Modern Eugenics

There is a discussion at Catholic Answers about comments that Richard Dawkins has made about eugenics. Dawkins has a point. We have a eugenic culture which only differs from Nazi Germany by degree and subtlety. Remember, for the Nazis, eugenics was seen as a medical program. Not all aspects of their eugenic doctrine were racial, especially in regards to children. These days, the proposed solution for many genetic illness has been eugenic abortions. I appreciate opponents like Dawkins and Singer because they don’t hide the implications of modern secular philosophies. The following is from an article earlier this year in American Spectator about our quiet eugenics.

The New Eugenics
Medical researchers estimate that 80 percent or more of babies now prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. (They estimate that since 1989 70 percent of Down-syndrome fetuses have been aborted.) A high percentage of fetuses with cystic fibrosis are aborted, as evident in Kaiser Permanente's admission to the New York Times that 95 percent of its patients in Northern California choose abortion after they find out through prenatal screening that their fetus will have the disease.

"I THINK OF IT AS COMMERCIAL EUGENICS," says Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the International Center for Technology Assessment. "Whenever anybody thinks of eugenics, they think of Adolf Hitler. This is a commercial eugenics. But the result is the same, an intolerance for those who don't fit the norm. It is less open and more subtle. Try to get any numbers on reproductive issues. Try to get actual numbers on sex-selection abortions. They are always difficult to get. If you are involved in that commerce, do you really want people to go: So you aborted how many disabled children? That's the last piece of information people want out there."

The self destructing mind

Orthodoxy
That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of thenext generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea,so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinkingby teaching the next generation that there is no validity in anyhuman thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative ofreason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It isan act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation toreality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooneror later ask yourself the question, "Why should ANYTHING go right;even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be asmisleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of abewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to thinkfor myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says,"I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON

Gay Fatherhood or Donorhood?

An interesting story in the NYT Magazine on gay men having children with lesbian couples.
Gay Donor or Gay Dad?

In an effort to become a parent of a sort, R., who is gay, agreed, 11 years ago, to donate sperm to a lesbian couple aspiring to pregnancy. A few years before, R. became friendly with a woman — white and upper class like himself — through the gay activist world. They weren’t good friends, he said, “just friendly.” The woman had a partner, a middle-class black woman, whom R. knew less well but who seemed solid.

As usual on the subject of marriage and parenting, the folks at Family Scholars Blog have a few interesting comments.

I have a couple of thoughts but I’m too tired, good night:)

Re: Singer

More on that interview with Singer:

In his book Writings on an Ethical Life, he says: “The more intellectually sophisticated non-human animals have a mental and emotional life that in every significant respect equals or surpasses that of some of the most profoundly intellectually disabled human beings. This is not my subjective value judgement. It is a statement of fact that can be tested and verified over and over again. Only human arrogance can prevent us from seeing it.”

I disagree. Singer never defines intellectually sophisticated. Mere alertness is not intellect. No one has yet demonstrated any animal other than human beings capable of abstract thinking and reasoning.



Often the families say, ‘we don’t want them kept alive,’ so what you could say is we agree they shouldn’t be kept alive indefinitely but since you’ve made the decision that it’s better that they have fluids and food withdrawn so they die, maybe we could keep them alive for another month or two to do some research that could save millions of lives potentially, and then allow them to die.”

Singer doesn’t back away from the implications of his ideas.

Singer asserts. “If we close off compassion for any sentient beings, we’re not necessarily going to feel it for all humans; we’ll regard some categories of humans as beyond the pale as well.”

Yet, he doesn’t see the contradiction. Singer is open to compassion for all but still ends up regarding some categories of human beings (the pre-born, infants and those with brain damage) beyond the pale.

Gotta get somethin out of dem brain damaged folks

My favorite supportive of infanticide continues to amaze. In the never ending quest for equality, Singer is in the van guard in his fight against speciism. In this interview, he recommends using brain damaged people for HIV research rather than chimpanzees.

And dig the title of this interview, “An Ethical Man”

Thanks to Wesley Smith at Secondhand Smoke (a must read for bioethics) for the tip.

Another Success for Adult Stem Cells

From Time Magazine:
Stem cell injections worked remarkably well at easing symptoms of muscular dystrophy in a group of golden retrievers, a result that experts call a significant step toward treating people.
"It's a great breakthrough for all of us working on stem cells for muscular dystrophy," said researcher Johnny Huard of the University of Pittsburgh, who wasn't involved in the work. Sharon Hesterlee, vice president of translational research at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, called the result one of the most exciting she's seen in her eight years with the organization. Her organization helped pay for the work. She stressed that it's not yet clear whether such a treatment would work in people, but said she had "cautious optimism" about it.

Two dogs that were severely disabled by the disease were able to walk faster and even jump after the treatments. The study was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. It used stem cells taken from the affected dogs or other dogs, rather than from embryos. For human use, the idea of using such "adult" stem cells from humans would avoid the controversial method of destroying human embryos to obtain stem cells.

An honest perspective but why the scare quotes around adult?

I can't take it! Another blog!!

Well this is my first blog. Hopefully you may find some interesting stuff. The blog is about the Mind, Brain and Culture. Yes. I don't believe that the Mind is another word for Brain.

The title and my name are borrowed from my favorite writer, GK Chesterton.

We live in a modern, intellectual world that has a problem with thoughts (abstraction, conceptualization and reasoning) . Consequently, thinking has become ignored in much of psychology and philosophy in favor emotions or instinct.

So, I will have much to say about neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology and philosophy. Of course, culture can't and won't be ignored but I will try to avoid politics.