| > They mention it in the article but we should really be calling this what it really is, 21st century eugenics. No, we shouldn't call it that because that's not what it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics > In this period, people from across the political spectrum espoused eugenic ideas. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies, intended to improve the quality of their populations' genetic stock. Such programs included both positive measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly "fit" to reproduce, and negative measures, such as marriage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people deemed unfit for reproduction. Those deemed "unfit to reproduce" often included people with mental or physical disabilities, people who scored in the low ranges on different IQ tests, criminals and "deviants", and members of disfavored minority groups. The key element, here, is that eugenics involves the state controlling the rights of the individual to reproduce in the first place. In this case we're dealing with the exact opposite: providing additional information in support of a person's right to make a decision about whether they shouldn't reproduce. I would make the claim that, given a positive test for a genetic disorder, forcing a person to bring that fetus to term is in fact far closer to the troubling elements of the eugenics movement--a direct intervention by the state in a person's reproductive decisions--than the current situation. |