Note to this dude’s family members: Guard your health. If you don’t–he’ll take you on a cruise only to pitch you overboard. Something about people who are not self-sufficient requiring too much “constant care and supervision.” What a classy guy.
So in the anti-abortion advocate’s eyes, a parent’s desire to raise healthy children by squelching unhealthy fetuses while the are still in the womb is little more than a pernicious quest, but it is not considered a pernicious quest to knowingly bring severely disabled children into this world. On the contrary, such a choice is held out as an great example of upstanding morality.
Um, yes, you got it. It is upstanding morality to care for the weak and disabled.
This group “The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism” says they are “dedicated to advancing individual rights and economic freedom through Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.”
They might want to update the mission statement: “Dedicated to advancing the individual rights of healthy folks…” “economic freedom for self sufficient types” etc. I’d be happy to help them toward greater accuracy.
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Update: The words above are the “upclass” version of this. You can pretend to be erudite to conceal your contempt, or you can just make a t-shirt. (Quoting Kathy Shaidle on this one: “Stay classy, liberal America!”)
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Véronique adds: Hmmm, you know what I find “interesting”? I have recently been reading several Human Rights Tribunal proceedings through my day job. Regardless of what you think about the CHRT, all I will say is that there are some pretty messed up individuals out there. Anyway. Reading the quote from Andrea’s post reminded me of a lot of sample hate material dealt with by the tribunal. Except that you replace “severely disabled” by “blacks” or “jews” or “gays.” Now, you would never get away with that. But it is worth remembering, when arguing for “the rule of reason,” that you can make a reasonnable case for eliminating just about anyone on the planet. Well, except yourself of course. Because we all know that were everybody like me, the world would be a much better place. Lonelier too.
Update: I was looking for something on the National Post website when I stumbled upon this video http://www.nationalpost.com/multimedia/video/player.html?video=71742a12-b27c-4a66-a6e5-f49bf9e7c4da
At some point toward the end the mother comments about a letter-writer who posted a comment to the effect that had her daughter been a dog, she would have been put down by now.
So yeah. All this to say: there are some pretty sick people ou there. And I’m not referring to Kenadie.
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It is disheartening to hear people equate the “worth” of an individuals’ existence, to how much it will cost society to keep them alive and/or healthy. The author of this web-link (Nicholas Provenzo) talks about a parents’ decision to bring a disabled child into the world as: “they are essentially stranding the cost of their child’s life upon others.”
The issue could then be raised that any medical expenses that can be anticipated and avoided – should be.
Thus we should euthanize all those who continue smoking (get them now, while they are healthy, before they drain the medical system and taxpayer money). What about those who recklessly sit on the beach and tan or get sunburns? The cost of treating their melanoma will be paid for by all of us. Athletes are bound to wreck their knees and joints and backs, etc. Should we merely ban all sports? Or euthanize the athlete the instant they tear their first ligament? These are all medical expenses that are anticipated. Why, then, does Provenzo only propose that the unborn are ineligible to have medical expenses allotted towards their treatment?
His opinion that these children offer only “marginal productivity” to society while needing constant care and supervision, is short-sighted. Imagine if Stephen Hawking’s parents could have foretold that he would spend the vast majority of his life wheelchair-bound and physically crippled? They would not have also been able to predict that he would be a brilliant scientist. As Provenzo posits, they might only have inferred marginal productivity in conjunction with his huge drain on medical expenses.
I would argue that the expense dedicated to maintaining Hawkings’ life may be more worthwhile than any expended on the life of Nicholas Provenzo. I guess they’re not going to ask me to join the Eugenics society anytime soon, huh?
One of the interesting and perhaps beneficial things that have come from Sarah Palin’s presence on the election circuit is that it has drawn the silent eugenists and bigots out from hiding.
Their thoughts and words are so full of vile and hatred that they clearly reveal themselves for what they are and help us to understand the truth behind the “search and destroy” aggressive genetic networks in Canada.
I don’t believe that the undercurrents of this movement is a friendly health ministry offering choice based on unbiased information and consent. It is much uglier than that.
Veronique what you wrote reminded me of this:
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Pastor Martin Niemöller, a survivor of Dachau Nazi concentration camp
Most libertarians used to pass over questions concerning the morality of aboriton, out of respect for the conservatives and tradionalists with whom they maintained an alliance on the broader political front. Sentiments like this confirm the view that libertarians, seeing no use for such an alliance today, have no qualms about defending a complete abortion licensce.
Nicholas Provenzo wrote:
“A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves.”
and later said:
“In this light, it is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept.”
Now, he has not yet challenged the assumption that the foetus is a child. He may be willing to grant that the foetus is human (and perhaps even a person) from conception onward. Yet if parents have an obligation to provide for their children and if that child comes into existence at conception, then how could it be the case that such an obligation not apply while the child is in utero?
Provenzo is simply mistaken in thinking that only those obligations that are voluntarily accepted are morally binding. The law is replete with cases in which parents have been held to be responsible for maintaining a child’s well-being, even though they did not voluntarily cede to such duties (think of statutes that require fathers to pay child support).
Moreover, what, on libertarian grounds, prevents parents from cancelling their obligations *after* they decide to have children? For Provenzo, what counts as burdensome is a matter of the parent’s perception (“for many, that opportunity for challenge is little more than a lifetime of endless burden.”). Suppose a woman gives birth to a child with Down Syndrome, agreeing to accept the obligation of child-rearing, but later decides that the obligation is too burdensome in her case. Would she now be within her rights to abandon the child? We should hope not.
First, Nick Provenzo has responded to the many misrepresentations of his views in a followup post at:
http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2008/09/fundamental-right-to-abortion.htm
Second, I’m going to speak up to support Nick Provenzo’s *moral* defense of the 90% of women who have learned that their fetus has DS and who eventually chose to abort.
If a woman takes a serious look at the consequences for her life of having an abortion vs. raising that child, and she decides that an abortion would best foster her happiness in the full context of her life, then that is her legal right. And more importantly, she would also be making the *morally* right choice for herself.
Of course, if a woman chooses to have the DS child, that is her right and I genuinely hope that things work out as well as possible for the child and the family.
But to uphold the 10% women who choose to have the DS child as automatically morally superior to the 90% who choose to abort is wrong.
Those women who have made the difficult decision to abort do not deserve to be tarred with the label “murderer” for choosing their own happiness. And anyone who would attempt to saddle those women with an unearned guilt should be ashamed of themselves.
Paul, why is a pregnant woman’s happiness (or anyone’s happiness, for that matter) an over-riding consideration, one that trumps an unborn child’s right to life? Your defense of the moral permissibility of aborting DS children consists of nothing but an appeal to some pre-political, natural right to be happy. But surely one’s right to be happy must give way to another’s right to life, if both rights conflict.
Of course, you probably deny that unborn children have a right to life. Yet that is exactly what us pro-lifers are affirming (and is thus the key premise you should be challenging).
We pro-lifers do not deny that our society might be made better off if a cure were found for Down Syndrome. So, in that sense, we might be happier when that cure is discovered. But the aim of improving our welfare surely cannot justify terminating the lives of those that have Down Syndrome *now*.
Paul makes the point that: “If a woman takes a serious look at the consequences for her life of having an abortion vs. raising that child, and she decides that an abortion would best foster her happiness in the full context of her life, then that is her legal right. And more importantly, she would also be making the *morally* right choice for herself.”
If everyone always did what they wanted so that it fostered happiness for themselves, at the expense of someone else, how inordinately selfish, chaotic and lawless the entire world would be. In addition, it is one of the faults of our era that people say things like “morally right for her”. There is no such thing as morally right “for her”. It is morally right. Or it is not. If you kill another person, unless it is to defend an *immediate* danger to your own life (not just your happiness), then society calls that murder. Committing murder just to foster happiness has never been condoned.
Oh yeah. Except when the victim is an innocent. And the feminists cloak it under the auspice of “choice”.