It's not worth it-

I know I promised the essay on killing disabled children at birth, but I've let my steam run out. To even consider a discourse of why I think that it is the most slippery slope we could ever achieve as human beings would be a rant that would degenerate into a discourse on eugenics and how human beings work.

You know, that we feel. From the very moment that a woman knows that she has a child in her womb, she has a connection with the fetus. The child... the baby... is what develops of its own accord. It feels pain, it watches, listens, and learns from the second that it is brought into the world. A child that "suffers" from Hemophilia looks just like you or I. A child with Downs Syndrome, granted, will not have the same opportunities as you or I, but that doesn't mean that we should deny them their heartbeat.

My friend, James, pointed out that it was, essentially, eugenics. For those of you who don't know, "Eugenics" means, literally, "good genetics/genes". If you let two brilliant scientists concieve a child of each other, their offspring could be the most intelligent, insightful, inventive child ever to walk the face of the planet. The French realized it from the opposite perspective. "If you let the morons and the imbeciles breed, then they will produce more just like them. So let us lock them away." (Ah, and thus the Asylum was born.)


Peter Singer has a lot of angles that he uses to approach the idea. All of them seem to rely more on the family of the child than the child itself. It all seems so... selfish.

Parents may, with good reason, regret that a disabled child was ever born. In that event the effect that the death of the child will have on its parents can be a reason for, rather than against killing it. Some parents want even the most gravely disabled infant to live as long as possible, and this desire would then be a reason against killing the infant. But what if this is not the case? in the discussion that follows I shall assume that the parents do not want the disabled child to live. I shall also assume that the disability is so serious that - again in contrast to the situation of an unwanted but normal child today - there are no other couples keen to adopt the infant. This is a realistic assumption even in a society in which there is a long waiting- list of couples wishing to adopt normal babies. It is true that from time to time cases of infants who are severely disabled and are being allowed to die have reached the courts in a glare of publicity, and this has led to couples offering to adopt the child. Unfortunately such offers are the product of the highly publicised dramatic life-and-death situation, and do not extend to the less publicised but far more common situations in which parents feel themselves unable to look after a severely disabled child, and the child then languishes in an institution

He then launches into a discussion upon infanticide being a good thing for all parties left behind, as a disabled infant would "lower the quality of life" for the parents. It would make their life difficult. The child's life would be difficult. The child's siblings, if it had siblings, would have to adjust their life because of their brother/sister.
... and that would be difficult. And a bad thing.

So why not just kill them at birth? They'll never know that they existed, and the world won't miss another child with Downs who may grow up to be a member of a workhouse stapling pamphlets. Right?

They are human beings, though. And they can change lives. Not every disabled child is born without the capacity to think for themselves. Harriet Johnson, for example, is a wheelchair-bound lawyer whose spine is bent double. Her condition hasn't done much more than given her a cause to fight for, and required her to have a personal assistant. (And, hey, who wouldn't want a personal assistant?) At the same time, there are other things that she has to live with... but at least she's living. And if you read her article, you know that she's very educated.

I promised an essay on infanticide, and then I took it away. And then I gave it to you anyway. Take it or leave it, I suppose... infanticide runs deeply, though. If it interests you, look into groups like Not Dead Yet. Take a stand against Peter Singer and others like him.

...Because essays against eugenics may become more popular. Sure, right now it's just talk... but it's talk with an agenda. Let's make it ours adgenda to keep his out of Congress.