Sixteen Volts

"Disabled people so good... great value in difference... eugenics equals Hitler... blah blah blah"

"OK, OK. What about a little thought experiment, lady? A chemical factory owned by multinational megacorporation pours its wastes untreated on ground and taints the groundwater. As a result, your baby and let's say 1000 others are born with severe deformities and mental defects. But the corporation didn't actually do anything wrong, right? After all, those disabled children are just as good as healthy ones and have just as good chances at leading a full, meaningful life."

"What? No!"

"No? What do you mean, no? If anything, the factory's managers should be rewarded for expanding genetic and body-type diversity in your community..."

You know, I genuinely feel sorry for these male feminist (or pro-feminist men, if you prefer) types. It must hurt to have to twist your brain around the logical contradictions that would be necessary for that position.

Your hypothetical feminist-style response to "tall people are smarter" seems pretty spot-on. Swoon! You put it so much better than I ever could!

I have a few times thought of writing a post in style of what anonymous wrote, a guy who has been involved in a hit-and-run that disabled a boy arguing before a judge that no harm was done since disability is wonderful and no worse than being "temporarily abled". I wonder what would happen if somebody tried that in the real world.

Iff tall people are intelligent, am I a supergenius, when I also have “migreeni” ?
http://www.migreeni.com/yleisyys.htm

”Migreenin on uskottu esiintyvän tyypillisesti älykkäillä, jännittyneillä, pikkutarkoilla ja täydellisyyteen pyrkivillä ihmisillä, niin sanotuilla migreeniluonteisilla.”

Lieneekö hänelläkin tuo vaiva?
http://www.kaosblog.com/Tinde/page2/

Shiny whatever says:


One of the duties of being a parent is assuming guardianship of your child.


Of course, this depends on your definition of parent.

One of the strategies engaged in by some men is to get women pregnant and then to abandon them.

Of course, one can expect females to have evolved counter strategies, and thus an arms war ensues.

However, I imagine that quite a few women have foisted some else's basted on some poor unsuspecting schmuck. Of course, in the next generation, there are less schmucks to go around.

From EastSouthWestNorth we hear:


A security guard told the Mail reporters that the iPod shuffle production lines are staffed by women workers because "they are more honest than male workers".

Um, there's a difference between the statement "a disabled person and a healthy person are of equal moral worth and human dignity" and the statement "a disabled person and a healthy person have equally happy and pleasant lives." Someone who believes the former commits no contradiction by not believing the latter.
Eugenic abortion is not only incompatible with feminism, but with traditionalist conservatism.

A male person and a female person are of equal moral worth and human dignity.

I believe the crazy leftoids glorifying Downers just don't understand the difference between a priori and a posteriori: a priori everyone would like to be able-bodied and healthy-minded, but a posteriori it just doesn't matter since it can't be helped anymore. Emotional words such as "better" and "worse" only serve to hide this kind of fine but essential distinctions.

More generally, a lot of problems with public discourse seems to be about misunderstandings and hasty abstractions of natural language. For example, rape and seducment are both means of getting an initially non-consenting party to have intercourse, and some imbecile will invariably water this down to "seducment is rape" which will generate a lot of response and thus noise out the more analytical discourse.

Anon says:


More generally, a lot of problems with public discourse seems to be about misunderstandings and hasty abstractions of natural language. For example, rape and seducment are both means of getting an initially non-consenting party to have intercourse, and some imbecile will invariably water this down to "seducment is rape" which will generate a lot of response and thus noise out the more analytical discourse.


Ahhh, anon, you have strayed onto dangerous ground ...

What is the difference between a rape resulting in a child and a seducement resulting in a child where the male then abandons the mother?

>>What is the difference between a
>>rape resulting in a child and a
>>seducement resulting in a child
>>where the male then abandons the
>>mother?

The common parts are the fact that the initially non-consenting woman was got into intercourse, which resulted in a non-aborted pregnancy. But these parts are so banally irrelevant that it would be like saying I'm akin to Hitler since I sport a moustache.

The disctinctive parts are that in rape, there never was consent, but the intercourse was forceful - this is anologous to stealing. In seducement, the intercourse was made consentual by the act of seducement; this is anologous to marketing.

If the father had somehow formally promised that he will not abandon the mother after the child has been born, then it could be understood as false marketing, that is, fraud. But commonly this is not done since it would explicitly declare sex as a marketable resource (which it undeniably is, but for some reason society likes to keep the fact implicit).

In rape, the rapist will go to jail. In seducement, the father will pay the child support as usual.

You probably had something else in mind, though. I'd be interested to hear.

"You know, I genuinely feel sorry for these male feminist (or pro-feminist men, if you prefer) types. It must hurt to have to twist your brain around the logical contradictions that would be necessary for that position.
"

Someone like the young Panu Höglund. Although he has cured himself of feminism, the fundamental thought patterns that enabled him to believe in something like feminism are likely to remain until the end of his life.

James Kabala:
"Um, there's a difference between the statement "a disabled person and a healthy person are of equal moral worth and human dignity" and the statement "a disabled person and a healthy person have equally happy and pleasant lives." Someone who believes the former commits no contradiction by not believing the latter.

Eugenic abortion is not only incompatible with feminism, but with traditionalist conservatism."

It is clear that traditional conservatist disagrees with abortion of any stripe. Such a person believes in a personhood existing from the moment of conception, and as such, scraping off a defective fetus is an act on par with sniping some invalid in his wheelchair. Murder, plain and simple.

Feminist opponent, on the other hand, runs into a proper philosophical minefield with this issue. For her, it's just wrong to abort a fetus going to grow into a person who'll live a painful, limited and profoundly undignified life, while demanding massive efforts from the parents. On the other hand, it's perfectly OK to abort a healthy, normal fetus, if the mother doesn't feel like having a baby right now. Cheerio!

Feminist opposition to eugenic abortion cannot be based on any ideas of intrinsic value of fetus, or in there being anything wrong in abortion itself. Fetus, after all, isn't a person and has no rights whatsoever. What they have left are muddled disability-glorifying arguments about greatness of diversity and "teh evil doctors force mothers do it" line denying women's capacity to make their own choices. Of course many strains of feminism have never been too hot on women's autonomy, apart from as a codeword for them behaving in a proper feminist fashion.

And yes, there's the one about eugenic abortion causing disabled people to be somehow seen as being less valuable. Of course, by the same token, general abortion should devalue normal people. There is indeed conservative argument about legal abortion demeaning the sanctity of human life. However, both arguments rest on the assumption that people cannot mentally separate the concepts of fetus and born human from each other, neatly applying different sets of rules to them.

Okay... actually this is a disability rights viewpoint, more than a feminist viewpoint. It was worked out by disabled people, including but not limited to people with Down's, who are quite aware that whether a person is disabled or not does not make much if any difference in how happy they are.

This has been studied over and over again, by the way. By scientists who clearly expected something different, so they keep studying it with different disabilities and keep getting roughly the same results -- quality of life of disabled people is the same as anyone else's, but non-disabled people, especially medical professionals, consistently underestimate the quality of life of a disabled person.

The word for that is prejudice. No doubt it seems like "fact" to most of you, but it's clearly not.

There is a difference between us being of equal happiness, and us being of equal moral worth and dignity, but the facts seem to show that we are of equal happiness as well.

There's also a large difference between preventing disability in a person who already exists (such as giving people with PKU a certain diet), and preventing a disabled person from coming into existence at all (such as aborting fetuses who will have PKU). That is the distinction that many disabled people find it hard to believe people such as the people here are not making. Surely you can see a difference regardless of your viewpoint on abortion and personhood.

Of course, I'm not going to necessarily expect reasoned consideration of this from the people here, given descriptions such as "invalid in a wheelchair," "profoundly undignified," and "chained to take care of something that will essentially remain a giant baby for its whole life". But perhaps someone will read it and start looking into the disability community and disability rights standpoints on this stuff, which, surprise, reveal a lot of things about disabled people's lives that contradict the bigotry-dressed-up-as-compassion spouted here.

ballastexistenz,

You would, I assume, see nothing wrong in megacorp's behavior in anon's example, and accept the careless driver's defence in Ilkka's? Also, if preventing a disabled fetus from growing into person is wrong, is doing the same thing to healthy one also wrong?

I'll happily address your points and make my case for aborting (other than slightly) disabled fetuses, but I'd like to answer these questions first. I wish to see if you've actually given thought to what your position seems to entail, and learn more of it (whether you're pro-life, for example).

And do cut down on those bigot accusations, please. Unless you're ultra-genius psychic, you really cannot deduce the basis of someone's complex views about disabled people from single post criticizing worldview in which any abortion but eugenic one is acceptable.

If someone calls a human being "something that will essentially remain a giant baby its whole life", it doesn't really take a genius to figure out there's bigotry and dehumanization at work. Unless people like you are routinely referred to as "something" and "it".

No, I would not accept those defenses. As I said, there's a difference between preventing disability in an existing person, and preventing a disabled person altogether. I believe I already gave examples of the difference:

1. Giving a specialized diet to someone with PKU to prevent brain damage from occurring.

2. Aborting fetuses who are going to be born with PKU, specifically because they are going to be born with PKU.

I'm in favor of 1, and not in favor of 2.

I do not believe in selecting for or against specific traits before birth, except in circumstances where it's likely the trait (such as someone who's going to die in the womb and injure and possibly kill the mother in the process) is going to pose great harm to the mother.

If I were to believe in abortion in any circumstances, it would not be based on traits of the fetus. For instance, if a woman were going to have an abortion for reasons other than selection (sex-selection, disability-selection, whatever), then whether or not the fetus was an "undesirable" sort of person would not factor into that decision. So it wouldn't be "disabled fetuses are protected" or "female fetuses are protected" in that instance, whether the abortion was legitimate or not would be judged on some sort of totally different criteria.

I'm not particularly mildly disabled by most people's standards, by the way. I'm autistic and I have an accompanying genetic condition that usually is considered more severe than Down's syndrome. (Although there are, as with Down's syndrome, outliers.) I've spent several years in institutions, I've been at times labeled low-functioning and unsalvageable, I'm incontinent, I use unusual kinds and levels of services, I communicate using a keyboard rather than by speech, I have two different kinds of chronic severe pain, I've spent substantial amounts of time unable to communicate in words, and I've got the sort of appearance that tends to lead people to believe there's "not a lot there" unless they see me type.

If you do respond, please try not to do so using cliches about lives like mine, because people living lives like mine know better: We are not categorically unhappier than non-disabled people, we are not eternal children or babies, we are not empty shells, we are not mere burdens on society who give nothing substantial in return, our non-disabled siblings are not "who we would have been if we weren't disabled", we don't have to live in institutions regardless of severity of disability, and our value cannot be measured with money (nor can anyone else's).

(Most of this stuff is covered in much more depth in the writings of the disability rights movement, which I would seriously urge people to read.)

As for my position on abortion, it's a little more complicated than "pro-life" or "pro-choice" and I don't want to get into it during this discussion.

Just for your amusement, I'd like to share a story about my mother. I immediately thought of her when I read this post and the links. The way she has lived and continues to behave against all odds, probabilities and statistics is actually pretty funny. At least I think it is, but I am heavily biased.

She was born to a mother who apparently had so low mental capacity that she was unable to tend to her child. The father's identity is naturally unknown to this day. The child, my mother, was sent to an orphanage and was eventually adopted to a very very very simple blue collar foster family and blah blah blah.

Later she studied in a university (oh no humanities! rawwr!), and there is no doubt that nurture had no part in this course of action, and the nature theory is, well, not too probable to apply here either. I know I know, the good genes had to come from somewhere, but from how many generations back?

Today she is a self-proclaimed feminist, a bit nutty but not too much, and definitely votes for left (as do I), I do not know how far left.

Among her many opinions about large variety of different things she thinks that there is nothing wrong in forcibly sterilizing people that have been proven not to be able to take care of their children (not being able to take care of oneself is enough proof). Even though this policy meant that she would never have existed. I tend to agree with her in this.


Usually I've thought that Ilkka's tendency to make fun of the desperate defence mechanisms of parents with severely disabled children is just unnecessarily cruel and stupid. Laughing at others' completely undeserved misery is not very challenging or otherwise suitable for intelligent people. Right now I am just totally flabbergasted that someone who thinks that abortion is "a right" (as do I) actually says that one should not abort a fetus because of a disability.

About the defence mechanism, come on, when a tragedy like that hits a family, with a little bit of compassion you could see that it can have a huge impact on the parents opinions. Can you really blame if one can not be perfectly rational in that situation? I personally know two families with... God's little angels, and that attitude and the way how these families have shut themselves from the rest of the world is just so very sad.


Personally, I am proud to have a quarter of my genes from a retard, and a half of them from just a regular bastard orphan. I may be carrying a huge payload to the next generation...

(Bee.)

Ballastexistenz: If someone calls a human being "something that will essentially remain a giant baby its whole life", it doesn't really take a genius to figure out there's bigotry and dehumanization at work.

It's probably a good thing then that you didn't read the first version of this post, where I used the far simpler description "drooling retard".

I'm not exactly surprised at the 'drooling retard' thing.

My general response to 'retard' when applied to me (as it often is), is something on the order of "Glad I'm a retard instead of a bigot."

But, at any rate, I rest my case.

Oh, and anonymous: I beg to differ on forced sterilization, as I would surely be a recipient of such, and that does change things.

I also know people who were viewed as incompetent who ended up pregnant through, say, rape, and defied every prediction by raising their children well. (I even know one woman who has authorities at her door a lot expecting her to be incompetent, and they're kind of bothered in a way by the fact that her daughter is always clean, well-fed, educated, etc like any other kid.)

Also, anonymous: A lot of pro-choice women disagree with sex-selection abortion and I rarely see this amount of "But that's inconsistent!" attached to that one.

And thinking that severely disabled people are as happy as anyone else, is not a defense mechanism, it's a fact that's starting to get proven by science.

ballastexistenz:

Thanks for clarifying your position. Now...

"If someone calls a human being "something that will essentially remain a giant baby its whole life", it doesn't really take a genius to figure out there's bigotry and dehumanization at work. Unless people like you are routinely referred to as "something" and "it"."

Or perhaps that someone simply has a harsh, intentionally pointed and provocative style of writing. I'm not the greatest fan of smoothing the edges of my writing, and as far as I can see, Ilkka's even less of one. On the other hand, poisonously bigoted stuff can be expressed in perfect PC lingo. This is why "keyword radar" -approach to bigotry detection is often, if not always, very unreliable.

"No, I would not accept those defenses. As I said, there's a difference between preventing disability in an existing person, and preventing a disabled person altogether."

Yes, so you said. But if disabled people are of equal worth in every sense to healthy ones and just as happy, why do you consider it worthwhile to prevent a disability in anyone? What's wrong in doing things that lead to increases in the proportion of disabled fetuses, such as dumping industrial chemicals in groundwater?

"I do not believe in selecting for or against specific traits before birth, except in circumstances where it's likely the trait (such as someone who's going to die in the womb and injure and possibly kill the mother in the process) is going to pose great harm to the mother."

Why is this? Note that selection against specific traits isn't usually due to some principled opposition to the trait itself, but what it implies. Ie. One very common reason for aborting a disabled fetus is the vastly demanding job of raising a disabled one, even harder than the already tough job of raising a healthy one.

That, incidentally, is propably the most common reason why healthy fetuses are aborted. If this is acceptable, then surely aborting disabled ones is even more so.

Also, if a mother wishing to have a baby makes an eugenic abortion, most likely she gets pregnant again in near future. Another person, this time a healthy one, comes to existence, one who'd never had a chance if the mother had been slaving away on the special child.

"We are not categorically unhappier than non-disabled people, we are not eternal children or babies, we are not empty shells, we are not mere burdens on society who give nothing substantial in return..."

Severely disabled people requiring institutionalized care are often many of those things you said. Also, campaigning for your own interest group isn't exactly what I'd count as substantial contribution to society.

But, on the more general level... Yes, a disabled human can live a happy and meaningful life, sometimes even a severely disabled one. Disabilities are often very limiting, however. A condition such as yours constrains the kind of life one can live. Happiness isn't everything. I doubt you'd like to have your body paralyzed and brain maimed enough to reduce your mental capacity to a fraction of what it is now, even if the reward was unending, intense bliss.

It is easy to be happy if one doesn't know what one's missing, or isn't even capable of understanding what the missing thing could be like. Music is a superb pleasure, yet congetionally deaf person isn't any less happy for not having access to it. Grasping complex knowledge is a subtle, heady drug, but a retard doesn't even realize he's missing anything. And so on.

We're all prisoners of our bodies and minds. Most of us, however, are captive in an apartment, even a mansion. Some are stuffed into dirty cells, or a miserable little hole in a ground. I personally find that cruel and undignified.

"And thinking that severely disabled people are as happy as anyone else, is not a defense mechanism, it's a fact that's starting to get proven by science."

I've met some severely disabled people and many of them weren't even able to talk. How do you measure how happy such people are, if they cannot answer your questions, or even understand them?

"As for my position on abortion, it's a little more complicated than "pro-life" or "pro-choice" and I don't want to get into it during this discussion."

Suit yourself. I trust you see, however, how your position on abortion might be relevant to your position on a specific type of it.

BallastExistenz says:


This has been studied over and over again, by the way. By scientists who clearly expected something different, so they keep studying it with different disabilities and keep getting roughly the same results -- quality of life of disabled people is the same as anyone else's, but non-disabled people, especially medical professionals, consistently underestimate the quality of life of a disabled person.


You can only make this claim by looking at your quality of life and only then if you have known nothing better, as someone else has pointed out.

Looking back at my life, the things I have achieved, the fact that I have managed to help many people in different ways, and my perfect and perfectly able children, I can sincerely say, I am glad I was not born disabled in any way (including having a low IQ).

Moreover, I had children for a reason. If either of them had been disabled, my quality of life, and that of all the people around us would have been drastically reduced, and my reason for having that child would have been negated.

I am perfectly happy for other people to put up with disabled people if they wish, but personally, if the tests exist, I will use them and abort fetuses that are likely to be disabled. It's easy to get replacements.


The word for that is prejudice. No doubt it seems like "fact" to most of you, but it's clearly not.


Well, you know, people who can't deal with certain facts are quite happy to sling around epithets. However, some of us are more thick skinned.

BallastExistenz says:


This has been studied over and over again, by the way. By scientists who clearly expected something different, so they keep studying it with different disabilities and keep getting roughly the same results -- quality of life of disabled people is the same as anyone else's, but non-disabled people, especially medical professionals, consistently underestimate the quality of life of a disabled person.


You can only make this claim by looking at your quality of life and only then if you have known nothing better, as someone else has pointed out.

Looking back at my life, the things I have achieved, the fact that I have managed to help many people in different ways, and my perfect and perfectly able children, I can sincerely say, I am glad I was not born disabled in any way (including having a low IQ).

Moreover, I had children for a reason. If either of them had been disabled, my quality of life, and that of all the people around us would have been drastically reduced, and my reason for having that child would have been negated.

I am perfectly happy for other people to put up with disabled people if they wish, but personally, if the tests exist, I will use them and abort fetuses that are likely to be disabled. It's easy to get replacements.


The word for that is prejudice. No doubt it seems like "fact" to most of you, but it's clearly not.


Well, you know, people who can't deal with certain facts are quite happy to sling around epithets. However, some of us are more thick skinned.

Ilkka wrote:

I have a few times thought of writing a post in style of what anonymous wrote, a guy who has been involved in a hit-and-run that disabled a boy arguing before a judge that no harm was done since disability is wonderful and no worse than being "temporarily abled". I wonder what would happen if somebody tried that in the real world.

In the real world (at least in the United States) personal injury law has in fact changed significantly as society's attitudes toward disability have improved.

If someone became a paraplegic as a result of an auto accident 50 years ago, the jury's verdict would include a large amount of economic damages to compensate him for never being able to work. Nowadays, a paraplegic can have a productive career in a wheelchair-accessible office. Compensation still has to be paid for an injured person's medical expenses and pain and suffering, but economic damages often are not awarded.

Although you could say that our courts are letting wrongdoers off more easily by not making them pay economic damages, society has benefited from including many more people in the workforce.

Loki on the run: I hope you enjoy your "perfect and perfectly able" family while it lasts. The medical establishment could change its definitions at any time, and half the people in your family suddenly could end up in a despised category of "disabled" people who are treated as a hideous plague.

This isn't just a hypothetical flight of fancy. Millions of people worldwide, including my own family, are in this predicament right now. You may see nothing wrong with eugenics now, but you, or any one of us, could become a victim of it tomorrow.

Loki on the run: I hope you enjoy your "perfect and perfectly able" family while it lasts. The medical establishment could change its definitions at any time, and half the people in your family suddenly could end up in a despised category of "disabled" people who are treated as a hideous plague.

This isn't just a hypothetical flight of fancy. Millions of people worldwide, including my own family, are in this predicament right now. You may see nothing wrong with eugenics now, but you, or any one of us, could become a victim of it tomorrow.

Bonnie Ventura says:


society has benefited from including many more people in the workforce.


Please provide support for that claim? For example, who, specifically, has benefited? What has it cost the rest of us? Does a proper cost-benefit analysis show a net benefit?

It, the replacement unit of some female thing said,


Moreover, I had children for a reason. If either of them had been disabled, my quality of life, and that of all the people around us would have been drastically reduced, and my reason for having that child would have been negated.

I am perfectly happy for other people to put up with disabled people if they wish, but personally, if the tests exist, I will use them and abort fetuses that are likely to be disabled. It's easy to get replacements.


If there is a test for unhappy, unruly children, you'd probably use those too right? You have prejudged whether or not a person will be difficult or not. Also, you use social responsibility on one hand and deny it on another. Which is it? Are people responsible to society or not? Personally, I think we have responsibility to respect diversity of all kinds. Just because the baby might be black, it may have a difficult life too. Would you use that test?

Bonnie says:


Loki on the run: I hope you enjoy your "perfect and perfectly able" family while it lasts. The medical establishment could change its definitions at any time, and half the people in your family suddenly could end up in a despised category of "disabled" people who are treated as a hideous plague.


Nice try Bonnie, but no cigar ...

It will take more than that to scare me.

Anon said:


Just because the baby might be black, it may have a difficult life too. Would you use that test?


Ahhh, trying to make me out as a racist as well, eh.

Since my children are half-of-color, the question is moot.

Can't you do better than that.

I'd like to see some links on that assertion that disabled people are just as happy as anyone else. In particular how did they measure that? I'd guess it is self-reported happiness, because I am not sure what else they could test.

Second, I am curious as to whether these reports of happiness of disabled people also measured the happiness of their families, or more broadly, their unpaid caretakers.

Finally, I want to point out that many profoundly disabled people have the quality of life they have only because of public assistance of various kinds. Logically, in this case you'd expect the unhappiness to accrue not to the disabled person, but to the taxpayers generally who are paying for his quality of life, at their own expense.

Leonard took anonymous's question
"Just because the baby might be black, it may have a difficult life too. Would you use that test?"
as an accusation of racism, and responded that he was not racist and would have (has had) mixed race children.

However, I think anonymous's question is mostly about *why* you would not avoid having a black child, if you would not. I mean, suppose studies were to show that black Americans are, on average, less happy and less economically productive than white Americans. And suppose most Americans who wanted kids went out of their way to avoid having black ones, whether by selective abortion, selective implantation, choosing who to marry, or whatever. Would you be glad of their choices? Would you join them? If not, why not?

For me, the race comparison highlights the fact that a mother's decision about whether to bear certain kinds of children affects more than the mother and potential child. It affects the world we all inhabit. If millions of families chose not to have black children, it might well increase racial prejudice. The likelihood would be increased if doctors routinely expected mothers to abort and handed them materials about the wretchedness of being black.

Moreover, the change in who was born and in how people felt would affect more than the remaining black people. The rest of us, too, would live in a society where the difficulties of racism and of learning to work together across differences were being replaced by a convenient sameness. Even apart from the issue of justice to blacks, it seems possible that something would be lost.

Let me move now to the issue of preventing the birth of disabled children (again, by abortion, selective implantation, choosing not to have kids if you're carrying certain genes, or whatever). Disability differs from race in that black and white people may well be identical apart from culture, while disabled people are not. That is, if blacks are in fact "less economically productive" according to various measures, we are apt to view this as a product of prejudice to be changed by changing our prejudices rather than by preventing black people from being born. But while wheelchair ramps and other accommodations can help, the differences between what disabled people can do and what non-disabled people can do are not simply and solely the result of societal stupidity.

Nevertheless, in the case of disability as in the case of race,a mother's decision to abort affects the world we all inhabit. It affects that world not only in affecting how many disabled people taxpayers give money to but also in affecting how existing disabled people are treated, what attitudes they and their families encounter, how likely people who murder them are to be punished for murder (http://www.geocities.com/growingjoel/murder.html), etc. Similarly, as in the case of race, it affects what kind of people the rest of us meet and what perspectives we encounter. And while might be cruel to bring people into the world to suffer, I, too, have read summaries of studies arguing that disability has little or no long-term effect on happiness, and similar studies for parents of disabled kids. This assertion fits with my experiences; some of my own happiest times have been when I was working in externally difficult conditions. (A brief summary of some of this research, and links to the wider research literature which I mostly haven't read, can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness).

When we consider selectively aborting disabled fetuses, we need to consider the impact of our decisions on the lives of existing disabled people and on our own understanding of ourselves and other people. It isn't the only thing we need to consider, but it needs to be part of the discussion.

tryingtounderstand:
"Moreover, the change in who was born and in how people felt would affect more than the remaining black people."

It might very well have such an effect, though I doubt it'd be a large one. As I said, I believe most of us feel on a deep, pre-rational level that different rules apply to fetuses and born human beings. Also, numerous other things affect these attitudes, many among them more influential factors.

I'd wager that the efforts of disability rights movement more than counteract the possible cultural consequences of targeted abortion of disabled fetuses. Disagree with them as I might on many matters, I think that here they serve an useful function. I just hope they don't morph into something like deaf pride, actually opposing the efforts to cure their defects.

"The rest of us, too, would live in a society where the difficulties of racism and of learning to work together across differences were being replaced by a convenient sameness."

Removing the inherently limiting and burdensome differences would leave the vast majority of diversity intact. As such, this argument doesn't hold water at all.

Imagine that psychopathy is caused by a particular cluster of genes. By the arguments presented about respecting diversity we would be wrong to abort a fetus that we could detect as having the cluster of genes that leads to psychopathy.

In addition the arguments presented about respecting diversity make the inherent assumption that parents have no rights ...

daath:
"[Selectively aborting black fetuses] might very well have such an effect, though I doubt it'd be a large one. As I said, I believe most of us feel on a deep, pre-rational level that different rules apply to fetuses and born human beings."

I don't think our feeling that "different rules apply to fetuses and born human beings" is especially relevant to the effect of institutionalized selective abortion on our attitudes toward the kind of people being aborted. The issue is not generalizing from killing fetuses to killing born people so much as generalizing from whose lives we consider worth living, and what kind of children we want to avoid badly enough to have an abortion, to people already living similar lives. Imagine the protests that would ensue if doctors ever tried to implement routine screening and abortions for fetuses that were going to look especially black. People would protest not just the rights of the fetuses but also the insult to existing black Americans.

"I'd wager that the efforts of disability rights movement more than counteract the possible cultural consequences of targeted abortion of disabled fetuses."

Perhaps the disability rights movement does have larger cultural consequences than selective abortion. Again, though, I am not sure how relevant that is. If Tom was hurting Jane, and someone asked him to stop, and he protested that someone else was preventing hurts to Jane more than he was hurting Jane, his protests would be irrelevant. The effects of targeted abortion need likewise to be considered in themselves. This is particularly important because at the moment born autistic people are not even consistently regarded as having a right not to be murdered, let alone a right to ordinary human decency. I can fish up many links besides http://www.geocities.com/growingjoel/murder.html if anybody's interested.

"Removing the inherently limiting and burdensome differences would leave the vast majority of diversity intact. As such, [the argument that we would lose something if we prevented the birth of disabled people] doesn't hold water at all."

I don't know about that. First, it is not clear that some of the disabilities included in the disability rights movement, such as autism and deafness, are solely and simply "limiting and burdensome." Autism and deafness each include uncommon abilities and perceptions as well as lacks. Second, and related to the first, if autism or deafness, say, offers a different perspective on the world, the fact that race offers another sort of different perspective doesn't have all that much to do with the merits of erasing the first.

tryingtounderstand:
"The issue is not generalizing from killing fetuses to killing born people so much as generalizing from whose lives we consider worth living, and what kind of children we want to avoid badly enough to have an abortion, to people already living similar lives."

...which is why I stated there might be an effect. It's just that what's done to prevent bad things from happening to people (ie. aborting a fetus before it becomes a person) might not have much relevance to how people act towards those who have had those bad things happen to them. Eh, considering some disability a horrible curse instead of just "difference" might even arouse pity and compassion in quite a few people.

"Imagine the protests that would ensue if doctors ever tried to implement routine screening and abortions for fetuses that were going to look especially black. People would protest not just the rights of the fetuses but also the insult to existing black Americans."

This is a red herring. To the degree that blackness is limiting and burdensome, it's due to discriminatory attitudes, socioeconomic status of blacks and ghetto culture. There's nothing intrinsically bad about it.

"Again, though, I am not sure how relevant that is. If Tom was hurting Jane, and someone asked him to stop, and he protested that someone else was preventing hurts to Jane more than he was hurting Jane, his protests would be irrelevant. The effects of targeted abortion need likewise to be considered in themselves."

I do agree that they need to considered in themselves, but if we begin to postulate about their cultural effects, we can't act as if interactions with other cultural factors do not exist. And regarding your metaphor: If hurting Jane is necessary to prevent some very bad things from happening, is it really irrelevant that Jane is actually anaesthesized?

"Autism and deafness each include uncommon abilities and perceptions as well as lacks."

I'm not knowledgeable enough to talk about deaf people. But then again, they can function relatively well in society even with their disability, and cochlear implants already exist, so there's no reason to selectively abort deaf-to-be fetuses.

In autism, on the other hand, savant abilities (if that's what you're referring to?) are rare and in most cases very limited in scope. People like Kim Peek are very much an exception.

"Second, and related to the first, if autism or deafness, say, offers a different perspective on the world, the fact that race offers another sort of different perspective doesn't have all that much to do with the merits of erasing the first."

On the other hand, it has everything to do with your argument of how erasing the first will leave just "convenient sameness" and deny us the possibility of working together across differences.

Also, in my opinion diversity isn't inherently good thing. Nazism increases the diversity of opinions, and schizophrenics certainly do have unique perspectives. Quality as well as quantity counts.

Anonymous says:


[Deletia]

In rape, the rapist will go to jail. In seducement, the father will pay the child support as usual.

You probably had something else in mind, though. I'd be interested to hear.


I wanted to get back to this but got distracted by other things.

While in general I agree with the differences you elucidated, there were a couple of other points to make.

In each case, of course, something is being taken from a woman that she would rather not be taken. In the rape case it is the ability to choose the best possible genes and support for her offspring, while in the second case it is the support of her offspring. While the second case is fraud we don't generally reserve much sympathy for people who allow themselves to be tricked.

However, another point that I wanted to make is that these two strategies by makes are simply some of the strategies used by males, and it may be that to some extent they are all encoded in our genes and are facultative. We are, after all, the end point of a long line of successful reproducers.

"In autism, on the other hand, savant abilities (if that's what you're referring to?) are rare and in most cases very limited in scope. People like Kim Peek are very much an exception."
Autistic talents go beyond savant skills. Firstly, there are some autistics, like myself, who have a high level of ability in a wide range of skills. Partly this is due to having talents that affect a lot of abilities, such as my facility for abstraction. Secondly, some autistics have talents that are completely missed because of stereotypes and lack of opportunities, such as nonverbal autistics with motor problems who have high-level cognitive abilities. Because they can't speak or do a number of other things like dress themselves, they are assumed to not be very smart. Some of these people later get to prove they are smart, upon finding an effective communication system (sometimes facilitated communication, but not always, despite the claims of anti-FC people).
But I have trouble with the argument that "these people have talents so we'll accept them" because there's always the others, who in my opinion are just as worthwhile. I care about "severely disabled" people who have no apparent talents.
But that doesn't me I'm not in favor of preventing or treating health problems. I'm in favor of doing heart surgery on babies who might die if they don't get it. Even in cases where others might not approve of heart surgery, such as kids with chromosome anomalies who are predicted to be very developmentally disabled if they survive.
With regards to the example of the factory, those kinds of things often cause miscarriage, stillbirth and serious health problems. If the only effect was to make them delayed and have physical anomalies that don't make you sick (either wuith no effect or physical disabilities) then that OK. Except for the effect it might have on the environment, such as killing fishes, but that's a separate issue.

And I'm the daughter of a two feminists, one male and one female. Male feminists are allies, the same way white nonracists (which include my family) are. My father and mother both believe that women should not be considered inferior to men, which is feminism. They could also be called masculist, I suppose, because they don't view men as inferior to women. But in our society, that's a given, whereas feminism isn't.

ettina:
"Firstly, there are some autistics, like myself, who have a high level of ability in a wide range of skills."

Are you referring to Asperger's syndrome, which is sometimes described as high-functioning autism?

"I care about "severely disabled" people who have no apparent talents."

I doubt that many people would disagree, though obviously the proper level of investment in their care is debatable, just as any other question related to association of limited resources our societies have in disposal. There are so many worthy causes competing for them.