Progressives and eugenics

Thanks very much for the clarity and plain speaking. It was a pleasure to read this post.

It’s not “kinda nonsensical.” It’s completely nonsensical. But it’s one more example of an increasingly popular meme among certain of my less intellectually astute countrymen, so it’s hardly surprising.

There is literally no limit to how far this might go. By November 2008, at least 30% of the American public will be prepared to tell pollsters that yes, they truly believe that Hillary Clinton feasts on the still-beating hearts of children, which she rips out of their chests with her bare claws.

I have two adult children, now in college. In the early 90s, my wife and I had an abortion of a planned pregnancy, because the amnio and followup exams indicated very serious neural tube defects. We were advised that if we continued the pregnancy to term, the child would be missing some parts of the brain (including but not limited to the corpus callosum), and others would be malformed. The high-risk ObGyn and genetic counselor advising us could place no lower bound on the likely cognitive abilities of the child, nor upper bound on how much care it would need. We already had two children and could not justify having to neglect them as much as would be necessary to care for this child. Improvement of the human race was not something that ever occurred to us, nor did it ever play any part in our decision. Love and concern for our two existing children, and for each other were the only considerations.

The point Ross just doesn’t get is that progressives are for personal choice on abortion and so the reason for the abortion is immaterial. The real question should be in which instances do abortions meet with Ross’ approval?

Oh and yes, it’s ridiculous to equate “progressivism” of today with “progressivism” of the past on issues that are completely unrelated to modern progressives(like abortion and eugenics.)

“Her point being that the original Progressives were associated with various ideas that (a) modern self-styled Progressives do not share, and (b) have generally been rejected by mainstream political discourse.”

Right, which is a very strange point considering that Early 20th Century conservatives were also associated with various ideas that modern self-styled conservatives do not share, and have generally been rejected by mainstream political discourse.

It’s like holding David Cameron accountable for the sins of the British Empire.

That being so, do the new Progressives not risk being tainted by or wrongly associated with such ideas? And if so, perhaps another label would be better?

This presumes that there’s some kind of label out there that wouldn’t get everyone to the left of Joe Lieberman smeared as a bunch of amoral monsters by the McArdles and Douthats out there–a presumption that I find laughable.

Have you forgotten the Sacred Conventional Wisdom, Shelby? “Conservatives may do horrible things, but liberals are horrible people.” No one gets anywhere in politics in this country unless and until they internalize this belief.

To avoid the “balls” problem (and “ovaries” while a noble attempt at balance, does not carry the same overtones), may I suggest “gumption”?

Any word starting with “gumpt” can’t be all bad, after all.

P.S. with respect to the actual topic, Douthat is just trying to perpetrate an especially baseless Godwin’s Law violation, and should be treated with appropriate contempt.

ajl,

There’s been a continuity among “conservatives” from the early 20th C to the present; I don’t think (but could be wrong) that there’s any similar tradition linking today’s Progressives to those of 90 years ago. Rather, there’s a modern effort to brand a certain strain of liberalism “Progressive” – to paraphrase Megan, salvaging the name from the dustbin of history – to get away from the “liberal” label. Conservatives are stuck with the history associated with their name; Progressives are choosing a name and gettign stuck with its history.

Uncle Kvetch:

I see various Sacred Conventional Wisdoms (including the precise opposite of yours) in different places. Though I don’t consider myself “liberal” within the meaning of modern American politics, I have never considered it a pejorative term, though of course others do. I’m also not “conservative” in that context, fwiw.

The linkage is a lot less than Douthat is suggesting, but not the near zero-level you seem to be suggesting either.

Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood. She wrote:

Birth control for the individual, for the nation and for the world. We are fighting for the children of the present generation. We are fighting for the children, the women and the men of the next generation. We want a race of thoroughbreds.

and

The main objects of the Population Congress would be:

a. to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population.
b. to increase the population slowly by keeping the birth rate at its present level of fifteen per thousand, decreasing the death rate below its present mark of 11 per thousand.
c. to keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feebleminded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.
d. to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.
e. to insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feebleminded parents, by pensioning all persons with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization.
f. to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.
g. to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.

The first step would thus be to control the intake and output of morons, mental defectives, epileptics.

The second step would be to take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection, and segregate them on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strenghtening and development of moral conduct.

Having corralled this enormous part of our population and placed it on a basis of health instead of punishment, it is safe to say that fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense—defending the unborn against their own disabilities.

The third step would be to give special attention to the mothers’ health, to see that women who are suffering from tuberculosis, heart or kidney disease, toxic goitre, gonorrhea, or any disease where the condition of pregnancy disturbs their health are placed under public health nurses to instruct them in practical, scientific methods of contraception in order to safeguard their lives—thus reducing maternal mortality.

The above steps may seem to place emphasis on a health program instead of on tariffs, moratoriums and debts, but I believe that national health is the first essential factor in any program for universal peace.

With the future citizen safeguarded from hereditary taints, with five million mental and moral degenerates segregated, with ten million women and ten million children receiving adequate care, we could then turn our attention to the basic needs for international peace.

There is Peter Singer’s “Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants” in which he suggests that it is appropriate to euthanize children with treatable diseases like hemophilia if their parents feel they could raise their other children more effectively without the burden.

Oops, the blockquote showed up on the preview. There should be an end quote at “We want a race of thoroughbreds.” That was Sanger.

The next quote on the Population Congress is hers as well. It ends with “we could then turn our attention to the basic needs for international peace.”

Sorry, but Infantile Tay-Sachs and Down Syndrome are completely different cases and mentioning them in the same breath is misleading. The former is indeed ‘medically disastrous’, while the latter is not.

Also, I’m pretty sure Peter Singer can be counted as a ‘modern liberal’, though obviously not all liberals share his views.

novakant: …in the same way as Alex Jones is a “modern liberal”.

Riefenstahl! Riefenstahl! Riefenstahl!

Yes, I think this is a really awkward attempt to tie contemporary choices about reproduction to the eugenicism of “old progressives”. I agree that the associations between early 20th Century progressivism/social reform and various ideologies of social control and state power is an interesting history that is still fairly relevant to consider in the context of later political and social history.

But this is the wrong association. I think Henry is 100% right to say that when people today choose to abort fetuses that have been diagnosed as having various conditions, they’re almost universally making that choice in individual or personal terms, with almost no consideration for the collective biological health of humanity or for genetic outcomes. Everything I’ve ever heard, read or seen about people facing that decision is couched in terms of individual rights and responsibilities: can I, can we handle raising such a child, or can we deal with the emotional devastation of giving birth to a child who will live for only a very short time under conditions of severe disability and pain? None of the discourse I’ve encountered is about “what am I doing to my race? to humanity? to our genetic future?” I’ve never heard of any potential parent in 21st Century North America or Western Europe who has given two shits about those kinds of questions when thinking about the potential decisions they may face after prenatal testing of a fetus.

“I think Henry is 100% right to say that when people today choose to abort fetuses that have been diagnosed as having various conditions, they’re almost universally making that choice in individual or personal terms, with almost no consideration for the collective biological health of humanity or for genetic outcomes. Everything I’ve ever heard, read or seen about people facing that decision is couched in terms of individual rights and responsibilities: can I, can we handle raising such a child, or can we deal with the emotional devastation of giving birth to a child who will live for only a very short time under conditions of severe disability and pain? None of the discourse I’ve encountered is about “what am I doing to my race? to humanity? to our genetic future?””

But that ought not be good enough at a place like CrookedTimber. This is a left-leaning website. The left is fantastic at noticing how ideological institutions use their influence to ‘shape’ individual choice. We see it in discussions here about the wage gap and a woman’s “choice” to raise children rather than pursue a career all the time.

Under the logic very commonly used here by those on the left, Planned Parenthood is clearly such an institution and relevant. Now if you all want to disclaim that style of analysis, I’m happy to go along.

“If someone could point out any real overlap between the leadership of Planned Parenthood of the feminist era and the eugenics movement”

Did you read the rest or did you just stop at the first quote? The Population Congress stuff is straight up eugenics and I quoted almost half of the proposal.

I don’t believe that the progressive/eugenics linkage is all that tight. But it is there–at the very least to a level that would completely satisfy Neiwert if he were talking about fascism and Republicans.

Besides, I can play the same linking game —

Slavery advocate Nathan Bedford Forrest founded the KKK, which disguised itself (poorly) as the CCC, which has been strongly linked with the Republicans’ Washington Times (via its managing editor Fran Coombs, and its editor in chief) and to former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott.

This chain beats Sebastian’s. Unlike Margaret Sanger and the current Planned Parenthood, who don’t exactly see eye to eye about eugenics, the right-wing figures and organizations I’ve listed all share one common trait: they’re all racist.

I don’t believe that the progressive/eugenics linkage is all that tight. But it is there—at the very least to a level that would completely satisfy Neiwert if he were talking about fascism and Republicans.

More Poetic Justice as Fairness.

Funny, I mention Singer and you guys up in arms like James Dobson. I happen to disagree with him on several issues quite strongly, but think he does raise valid questions and so do many of his philosophical colleagues. There is a segment of the left who hate him, but that doesn’t make him any less progressive.

Sebastian–

Holding Singer up as a model progressive is rather strange. Singer is an extreme and committed consequentialist. Sometimes his consequentialism brings him to positions that progressives find congenial, but sometimes it doesn’t.

“Sebastian’s rhetorical move here is an instance of Poetic Justice as Fairness.”

You fail to understand the concept: “Orin Kerr writes: “The Engligh language needs a word for when advocates on both sides of an ongoing debate switch rhetorical positions, and yet they insist on decrying the inconsistency of their opponents while overlooking their own inconsistency.” If prof. Kerr will settle for a phrase, let me suggest ‘poetic justice as fairness’. I know it will never catch on among the non-Rawls joke getting set, but it’s the best I can do. (Actually what I am talking about is a slightly more generic version of what Kerr is talking about.) ‘Poetic justice as fairness’ denotes a vendetta-based, rather than abstract reason-based approach to argument. Dialectic as feud; Hatfields and the McCoys do thesis and antithesis, with stupidity as synthesis. The rule is: if you think your opponent commited a fallacy in the recent past, you are allowed to commit a fallacy. And no one can remember when it started, but the other side started it. It is difficult to break the tragic cycle of intellectual violence once it starts.”

I’m specifically not arguing that progressives should be tarred as embracing eugenics. I’m arguing that the evidence marshalled is

A) stronger if you accept progressive analysis of institutions and ‘personal choice’ than if you accept a more libertarian analysis of personal choice

and

B) that if the move is invalid against progressives, the same move is invalid against conservatives.

A Poetic Justice as Fairness argument would be “because you commit a logical fallacy in linking modern federalists to racism it is fair (not fallacious) for me to link progressives and eugenics.”

I’m not doing that. I’m saying, yes the links are there in both cases, but in neither case should they be considered strong enough or tied to their modern philosophies to tar their respective current incarnations. I point it out now because when I point it out when it is happening around here, it gets a rather different reception than when one of your own oxen is around to be gored.

“I just think you’re making an absurd argument in tying them to a group that has explicitly and sincerely disavowed them for the last fifty years or so. I.e. the “Planned Parenthood of the feminist era.””

Not trying to be snarky, but what are you referring to when you say ‘explicitly’?

A Poetic Justice as Fairness argument would be “because you commit a logical fallacy in linking modern federalists to racism it is fair (not fallacious) for me to link progressives and eugenics.”

I’m not doing that. I’m saying, yes the links are there in both cases, but in neither case should they be considered strong enough or tied to their modern philosophies to tar their respective current incarnations. I point it out now because when I point it out when it is happening around here, it gets a rather different reception than when one of your own oxen is around to be gored.

Shorter Sebastian: “I’m not committing a fallacy, I’m changing the subject.”

You are welcome to believe it is changing the subject. It seems to me like agreement with elaboration, but your mileage may vary.

Theo, I was just a bit astounded at the reflexive disowning of Singer, especially while discussing a problem that can be framed quite well using some of his thoughts, even if one disagrees with his conclusions. I do think that many of his central ideas, (e.g. focus on suffering, questioning of traditional values and identities, ethical universalism and egalitarianism) are genuinely progressive and are hard to square with most forms of conservatism. While I have problems with his consequentialism and utilitarianism, I think they are rooted in a completely different framework than that of libertarians or technocrats. But then I think that neither conservatives nor libertarians have a coherent or even interesting philosophical basis. As for politicians, they are wise not to embrace any philosopher.

“Ha ha, on this logic because progressives think governments should do some things we can say that this tends towards a better argument for tarring progressives for all the bad things governments have ever done, i.e. regardless of the principles behind the actions.”

Hmmm, I don’t think that is similar to what I’m saying. Maybe I’m calling it the wrong thing.

There is a view that it is inappropriate or at least suspect to claim ‘individual choice’ as the reason for people doing things–the specific example that leaps to mind is women staying at home to take care of their children rather than continuing on in their career. This view is that institutions strongly influence the ‘choices’ such that appealing to individual choice doesn’t have sufficient explanatory power to largely explain the choices. (I say ‘largely’ to distinguish it from a trivial “institutions have some influence” view). I have typically thought of this view as “progressive”.

From this analytic view, it isn’t entirely appropriate to try to close out the conversation of aborting diseased or defective fetuses by merely appealing to personal choice when there are institutions that are attempting to exert influence regarding the choice.

Re 44 …people who are choosing to abort after abnormalities are detected are not seeking some eugenic improvement of the gene pool: they are seeking children with a viable future.

But there is no reason to take the latter claim as not being ideologically linked to the former claim. Put differently, aborting children without a viable future is consistent with “improving the gene pool” or ‘improving’ humanity (also part of the eugenics ideology). The macro-ideology of eugenics need not be propagated by a conscious micro-ideology of eugenics.

And children with Down Syndrome have a viable future — indeed, that is part of the problem from the eugenics stand-point.

larger point here:

Douthat, for some reason, has frequently been given a free pass into polite society.

That should end.

He is not an “honest conservative”, or a “reasonable person with right-leaning views”.

He is another right-wing propagandist, no better than Goldberg or Hewitt or Malkin.

“More generally the debate strategy risks being viewed as disingenuous because in general abstraction the claim can’t be falsified by those that happen to think that some institutions affect some choices in some specific ways (i.e. not falsifiable as long as we have institutions and choosers interacting with each other).”

Well right, which is why it is such a difficult argument to deal with the “women choose/are forced to raise children” context. But from the progressive point of view the institutional pressures are considered very very important. (Or at least that is how I read the argument, I’m not always sure I’m getting it right, as I don’t actually buy the argument for the most part). It seems to me that a viewpoint which buys into the idea that institutional influence often trumps personal choice can’t be so dismissive of potential institutional influences on personal choice. So a progressive can’t just say dismiss eugenic links by saying “people aren’t choosing it because of concerns about ‘the race’, they are choosing based on their personal concerns.

For a progressive, many of people’s ‘personal concerns’ end up being shaped by institutional pressure. That pressure may play to eugenic concerns. I think it ultimately works out that Planned Parenthood’s actual eugenic history doesn’t have much to do with it–but from the progressive point of view as I understand it, dismissing the whole inquiry because of personal choices isn’t legit.

A libertarian on the other hand would have no such trouble.

But the objectionable aspect of the eugenics movement was not concern for future generations. Hell, any environmentalist will tell you we need to preserve the environment for future generations. Wanting to improve the lot of future generations is not morally objectionable is it?

The question becomes, when is compulsion justified? The Clean Water Act is compulsory (when enforced). But where do we draw the line? As Oliver Wendell Holmes argued in BUCK v. BELL:

“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

We now draw the line somewhere between compulsory vaccination and involuntary sterilization. Is there a principled reason for doing so?

Novakant, the thing about Singer is that he illustrates how one view really can loom large. Enough of us are disabled or care about disabled people that we simply prefer not to endorse the views of someone who sincerely believes that humanity as a whole would be better off if we’d never been born. Whatever merits there may be in the rest of his arguments, I’ll wait to get them from someone else.

Sebastian knows perfectly well, of course, that one can find prominent federalists and other sorts of conservatives who argued this very year that we have to wall off the US’ southern border to keep out the leprosy-bearing hordes and that the people who made that argument remain welcome guests at big-ticket gatherings, media commentary slots, and the like,w hile you have to look long and hard for anyone in the modern progressive movement who’s got a good word for the early 20th century legacy of left-wing racism. He won’t ever acknowledge it in the midst of this kind of exchange and there’s no point in expecting him to start being honest about it now, but he has been informed about the difference, with documentation, at Obsidian Wings and elsewhere, and he is not arguing in anything like good faith now.

Dsquared, your #14 made me laugh.

There is a view that it is inappropriate or at least suspect to claim ‘individual choice’ as the reason for people doing things… This view is that institutions strongly influence the ‘choices’ such that appealing to individual choice doesn’t have sufficient explanatory power to largely explain the choices… I have typically thought of this view as “progressive”.

From this analytic view, it isn’t entirely appropriate to try to close out the conversation of aborting diseased or defective fetuses by merely appealing to personal choice when there are institutions that are attempting to exert influence regarding the choice.

but that doesn’t mean that “the institutions” (sinister phrase!) are necessarily exerting influence in the way you suggest (“Abort! Improve the gene pool!”) “Institutions” exert influence largely in the things they don’t – and here in Australia, if I am contemplating aborting a baby with profound intellectual disability, for instance, it is because of the lack of support– special education and accommodation in particular– for me as a parent due to the cuts in government spending on such children over the years, and particularly the adults the children may survive to be. Does that make sense?

The historical progressive movement was a generally anti-democratic reformism that began with urban government and expanded from there. Key principles were fostering a uniform national identity, elevating professionalism/credential, constitutional reform, an expanded role of the state, skepticism toward liberal (laissez-faire) economics, and yeah, a biological view of human wellbeing, which did express itself in support for eugenics as well as public health measures, etc.

Key thinkers Jane Addams, early Walter lippman, Herbert Croly, plus of course Wilson and his circle. A mixed bag that doesn’t map easily onto contemporary left-right divisions. In any case there’s not much connection between those progressives and contemporary American left — too little if you listen to Tom Geoghegan.

we simply prefer not to endorse the views of someone who sincerely believes that humanity as a whole would be better off if we’d never been born.

Bruce, I’m not an advocate for Singer, but for including his viewpoints in a discussion in order to get a clearer understanding of what we’re talking about. Singer himself had a mother suffering from Alzheimer and acknowledges that these ethical problems are horribly difficult. Yet such choices are made on a daily basis by doctors, relatives and spouses and I think it’s better to talk about them, than leave them in vagueness.

I’m a bit puzzled, how you would square your view with the case that started off this thread, namely a family or a woman deciding to abort a child for the sole reason that it has e.g. Down Syndrom. Most of the commenters here have argued that it is their free choice to make.

Can someone please tell me what is actually wrong with eugenics ?

All domesticated plants and animals have been selectively bred to make them more productive/socially desirable, what is wrong with applying selective breeding to the human race ? (Its hardly a new idea, I think Plato first suggested it).

Due to advances in genetic engineering / modification, eugenics is once again going to become a big issue, regardless of the ‘immorality’ of selective breeding / sterilization. Its better to talk about it now, rather than declaring eugenics taboo due to some post Nazi hangover.

Marcel wrote: a foetus is potentially, but not yet actually, a child, potentially but not yet actually a human being.

In fact, “fetus” meets the dictionary definition of “child.”

Douthat’s bio says, “it’s pronounced ‘Dow-thut.'” Presumably that means /ˈdaÊŠ θət/. So not at all like “Do that”, since both vowels are different, the “th” is voiceless, and there’s less stress on the final syllable. That could explain the lack of laughter.

But a progressive can’t just dismiss it with “It’s all personal choice”. That isn’t how their arguments work.

Rhetorical moves like this are a lot more plausible when applied to a specific person, rather than to this abstract “progressive” that you’ve constructed as a debating opponent.

Henry, if one were looking for evidence for Sebastian’s argument, one could start with #5 above. Describing the reasons for an abortion, he says “We already had two children and could not justify having to neglect them as much as would be necessary to care for this child.” But of course the amount of “neglect” is not anything that would happen “naturally.” It’s a product of a certain set of social institutions, which privatize the burden of care. See also #62. A society which had truly rejected eugenics wouldn’t have the incentives ours does.

Of course, a society that has those incentives might not rely just on those. No, it might encourage the elimination of defective fetuses in other ways as well. For example, my wife’s OB–a pro-life Catholic–advised her regarding the so-called “triple test.” When she declined (she is strongly pro-life and had no intention to seek an abortion), he made her complete paperwork noting that she had declined. The standard of care, in law, requires that she be offered it. Her refusal marks her as abnormal–so unusual that she needs to complete paperwork protecting the doctor.

If she succumbed to the pressure, it wouldn’t end. A positive test would lead to yet more testing, and more testing, if confirmed, would lead to strong warnings about the difficulties of raising a defective child. Those warnings too are part of the standard of care, legally required.

So this straightforward exercise of free choice is bounded on all sides by law and incentives. Should we be surprised that almost all fetuses with Downs Syndrome are destroyed?

As for your response to Ball, it seems sufficient to note that in some/many cases, the defective fetus is purposefully rejected with the intention to begin another pregnancy–that is, to replace this instance of a defective fetus with a future improved fetus. Isn’t that a direct enough relationship?

“Rhetorical moves like this are a lot more plausible when applied to a specific person, rather than to this abstract “progressive” that you’ve constructed as a debating opponent.”

The argument that a woman’s choice to raise her child at home is strongly influenced by society and that we can’t trust statistics about how many women ‘choose’ it, is widely held by those on the left on this blog and in its comments. In fact the number of people here who would disagree with that statement seems vanishingly small. I’m not setting up a strawman.

Do you personally disagree with it?

The argument that a woman’s choice to raise her child at home is strongly influenced by society and that we can’t trust statistics about how many women ‘choose’ it, is widely held by those on the left on this blog and in its comments. In fact the number of people here who would disagree with that statement seems vanishingly small. I’m not setting up a strawman.

What you’re doing is changing the subject, from “Is Douthat justified in his smear against those who call themselves ‘progressives’?” (not me, I still prefer “liberal”), to “Did someone else who might call him or herself a progressive make an argument somewhere that’s something like what Douthat might say to justify his smear?”

It’s a cheap rhetorical trick, and it’s not a game I’m inclined to play. But, if you really insist on an admission, I’d find a simplistic argument like the one you’re presenting rather dubious. I don’t know whether any actual Timberite or commenter has made precisely such an argument, because the sociology of child-raising is not really my area of interest.

But if you can dig up something Henry, or anyone else participating in this thread, has actually said on the topic, it’s perfectly fair to quote his or her actual words and compare them to the justification you’re offering for Douthat’s smear. But don’t put words in the mouth of your “progressive” and pretend you’ve pointed out the hypocrisy of everyone who finds Douthat’s comparison insulting.

Freeze-fried Jesus on a biscuit, what is the problem? Folks hook up, do the usual, check it out, and OMG there is a problem. Folk with lousy mental hygiene freak out and leave it to their god(s) or their pastors or faith-givers to decide.

Most of the rest of us tend to feel personally responsible and act accordingly.

Re #50,

Third, it is clear that Douthat and others are using the eugenic aspect to push an anti-choice agenda. But that doesn’t mean that there are not serious ethical issues about abortion to be asked, including the moral status of declaring certain lives not worth living. Anti-abortion and pro-abortion advocates both approach the issue in an a-philosophical if not anti-philosophical manner.

that’s a fairly standard misrepresentation of the sides in the abortion debate. The other side to anti-abortion isn’t pro-abortion, it’s pro-choice – the point being that the woman has the choice, not the state, not the church, not other people. So your “ethical issues” are for the woman, not outsider bloggers and commentators. If you’ve missed that, then you’ve missed the fundamental point of pro-choice advocacy.

Well, novakant, I was replying to c.l.ball not to you, on his framing of anti/pro-abortion.

Despite all the references to the institutional framework, no one seems to have mentioned one of the key institutional changes there has been: the disappearance of the ‘orphanage’/’asylum’. Not that long ago (fifty years or less maybe?) the assumption would be that parents who had a ‘damaged’ child would place them in some such institution and no longer have primary responsibility for their care. Indeed, not to put one’s ‘mongol’ child in such a place could be regarded as bizarre behaviour. The changed assumption (in much of the West) that parents who voluntarily choose to break their ties with their own children through institutionalisation (or also adoption) are acting unnaturally or wrongly makes the whole calculus of deciding whether or not to have an abortion very different. I would have considered an abortion if my child was likely to be severely disabled, not because I thought such a child was inferior, but because I doubted my own capacity for lifelong care of such a child. If people are choosing abortions for eugenic reasons, they would regard parents who choose to raise severely disabled children as ‘species traitors’. Instead, I suspect most regard them as heroic, while feeling unable to emulate them.

First off, yipes”! My sentence at #50 should have read: Also, most forms of Down Syndrome are not hereditary, and parents with Down Syndrome do NOT automatically have children with the syndrome.

Henry, I’m not saying that there is a “plausible causal chain between the classic eugenics ideology described by Douthat” because I think Douthat get the classic eugenics ideology wrong! Pro-abortion progressives are not engaged in project aimed at improving the genetic quality of humanity. He is dead wrong on that.

I do believe, however, there is a plausible but not exclusive or certain causal chain between the macro-claim that ‘pregnancies that will result in children with abnormal life prospects should be aborted for the good of societal well-being’ and the micro-claim that ‘I don’t want to assume responsibility for a child that has Down Syndrome or abandon such a child to a defective foster-care system, or burden another family with such a child; it would be better if such a child were never born.’ I said they were consistent and not necessary. And sure people do get offended when they seen their personal reasoning as connected to a repugnant or silly ideology; the question is, what is their personal reasoning linked to?

What I find interesting about this debate is how do we establish standards for linking macro-ideologies to micro-beliefs?

It struck me as odd that your standard was that since individuals seeking abortions don’t think about improving the gene pool they are not influenced by broader eugenicist ideologies. Few argue that 19th century workers went to work saying, “Today I’m going to hove my labor exploited by capitalism” or that capitalists did so either. But we don’t use that as an argument against capitalist ideologies.

Re Katherine #86, I accept that their are individuals (like me) who hold a pro-choice ideology like the one you describe (I choose not to have an abortion; others may choose to, and the state should not intervene) but the organized pro-abortion movements advocates the every accessible provision of abortion services in ways that they don’t for other autonomy issues. It is more than reserving for an individual the right to choose. Likewise, the organized pro-life movements spend little time pushing for expanded foster-care and a lot of time opposing abortion laws. If they were pro-life, they could devote more resource to advocating birth as the preferred choice over abortion. But I’m not sure how that’s relevant to this debate.

It should be pointed out that selective medical abortions barely make a difference to the “end” of reducing disability in society. While it is true that particular genetic defects, like non-disjunction (under which Down’s syndrome falls) are easily spotted, they make up a small percentage of disabilities, most of which present themselves after birth.

Selective medical abortions are not exclusively about reproductive freedom, but also about the freedom to raise “normal” children. Pro-choice advocates, sometimes, invoke a fear of the abnormal fetus in defense of reproductive rights, a fear which is grounded in discrimation against people with disabilities. Such advocacy plus medical literature from institutions and government health services, the pressure of lawsuits upon the birth of infants with prenatally testable conditions, and exclusion of benefits for individuals with pre-existing conditions could be interpreted as coercion.

I wonder what the early 19th century eugenics movement would look like if modern prenatal genetic testing and abortion procedures were available then. Perhaps it would look somewhat like China, today, where modern technologies are incorporated into classic eugenics programs with a mix of forced sterilization and abortion. On the other hand, there are many countries, particularly in Europe, but also including the US, where institutional sterilization is banned, but where parent-doctor decisions about sterilization of disabled minors are still practiced (mostly on females) with the “comfort” and “interests” of the child in mind, involving society’s ideas about sexuality in people with disabilities.

The connection between eugenics and abortion is very thin, but still there in a framework of disability rights. There is academic literature related to this subject from women like Anne Finger and Tanis Doe.

My post #92 was ill-written in the latter paragraphs:

Henry’s argument that if individuals seeking abortions don’t think consciously about eugenic ideologies that their beliefs are not influenced by eugenicist ideologies. Few would argue that 19th century workers went to work saying, “Today I’m going to have my labor exploited by capitalism” or that capitalists thought “today I will exploit the surplus value of labor.” But that does not mean that capitalist ideologies did not cause their behaviors.

Re Katherine #86, I accept that their are individuals (like me) who hold a pro-choice ideology like the one you describe (I choose not to have an abortion; others may choose to, and the state should not intervene) but the organized pro-abortion movements advocate provision of abortion services in ways that they don’t for other philosophically comparable autonomous-choice issues.It is more than reserving for an individual the right to choose. Likewise, the organized anti-abortion movements spend little time pushing for expanded foster-care and a lot of time pushing for legal bans on abortions. If they were really pro-life, they would devote more resources to advocating birth as the preferred choice over abortion. But I’m not sure how that’s relevant to this debate over macro-micro ideologies or meaning of eugenics.

This is not a plain abortion rights pro or con debate. Terminating an unwanted-because-it-was-unplanned pregnancy is not an issue here, and that choice cannot be linked to eugenics ideology (e.g., “I’m 13 and don’t want a child; I’m 30 and single and don’t want a child; I was raped; we’re happily married and don’t want a child). The eugenics-related issue arises only when people want a child but don’t want a particular kind of child.

Can someone please tell me what is actually wrong with eugenics ?

A lot of it was simply based on bad science–we simply didn’t understand heredity back in the early years of the last century as well as we do today. A lot of early eugenics was tinged with racism, too, which in the bad old days was regarded in many quarters as having a scientific basis. We’re not as prepared to say blue eyes = good, black skin = bad.

Some of the basic ideas behind eugenics wouldn’t be controversial today–most people would agree that if you know your genetic makeup is such that
your biological children are at high risk for developing a horrible disease, maybe you should think about adoption.

We’re less prepared to use the powers of the state to coerce people in their reproductve choices than some of the old eugenicsts were. This is where Douthat has it exactly backwards–under Roe v Wade, a statute mandating abortions of Down Syndrome babies would be unconstitutional. The constitutional right of privacy reserves this area for personal choice, not government policy.

Ultimately, if “progressivism” means anything, it means that progressives believe in progress, in change for the better. A progressive is therefore not at all surprised to find that progressives of the early years of the last century held ideas that we now regard as mistaken–that’s progress for you. Only conservatives think that changing your ideas in light of new information is a bad thing.

Sebastian, we’ve been over this.

rea, I think I disagree with some of that.

First, I’m not sure that we are “less prepared to use the powers of the state to coerce people in their reproductve choices than some of the old eugenicsts were.” I think there’s plenty of coercion in the current eugenics program. Further, remember that not all choices are equally respected. The elimination of fetuses with Downs Syndrome is uncontroversial, but the creation of a fetus likely to be deaf or with dwarfism is much more controversial. We shouldn’t pretend that both courses are equally secure.

Second, recall that those favoring a constitutional right to abortion in the US now describe the right as based in sex equality. (See, e.g., Ginsburg’s dissent in the most recent Supreme Court abortion case, in which she notes that “legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.”) Given that a law mandating the abortion of a fetus with Downs Syndrome wouldn’t in any way implicate societal sex equality (that is, women a class wouldn’t be disadvantaged in their pursuit of equality in society by such a law), there would be no constitutional bar.

I think the compulsory abortion issue is a distraction from the ethical questions raised by voluntary quasi-eugenic decisions. First, abortion rights groups defend their moral position by claims to autonomy beyond what USSC legal philosophy recognizes. Second, Ginsberg’s dissent in Carhart does not repudiate general autonomy claims, which the court distinguished in Casey from privacy claims. Rather it notes the linkage between reproductive autonomy and equality to counter arguments that women need to be protected from post-abortion regret or “anguish” at the nature of late-term abortions, which the majority argues (see p.29). In other words, the court implies absurdly that women are incapable of truly making such a decision. This i paternalism of the most wicked kind.

S. Holsclaw: “It offers no basis for discovering which ‘progress’ ought to be adopted and which ‘progress’ should be rejected.”
That’s a far more substantial issue than Sebastian’s superficial dismissing makes it seem.
Much of the “enlightened” ethical posturing taken by non-religious folks who derive their morals from logic and rational prediction gets its initial push from right there.
So that things whose outcomes are not predictable are marginalized in import or accepted as is and continued by default. Thus the automobile. With its supposedly unforeseen byproducts and their surprising harm.
What else can we do, unable to see the future?
Unless maybe we can. Or someone can, and will tell us.
Trying to get info from outside the system is one of the crazy-making parts of religious endeavor. And yet there’s all those stories, and a few examples.
Killing the tyrant in his nursery would be the thought problem. Creating an alternate historical path. “Wet work” with the most humanitarian of goals.
Eugenics is seen as wet work by its opponents, as is abortion by its, whereas programs that preserve social mores, like the legal system, even when they have consequent penalties that involve being cut out of the breeding mix for years, are not. But things like that have direct biological effects, hard to track and impossible to defend because they’re indistinct, but they’re there, determined by what’s here. We came from that.
We have a passive eugenic operating right now. People are shoved to the margins and over the side every hour of the day. Adjusting the parameters of that is all we can mess with, as long as people are mortal we’re going to shape ourselves by how we live, one way or another.
What’s needed for a really successful eugenic campaign – success being the fullest possible development of human potential in all its measure – is a template that has as its everyman-locus something beyond the projected solipsism of its originators.
Religion says it puts that question in the hands of its invisible monarchs. Rationalists mostly just refuse to let go of the reins.
There’s a hope behind the “progress” of the “progressives” Holsclaw impugns, a hope that good intentions and forethought may be enough for us to muddle through, and that muddling through may be enough to carry us forward. Toward what is left unlimned, rightly I think, because somewhere up there is a creature whose relation to us is as ours is to the scuttling four-legged things that first suckled their young, yet it comes through what we are to get there.
We don’t hold each other to account for what what we do does to what’s up that far ahead, because at best it’s open-ended, and because it’s immeasurable and vague, and because nothing about it can withstand the demanding glare of immediate reason.
Yet that’s the whole point of eugenics, and social welfare programs, and in personal effect, abortion. Making things better – family lives, society, the race. Progressives answer these vague questions with a fundamental “The greatest good for the greater number” – but when do we count that number, today or tomorrow? How far ahead are we responsible for what happens?

Agrees because it is the social convention to. I’ve known and worked for people who would employ the starving at starvation wages if it was doable.
Practically everyone agrees slavery was wrong except WalMart and all the other corporate monoliths that would/do happily employ pods of coerced and essentially unrewarded “slaves” as long as there were/are no legal comebacks. The assumption is WalMart and the men and women who run it and the other enterprises like it are some kind of minority and exception. Numerically yes but psychologically I’m not so sure.
My point above was that the things we can decide rationally are given the most attention because of that, but that that same hierarchy doesn’t parallel what’s going to prove to have been most important over time. Feeding the hungry is an immediate good without question but it can easily lead to worse disasters later without larger more complex adjustments, some of which aren’t going to be immediately rationally available. This doesn’t mean don’t do it, it means we need to keep that in mind.

From the vantage point of 200 years we can agree that abolition was progress. (Despite what some have said here I am willing to stick my neck out and bet money that noone will come on here and argue for bringing back slavery.) This shows that the question of whether or not some controversial event represents “progress” is not indeterminate, although it may be hotly contested: like many legal questions, although both sides can be argued there is ultimately a right answer. So calling something “progress” is not meaningless.

Of course modern day progressives have an understanding of progress which is controversial. That’s what distinguishes them as progressives. Similarly, liberals define themselves by adopting a controversial understanding of liberty. Progressives claim that their judgments of what is progess–eg. that US health care reform is progress whereas legalising torture is not–like that of the abolitionists, will be vindicated by history. As a conservative, Sebastian is perfectly entitled to dismiss their views as a “conceit”, but then he runs the risk of being made an ass of by history.

What strikes me as odd is that if I say I’m pro-gun, pro-gambling or pro-alcohol, no one assumes that I mean everyone has to own a gun, gamble or booze. It means I want people to be able to choose to do those things.

But re the quote. The organized pro-abortion, or reproductive freedom, movement (which is a better term overall since it encompasses not just abortion but contraception and family size) focuses not just on preserving the legal right to choose but on providing free or subsidized access to elective abortions (i.e., not pregnancies due to rape or that threaten the woman’s health). Opposing such funding is termed “anti-choice.” There’s nothing wrong with advocating such a position as a matter of policy, but it is not fundamental to being pro or anti choice qua choice.

NARAL Pro-Choice, cited above, is not claiming that women are unable to make their choices by legislative or social coercion but that there are too few abortions provided given the demand. They quote: “A study by The Guttmacher Institute shows that Medicaid-eligible women in states that exclude abortion coverage have abortion rates of about half of those women in states that fund abortion care with their own dollars. This suggests that the Hyde amendment forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” (emph. added)

Medicaid does not cover voluntary cosmetic surgery. People who are considered and consider themselves to be ugly, but not due to any disease or injury, certainly have their quality of life and ability to advance their life-courses impaired, and they would “forced” to forgo such surgery since Medicaid does not fund it. Since fetuses are not persons and if they are merely part of the woman’s body, over which she has autonomy, then elective abortion is similar to elective cosmetic surgery — both are voluntary changes to one’s body.

I imagine that some abortion supporters might find this comparison trivializing,* but if you want to consider the ontological status of fetuses seriously, it is not. Why is removing a fetus different given that it is not a person and is part of one’s body? Sure it has a potential to be a person in the way that nasal cartilage does not (so far), but that makes the fetus different than other parts of one’s body. That possibly unique property is what brings up such difficult philosophical questions — ones that both the pro and anti abortion movements tend to elide.

There are real consequences to having insufficient funds to pay for medical procedures, and there is nothing wrong with advocating choice and subsidized abortions. But supporting the former opposing the latter does not make one anti-choice.

* Abortion opponents could too, since I’m saying that the fetus is like nasal cartilage.

Of course it’s fundamental to being anti-choice. If people can’t afford to do something, then they don’t have a “choice” whether or not to do it.

since fetuses are not persons and if they are merely part of the woman’s body, over which she has autonomy, then elective abortion is similar to elective cosmetic surgery

Ummm no, because a foetus will develop into a human being, which will then be the responsibility of the parent. Therefore preventing a women from having an abortion will have far more serious consequences for her than preventing her form having a nose-job. Obviously.

I’m not sure if someone else in this long, long thread pointed it out but: from a eugenics perspective, aborting Downs syndrome fetuses has exactly zero impact. They are sterile in any case, and there is NO prospect of it being passed on. Downs syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality, resulting from trisomy of chromosome 21, and thus there is no possibility of improving the gene pool by aborting fetuses with Downs.

Engels wrote:

“From the vantage point of 200 years we can agree that abolition was progress. (Despite what some have said here I am willing to stick my neck out and bet money that noone will come on here and argue for bringing back slavery.) This shows that the question of whether or not some controversial event represents “progress” is not indeterminate, although it may be hotly contested: like many legal questions, although both sides can be argued there is ultimately a right answer.”

No. Even if the premise that a retrospective consensus constitutes an infallible moral judgement on the contested issue of slavery is granted, this isn’t even an argument that all contested issues will have such a resolution. And beyond that is the problem of determining beforehand what such a resolution will be. So you have entire layers of problems here, including:

1) Showing that retrospective consensus on a moral judgement is infallible. No, pointing to particular examples that no one may wish to dispute is not adequate for this.

2) Even if you could establish 1, showing that all contested problems will eventually fall under such a consensus, which is necessary to justify your unqualified statement that: “there is ultimately a right answer”, as opposed to “there may ultimately be a right answer”.

3) Even if you could establish 2, showing that we have sufficient knowledge of the future to ascertain its judgements in support of controversies now.

All three of these layers of objection hold, even if there are objective moral truths.

Thomas, I think this is another case of an objection to a position that may exist, but does not, or not significantly. It may be that NARAL does not have an explicit position on government funding of child-care (I’m sure they do not oppose it), but, if so, it is because they are an issue-specific group, part of whose rationale is to advocate for positions in isolation. The feminist movement as a whole has been quite vocal about wanting more government support for child rearing by poor woman. It is a harder rock to push politically, but that is a function of the resistance to their position, not to the position. I would grant that any feminist organization that opposed public subsidies for child-care, but supported them for abortion, would be open to the objection you raise, but I’ve never heard of one. Have you?

No, Martin, I did not claim any of those things, nor do I need to. My position honestly isn’t as stupid as you think it is and I’m afraid I just don’t have the patience to explain it anymore when it seems from your comments here and on the other thread you are unwilling or unable to read what I write with any charity.

Thomas: I don’t see the contradiction. The principle seems to be that people’s decisions in serious medical matters should not (within reason) be influenced by their personal financial circumstances. I don’t see an obvious inconsistency in someone believing that, while believing that it is okay for decisions about other aspects of life (eg. how many children to have) to be influenced in this way.

Engels,

OK, we can agree to disagree. No problem. I would like to point out that when you call someone’s comments “vapid po-moid claptrap” (from the other thread. I think this was addressed at least partly to me), your subsequent comments might get less charitable readings than otherwise. In any case, I hope any further dialog between us will remain polite and charitable. By the way, nothing I said in that thread or this is specific to postmodern theory.

If anyone else is interested, here is the other thread he is talking about:

https://crookedtimber.org/2007/07/24/jacob-levy-doesnt-like-progressives/

I would like to point out that when you call someone’s comments “vapid po-moid claptrap” (from the other thread. I think this was addressed at least partly to me), your subsequent comments might get less charitable readings than otherwise.

Martin, are you telling me that because I offended you–by not taking sufficiently seriously your, ahem, radical insight that it is “impossible to know” whether the life of an average modern-day US citizen is better than that of a medieval galley slave–you are now to going to deliberately misread everything I write from now on as a form of punishment? Just so I know what to expect…

For example, above I took your assertion that “ultimately there is a right answer” at face value, and showed that it was an invalid generalization. Now, it is possible that what you were really thinking is “there may be a right answer”, and if I were bending over backwards to be charitable, I could assume you were thinking that and soften your statement to remove the logical hurdle (hurdle #2), though I think this would do less justice to what you actually said than the interpretation I took. It would just replace the hurdle with another one, though: if only some contested positions have such ultimate right answers, how do you tell when current controversies fall into that category?

Martin’s point 3 is the crux of the issue for me:

“3) Even if you could establish 2, showing that we have sufficient knowledge of the future to ascertain its judgements in support of controversies now.”

Calling yourself ‘progressive’ does nothing to show that you are on the side that history will judge was correct.

Btw I wouldn’t call myself a “progressive” and I do have some reservations as regards the traditional idea of progress. But many of the arguments made against it on this thread and the last one have been remarkably weak, imo. I don’t want to spend another whole thread defending it, and I certainly don’t want to get dragged into another discussion about moral relativism, so I shall try to leave it there.

#133 #134 slipped in. Now, Engels, that is a much more modest and nuanced statement of your position than you have been putting forth. I can even agree with much of it. I do think we tend as a species to have too much rather than too little confidence in our moral judgments. IOW, taking the “judgment of history” as a yardstick, I think there are more historical situations we would regard people, in hindsight, as having been overconfident that their moral judgments were correct than underconfident. With that caveat, though, I too would like to see an enforceable ban on torture. By the way, torture was formally abolished by European governments in the 19th century, and its actual use declined during that period as well. From “The Fall and Rise of Torture: A Comparative and Historical Analysis, CHRISTOPHER J. EINOLF, University of Virginia
”

“While exact statistics on the historical prevalence of torture cannot be determined,
the available evidence suggests that torture decreased in Europe during the 18th and
19th centuries, as it came to be legally abolished throughout the continent, and then
increased greatly in the 20th century. Elsewhere in the world, torture either remained
high or increased from the 19th century to the 20th.
”

http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/June07STFeature.pdf

Well, I’ve heard that one before, but if you don’t like whining, don’t whine that I’m not reading you charitably enough.

Martin – How can I put this succinctly? Oh yes: fuck off.