fides by the ritual stoning of Sarah Palin.
But at another level his reaction is deeply ironic. Of course, the irony is lost on him. Ironic, I say, because—for the last several years—Ebert has suffered debilitating complications from thyroid cancer. And he recently broke his hip.
If the eugenic culture which targets Terri Schiavo and little Trig had its way, people like Ebert would be weeded out.
Of course, if you swear by liberal orthodoxy, and you’re rich enough not to be a “burden” on anyone (e.g. Robert Ebert, Christopher Reeve, Michael J. Fox), then the liberal establishment will turn you into a posterboy for its eugenic agenda (e.g. stem cell research). But once the eugenic regime is firmly ensconced, even defective celebrities will lose their market value.
(Incidentally, one wonders how dependent Ebert may already be on the kindness of Catholic doctors and nurses who will be voting for Palin.)
A man in Ebert’s condition should be gratified to have someone like Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Welcoming and defending children
From Gilbert Meilaender:
[Christians] seek daily to learn how to see the whole of life in the light of God's creative and redemptive activity. The life of the child in the womb is God's creation, and that child is part of the world Christ came to redeem. The worth and dignity of the child's life are not therefore dependent on our evaluation -- on whether at any given moment we "want" that child. Indeed, both before and after birth parents' feelings may vacillate -- as they sometimes want and at other times do not want their children. That the rabbis understood this well is nicely captured in a few sentences by David Feldman:From John Frame:The Bible prescribes that an offering be brought to the sanctuary by the woman following childbirth (Lev. 12:6). Its purpose, explains the Talmud, is to atone for a vow never meant to be kept: When birth pangs were severe, she presumably vowed "never again"; a while later she would forget that oath; satisfaction had dispelled anxiety.Our continuing task, therefore, is to struggle to bring our judgments and feelings into accord with God's action -- to let our estimate of the child be shaped and formed by God's.
Seriously to attempt this is to learn our limits. We do not, ultimately, fashion the conditions of our life; rather, we live under God's mysterious but providential governance. The unexpected -- and even the unwanted -- events of life are occasions and opportunities for hearing the call of God and responding faithfully. Sometimes, perhaps often, this will mean that we take up tasks and burdens we had not anticipated or desired, and they in turn may bring a certain measure of suffering. Within the community of the church, of course, we ought to seek to bear each other's burdens, and too often we fail to do so. But even when we think we suffer alone, we do not, since God has taken that suffering into his own life.
To counsel the acceptance of the unwanted -- acceptance even of the suffering it brings -- is not to encourage mothers or fathers to be "victims." Rather, it is to call for the strength that virtuous action requires. One need not be a Christian to agree with Socrates that it is better to suffer evil than to do it, but certainly Christians should understand such a claim. If we seek to save ourselves by doing away with the child who is unwanted, we hand ourselves over to the destructive powers of the world in an attempt to avoid them, and we act as if those powers are ultimately worthy of our worship, as if they could save. We take our stand, it is sobering to realize, beside King Herod after he heard the news the Magi brought. That is not, I think, where, finally, we want to be.
Arguably the unborn are the weakest, poorest, most helpless people that there are. They have no political or economic strength, not even voices to plead their own cause. They are under vicious attack today by the dominant forces of society: the educational establishment, the media, and the government, including the courts, which should be demanding justice. Even the most influential ethical thought of modern society stands against them.
And the most terrible part of this is that these children are under attack from their own mothers. God's plan is that the parents of a child should be his defenders. Our tradition regards a mother's love for her child as something very deep, indeed fierce in its defense of the child's life. The mother is the child's last line of defense. If the mother forsakes her child, who will help? Who indeed? Psalm 27:10 gives the answer: "My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in." Isaiah speaks in horror about the possibility that a mother might forget her child. But, through Isaiah, God says, "Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (49:15). God is the helper of the poor, the husband of the widow, the father of the fatherless. He cares about those for whom the world has no care. And he calls his people to be his agents: "Seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause" (Isa. 1:17). The unborn represent humanity in its most helpless form, under merciless attack. They have, therefore, a unique claim upon the mercy of God's people.
A separate and unique human being
Excerpted from The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John Frame (pp. 725-726):
The relevant scientific data confirm the argument from Scripture that unborn children are persons. From the point of conception, unborn children have a full complement of chromosomes, half from the father and half from the mother. Therefore, the unborn child is not "part of his mother's body." His genetic makeup is different from hers. So we should not treat the unborn child as we treat hair or fingernails, or even as we treat organs like the gall bladder or liver. The unborn child is a separate and unique human being.
It is also true that the unborn child is dependent on his mother life support: oxygen, nutrition, and immunity. In this sense, the unborn child is similar to the parts of the mother's body. But this dependence is not essential to his existence. Technology has been able to provide life support for very young fetuses, and it is certainly possible that future technology will be able to support the embryo/fetus through the whole gestation period. Furthermore, even after birth children are dependent on adults for life support. So dependence does not count against the independent personhood of the child.
It is also significant that science is no more able than theology to pinpoint a time during gestation at which the unborn becomes a person. There is no point at which a mere physical collection of cells turns into a person with a right to life. The various points that have been suggested -- implantation, detectable heartbeat, detectable brainwaves, quickening, viability, and ability to feel pain -- are significant developments, but none of them persuasively marks a transition from nonpersonhood to personhood.
. . . But I would caution readers that this is not fundamentally a scientific issue. The chief issue here is the personhood of the unborn, for that conveys a right to life. Personhood is a metaphysical, religious, theological, and ethical category, not a scientific one. There are no scientific observations or experiments that can detect a difference between a person and a nonperson. To reason from scientific premises alone to a conclusion about the rightness or wrongness of abortion is therefore to commit the naturalistic fallacy.
. . . [I]n my judgment the religious dimension cannot be escaped. Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) gives us an adequate argument against the sin of abortion.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Perils of Palin
I’ve changed my mind about the race. Before McCain chose Palin, I was sitting on the fence. After he chose her, I decided that I could bring myself to vote for the ticket—however grudgingly. But I’d now take that a step further. At this point I think I have a duty to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.
Why? Because the liberal establishment has decided to turn this election into a referendum on eugenics. Palin is now a symbol of an issue much bigger than herself (or McCain).
Of course, Obama and Biden haven’t been quite as rhetorically vile as their surrogates, but there’s no doubt where they stand. Obama regards the child of an unplanned pregnancy as a “punishment.” He opposed the Born Alive Act. Biden recently attacked Palin for having Trig, in the context of remarks about stem cell research.
Considering these developments, I think the religious right now has an obligation to support Palin for what she’s come to represent, and express its support at the ballot box.
That’s irrespective of other issues, pro and con. There are other issues, both pro and con. But this has now become the “central front” in the culture wars. If we don’t back her, what message will that send? If we sit out this election, it will be a turning point in the culture wars. Time to flex our electoral muscles.
Why? Because the liberal establishment has decided to turn this election into a referendum on eugenics. Palin is now a symbol of an issue much bigger than herself (or McCain).
Of course, Obama and Biden haven’t been quite as rhetorically vile as their surrogates, but there’s no doubt where they stand. Obama regards the child of an unplanned pregnancy as a “punishment.” He opposed the Born Alive Act. Biden recently attacked Palin for having Trig, in the context of remarks about stem cell research.
Considering these developments, I think the religious right now has an obligation to support Palin for what she’s come to represent, and express its support at the ballot box.
That’s irrespective of other issues, pro and con. There are other issues, both pro and con. But this has now become the “central front” in the culture wars. If we don’t back her, what message will that send? If we sit out this election, it will be a turning point in the culture wars. Time to flex our electoral muscles.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Heroiclife or Overthecliff?
HEROICLIFE SAID:
Whereas previously, a Down’s child could be born without the prior knowledge of the mother, going forward, a parent with a Down’s child will likely (at least in the developed world) have made a conscious choice to have that child.
Which is what makes the choice of the Palin clan so commendable. They knew in advance that they are bringing a “special needs child” into the world, and yet they were prepared to do what’s necessary to care for that child.
As prenatal testing for trisomy 21 becomes ubiquitous, Down’s children (and eventually those with other genetic disorders) will increasingly become symbols of faith – a freak show meant to communicate the “family values” of their parents. The children will become public sacrifices made by their parents for their faith. They will be a symbol of religious reverence in the same way as the scarred backs of Catholics who flagellate themselves, or Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire, or Sunni Muslims who mutilate their girl’s genitals or Shiites who bloody their children’s heads with swords.
That’s an argument from analogy minus the argument. Why should we concede that giving birth to a child with Down syndrome is analogous to your deliberately invidious comparisons?
Genuine moral virtues – such as integrity, honesty, and productivity are not useful as evidence of religious virtue. To the extent that their practical benefit is visible to everyone, they do not represent the special domain of religion.
You need to show, from the standpoint of secular ethics, why integrity, honesty, and productivity are genuine moral virtues. Given your devaluation of human life, why should a “genuine moral virtue” be practical or beneficial to human beings?
To demonstrate religious virtue, it is necessary to sacrifice authentic moral values in favor of “religious” values.
As a Christian, I don’t care about generic “religious” values. I only care about Christian values. And, in Christian theology, we are justified by faith, not by works.
The particular object of the sacrifice is not important – there is nothing particularly “biblical” about being prolife (the Christian bible just as easily supports the opposite position.)
That’s an assertion, not an argument.
If Christian fundamentalists decided that cutting of one’s hand sufficed as proof of moral virtue, they would be wrong to do so, but not much more so than the numerous other ways that people find to be self-destructive.
That’s another assertion without an argument. For someone who prides himself on being a rationalist, you’re short on reasons.
What is really vicious about fundamentalists in America is that the prey on the most vulnerable –poor pregnant young girls and women, those dying from painful terminal illnesses, the loved ones of brain-dead patients, — and children afflicted with terrible genetic illnesses.
You indulge in lots of emotive, moralistic rhetoric. You have yet to justify your value-judgments.
To make it look good, you try to camouflage your position in humanitarian verbiage, but there’s nothing intrinsically humanitarian about secular ethics. For example, Julian Savulescu, a secular bioethicist at Oxford, takes a ruthlessly utilitarian view of human life:
“One objection to embryonic stem (ES) cell research is that it 'cannibalizes' human beings, that is, kills some human beings to benefit others. I grant for argument's sake that the embryo is a person. Nonetheless, killing it may be justified. I show this through the Embryonic Stem Cell Lottery. Whether killing a person is justified depends on: (1) whether innocent people at risk of being killed for ES cell research also stand to benefit from the research and (2) whether their overall chances of living are higher in a world in which killing and ES cell research is conducted. I call this kind of killing 'risk reductive’.”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=342513
David Veksler is expendible. If you interfere with the common good, then we have a right to kill you.
Likewise, eugenics doesn’t stop with the elimination of genetic disorders. For example, another secular bioethicist by the name of James Hughes envisions a world in which “Technologically assisted birth, eventually involving artificial wombs, will free women from being necessary, vulnerable vessels for the next generation. Morphological freedom, the ability to change one’s body, including one’s abilities, weight, gender and racial characteristics, will reduce body-based oppressions (disability, fat, gender and race) to aesthetic prejudices.”
http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/DemocraticTranshumanism.htm
By eugenic standards, David Veksler is a throwback to the dark ages of the genetic lottery. But thanks to prenatal testing and genetic engineering, we can weed out the David Vekslers of the world and replace them with a genetically enhanced master race.
One can at least grasp the moral indifference with which a fundamentalist can force a single young mother to abandon her goals and dreams and condemn her and her child to poverty.
i) To begin with, you have a very sexist view of women. Don’t women know where babies come from? Wasn’t the woman in question engaged in consensual reproductive behavior?
And it won’t do to bring up cases of rape and incest since I hardly think that’s where you draw the line.
ii) You imply that the children of poor parents are condemned to a life of poverty. That’s an odd inference coming from the likes of you.
Didn’t your parents conceive you back in the bad old days when Ukraine was part of the Soviet empire? Why did they come to American? Because it’s the land of opportunity?
So, by your yardstick, it was immoral for your parents to conceive you. They didn’t’ know that they’d be able to immigrate to America and give you a better life. So, by your yardstick, they were condemning you to a life of poverty. By your yardstick, no one in the Soviet Union should have had any children—except for a few high-placed party-members in the Politburo. No parent, under that oppressive, communist regime, had a right to conceive a child. For that would ipso facto condemn the child to a life of poverty.
iii) Eugenics is no solution to poverty. It just transposes class warfare to a higher plane. It would create a two-tiered society of "GenRich" and "GenPoor,” genetically-enhanced "haves" and "have nots."
You could try to avert that scenario by universal access to genetic engineering, but that would require one of those socialist utopias that turns into the sort of socialist dystopia from which your parents escaped.
But what can we say about a parent that chooses a life of suffering upon their child?
Like millions of parents under Stalin or Brezhnev? You say you believe in individual rights, but you have a very selective view of individual rights. You say you believe in the “unconditional right to life,” but you, in fact, impose a quality of life condition on the “unconditional” right to life.
If we are morally outraged by child rapists, how should we judge a parent who chooses a lifetime of suffering on their own child?
What makes you think that Down syndrome entails a lifetime of suffering? Not from what I’ve read. The same medical science that makes prenatal testing possible can also enhance the lives of men and women with genetic disorders like Down syndrome:
“Today, individuals with Down syndrome are active participants in the educational, vocational, social and recreational aspects of our communities. In fact, there are more opportunities than ever before for individuals with Down syndrome to develop their abilities, discover their talents and realize their dreams. For example, more teens and adults with Down syndrome each year are graduating from high school, going to college, finding employment and living independently.”
http://www1.ndss.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1812&Itemid=95
“It is important to remember that while children and adults with Down syndrome experience developmental delays, they also have many talents and gifts and should be given the opportunity and encouragement to develop them.”
“Most children with Down syndrome have mild to moderate impairments but it is important to note that they are more like other children than they are different. Early Intervention services should be provided shortly after birth. These services should include physical, speech and developmental therapies. Most children attend their neighborhood schools, some in regular classes and others in special education classes. Some children have more significant needs and require a more specialized program.”
“Some high school graduates with Down syndrome participate in post-secondary education. Many adults with Down syndrome are capable of working in the community, but some require a more structured environment.”
http://www.nads.org/pages_new/facts.html
“Most people with Down syndrome have IQ's that fall in the mild to moderate range of retardation. Some are so mildly affected that they live independently and are gainfully employed.”
“The life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has increased substantially. In 1929, the average life span of a person with Down syndrome was nine years. Today, it is common for a person with Down syndrome to live to age fifty and beyond. In addition to living longer, people with Down syndrome are now living fuller, richer lives than ever before as family members and contributors to their community. Many people with Down syndrome form meaningful relationships and eventually marry. Now that people with Down syndrome are living longer, the needs of adults with Down syndrome are receiving greater attention. With assistance from family and caretakers, many adults with Down syndrome have developed the skills required to hold jobs and to live semi-independently.”
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/downsyndrome.cfm#DownSyndrome
“While there is an increased risk for certain medical conditions compared to the general population, advances in medicine have rendered most of these health problems treatable and the majority of people born with Down syndrome today have a life expectancy of approximately 56 years.”
http://www1.ndss.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=12&id=49&Itemid=119
“Many children with Down syndrome have health complications beyond the usual childhood illnesses...However, with appropriate medical care most children and adults with Down syndrome can lead healthy lives. The average life expectancy of individuals with Down syndrome is 55 years, with many living into their sixties and seventies.”
http://www.nads.org/pages_new/facts.html
Whereas previously, a Down’s child could be born without the prior knowledge of the mother, going forward, a parent with a Down’s child will likely (at least in the developed world) have made a conscious choice to have that child.
Which is what makes the choice of the Palin clan so commendable. They knew in advance that they are bringing a “special needs child” into the world, and yet they were prepared to do what’s necessary to care for that child.
As prenatal testing for trisomy 21 becomes ubiquitous, Down’s children (and eventually those with other genetic disorders) will increasingly become symbols of faith – a freak show meant to communicate the “family values” of their parents. The children will become public sacrifices made by their parents for their faith. They will be a symbol of religious reverence in the same way as the scarred backs of Catholics who flagellate themselves, or Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire, or Sunni Muslims who mutilate their girl’s genitals or Shiites who bloody their children’s heads with swords.
That’s an argument from analogy minus the argument. Why should we concede that giving birth to a child with Down syndrome is analogous to your deliberately invidious comparisons?
Genuine moral virtues – such as integrity, honesty, and productivity are not useful as evidence of religious virtue. To the extent that their practical benefit is visible to everyone, they do not represent the special domain of religion.
You need to show, from the standpoint of secular ethics, why integrity, honesty, and productivity are genuine moral virtues. Given your devaluation of human life, why should a “genuine moral virtue” be practical or beneficial to human beings?
To demonstrate religious virtue, it is necessary to sacrifice authentic moral values in favor of “religious” values.
As a Christian, I don’t care about generic “religious” values. I only care about Christian values. And, in Christian theology, we are justified by faith, not by works.
The particular object of the sacrifice is not important – there is nothing particularly “biblical” about being prolife (the Christian bible just as easily supports the opposite position.)
That’s an assertion, not an argument.
If Christian fundamentalists decided that cutting of one’s hand sufficed as proof of moral virtue, they would be wrong to do so, but not much more so than the numerous other ways that people find to be self-destructive.
That’s another assertion without an argument. For someone who prides himself on being a rationalist, you’re short on reasons.
What is really vicious about fundamentalists in America is that the prey on the most vulnerable –poor pregnant young girls and women, those dying from painful terminal illnesses, the loved ones of brain-dead patients, — and children afflicted with terrible genetic illnesses.
You indulge in lots of emotive, moralistic rhetoric. You have yet to justify your value-judgments.
To make it look good, you try to camouflage your position in humanitarian verbiage, but there’s nothing intrinsically humanitarian about secular ethics. For example, Julian Savulescu, a secular bioethicist at Oxford, takes a ruthlessly utilitarian view of human life:
“One objection to embryonic stem (ES) cell research is that it 'cannibalizes' human beings, that is, kills some human beings to benefit others. I grant for argument's sake that the embryo is a person. Nonetheless, killing it may be justified. I show this through the Embryonic Stem Cell Lottery. Whether killing a person is justified depends on: (1) whether innocent people at risk of being killed for ES cell research also stand to benefit from the research and (2) whether their overall chances of living are higher in a world in which killing and ES cell research is conducted. I call this kind of killing 'risk reductive’.”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=342513
David Veksler is expendible. If you interfere with the common good, then we have a right to kill you.
Likewise, eugenics doesn’t stop with the elimination of genetic disorders. For example, another secular bioethicist by the name of James Hughes envisions a world in which “Technologically assisted birth, eventually involving artificial wombs, will free women from being necessary, vulnerable vessels for the next generation. Morphological freedom, the ability to change one’s body, including one’s abilities, weight, gender and racial characteristics, will reduce body-based oppressions (disability, fat, gender and race) to aesthetic prejudices.”
http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/DemocraticTranshumanism.htm
By eugenic standards, David Veksler is a throwback to the dark ages of the genetic lottery. But thanks to prenatal testing and genetic engineering, we can weed out the David Vekslers of the world and replace them with a genetically enhanced master race.
One can at least grasp the moral indifference with which a fundamentalist can force a single young mother to abandon her goals and dreams and condemn her and her child to poverty.
i) To begin with, you have a very sexist view of women. Don’t women know where babies come from? Wasn’t the woman in question engaged in consensual reproductive behavior?
And it won’t do to bring up cases of rape and incest since I hardly think that’s where you draw the line.
ii) You imply that the children of poor parents are condemned to a life of poverty. That’s an odd inference coming from the likes of you.
Didn’t your parents conceive you back in the bad old days when Ukraine was part of the Soviet empire? Why did they come to American? Because it’s the land of opportunity?
So, by your yardstick, it was immoral for your parents to conceive you. They didn’t’ know that they’d be able to immigrate to America and give you a better life. So, by your yardstick, they were condemning you to a life of poverty. By your yardstick, no one in the Soviet Union should have had any children—except for a few high-placed party-members in the Politburo. No parent, under that oppressive, communist regime, had a right to conceive a child. For that would ipso facto condemn the child to a life of poverty.
iii) Eugenics is no solution to poverty. It just transposes class warfare to a higher plane. It would create a two-tiered society of "GenRich" and "GenPoor,” genetically-enhanced "haves" and "have nots."
You could try to avert that scenario by universal access to genetic engineering, but that would require one of those socialist utopias that turns into the sort of socialist dystopia from which your parents escaped.
But what can we say about a parent that chooses a life of suffering upon their child?
Like millions of parents under Stalin or Brezhnev? You say you believe in individual rights, but you have a very selective view of individual rights. You say you believe in the “unconditional right to life,” but you, in fact, impose a quality of life condition on the “unconditional” right to life.
If we are morally outraged by child rapists, how should we judge a parent who chooses a lifetime of suffering on their own child?
What makes you think that Down syndrome entails a lifetime of suffering? Not from what I’ve read. The same medical science that makes prenatal testing possible can also enhance the lives of men and women with genetic disorders like Down syndrome:
“Today, individuals with Down syndrome are active participants in the educational, vocational, social and recreational aspects of our communities. In fact, there are more opportunities than ever before for individuals with Down syndrome to develop their abilities, discover their talents and realize their dreams. For example, more teens and adults with Down syndrome each year are graduating from high school, going to college, finding employment and living independently.”
http://www1.ndss.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1812&Itemid=95
“It is important to remember that while children and adults with Down syndrome experience developmental delays, they also have many talents and gifts and should be given the opportunity and encouragement to develop them.”
“Most children with Down syndrome have mild to moderate impairments but it is important to note that they are more like other children than they are different. Early Intervention services should be provided shortly after birth. These services should include physical, speech and developmental therapies. Most children attend their neighborhood schools, some in regular classes and others in special education classes. Some children have more significant needs and require a more specialized program.”
“Some high school graduates with Down syndrome participate in post-secondary education. Many adults with Down syndrome are capable of working in the community, but some require a more structured environment.”
http://www.nads.org/pages_new/facts.html
“Most people with Down syndrome have IQ's that fall in the mild to moderate range of retardation. Some are so mildly affected that they live independently and are gainfully employed.”
“The life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has increased substantially. In 1929, the average life span of a person with Down syndrome was nine years. Today, it is common for a person with Down syndrome to live to age fifty and beyond. In addition to living longer, people with Down syndrome are now living fuller, richer lives than ever before as family members and contributors to their community. Many people with Down syndrome form meaningful relationships and eventually marry. Now that people with Down syndrome are living longer, the needs of adults with Down syndrome are receiving greater attention. With assistance from family and caretakers, many adults with Down syndrome have developed the skills required to hold jobs and to live semi-independently.”
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/downsyndrome.cfm#DownSyndrome
“While there is an increased risk for certain medical conditions compared to the general population, advances in medicine have rendered most of these health problems treatable and the majority of people born with Down syndrome today have a life expectancy of approximately 56 years.”
http://www1.ndss.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=12&id=49&Itemid=119
“Many children with Down syndrome have health complications beyond the usual childhood illnesses...However, with appropriate medical care most children and adults with Down syndrome can lead healthy lives. The average life expectancy of individuals with Down syndrome is 55 years, with many living into their sixties and seventies.”
http://www.nads.org/pages_new/facts.html
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