In a 1922 book called "The Pivot of Civilization", Margaret Sanger wrote that feeblemindedness and poverty of women besieged by large families should be fought by birth control, enforced as necessary. Sanger ultimately came to the same conclusion about racial minorities, which she saw to be growing too rapidly, and needing to have their populations controlled. She was an advocate of a movement started by Francis Galton, a cousin to Charles Darwin. The movement was called "eugenics"; it's early focus was on population control and stemming the tide of undesirable segments of the population. These included the feebleminded, the chronically poor, and certain non-Aryan races.
In the early 20th century, several states including California implemented state-enforced eugenic population control upon feebleminded individuals, requiring and implementing forced sterilizations.
Meanwhile, Sanger expanded from birth control to include abortion for containing the populations of undesirables, and ultimately founded Planned Parenthood. In 1939, Sanger developed the "Negro Project". It was designed specifically for the control of the black population. Incredibly, she convinced many black leaders that it would increase the prosperity and well-being of blacks, if they eliminated many of their offspring.
Since Roe v. Wade, a decision brought to a somnolent America in 1973, Sanger's Planned Parenthood has become the largest abortion organization in the world. It is subsidized with taxpayer's dollars.
All in all, abortion in the USA has killed over 50 million humans, since Roe v. Wade.
Importantly, blacks account for a much larger abortion rate than other categories. Blacks have long been targeted by Planned Parenthood.
In 1999, a march on Washington by predominately blacks and black clerics marched on the Supreme Court in a "Say So" protest. Led by the Rev. J.M.Hunter, they protested black eugenics by abortion. Not much changed afterward.
Now an visible and important voice from the black community is raised against the eugenic massacre of blacks in embryonic form. Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, has taken a stand against the eugenics of the left, being waged on blacks. On the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, Dr Alveda King addressed a crowd in downtown Memphis, relating the destruction in her life due to abortions she received, and said,
"There are people dying in this country, everyday," she said, focusing on a the plight of a different set of powerless people. "They are unborn children."
"The fight against abortion is a new frontier in the civil rights movement," she said, according to an article in the Mississippi Daily Journal.
King also noted that black leaders had swapped support for abortion to liberals for their return support for civil rights. Some black leaders still support abortion.
Abortion is a tactic for eugenics. It targets those who are despised by the elite providers, those thought to be in the way or nonproductive or too fecund. Those who are vulnerable are given an experience that can only be called abuse - Dr King testifies to that. Abortion is the product of a worldview of eliteness that devalues other humans.
Is it too much to feel that abortion is a precursor to worse things to come? Anyone familiar with bioethicist Peter Singer knows better. Singer advocates post-natal abortion for certain qualities that he designates as non-useful. In fact, if any human is not productive in a fashion suitable to Singer, that person is dead weight, suitable for pruning. Singer also advocates animal rights, actually more rights for animals than for human infants because animals are more useful than infants. Moreover, Singer advocates sex with other animals, at least primates are suitable in his opinion.
If you think that won't happen, then consider the "animal brothels", that are now available in some euro-countries, where one can choose an animal to have sex with. The descent from absolute morality into the morass of a secular wilderness is not pretty.
I wish Dr. King success in having her voice heard in this modern wilderness.
12 comments:
Beelzebub says,
Stan,
For the record, I'm no great fan of abortion, I don't think anyone is. Early term abortion, smudging a small ball of cells, doesn't bother me; the later, the more reluctant I am to say it's okay.
But...
You're juxtaposing so many crazy things here: eugenics, abortion, Sanger, this guy Singer who I've never heard of, racial pruning...etc. It's perfect within your right to oppose abortion, but I think you're compounding this into a conspiracy-like scenario that is beginning to leave the realm of reality. Black abortion as a modern form of covert eugenics? Uhh, not really a rational interpretation. Far more likely: blacks are more likely to seek abortion because they're generally less educated, less socially advantaged, and less able to economically handle new parentage. Listing a number of atrocities and horrid people (and I consider Sanger horrid for her part in pseudo-scientific theories of racial purity and superiority), and then tying in abortion and modern social programs to posit some kind of subterfuge is not an argument.
Beelz, You consistently show that you have not investigated subjects on which you speak. I suggest that you at least try to read up on these things before deciding what is and is not true. Truth exists outside of whether we wish it or not. Finding facts is different from wishing them.
Also, if you, when you existed as a small ball of cells, had been smudged, where would you be now? An individual, unique human is launched through a series of growth patterns starting with sperm penetrating egg. Denying that is ... brace yourself ... elitist and irrational. If you place yourself in the position of advocating the "smudge" of a human at any point in the growth pattern, you place yourself in the elitist position of deciding life or death for that individual. And that individual is innocent of any crime other than being inconvenient. This is not rational by any concept of the term.
Beelzebub says,
My view is that a fertilized egg no more constitutes a human individual than a separate egg and sperm. The only way to see it otherwise is to postulate a divine addition, the insertion of a "soul" into the equation. However, this is a religious opinion, your opinion. Egg+sperm is a potential human, but so is egg separate from sperm.
If I had been smudged, then there never would have been an "I". This verges on non sequitur. Such contingency speculation adds very little to the discussion.
Matters change further along in development. For instance, if I had developed brain waves and some form of prenatal perception, and then my life was ended, we can starting talking about some kind of loss, and perhaps some kind of crime.
You place value as you see fit. If it has brainwaves, you confer value upon it. If it does not, then you deny it value. Sorry, that is not acceptable to anyone but you. If I choose not to confer value upon you, what weight does that carry? Am I at liberty to smudge you? If you choose not to confer value upon me, what value does that carry? As it happens, I can defend myself; you will still get smudged.
It is not up to you to confer value upon the existence of any human, at any stage of development. You do so because you feel you have conferred yourself with a right to interfere in the life of another human, one at a stage of development from which it cannot fight back. This is a form of eliteness, of a self-bestowed right to deny another human the right to live. (If you deny that aborted fetuses would have developed ultimately into adult humans, barring killing them somewhere along the way, then there is no use to discuss this further). A case can be made that it is cowardly: try to terminate someone your own size. A case can be made that it is the ultimate arrogance: your life is important; no one else's is.
There is no rational case to be made for interfering with another innocent human's life by stopping it. (I bet you use this argument yourself, against the death penalty). Don't bother with the partial birth argument, that situation never arises, due to c-sections. 50 million lives do not exist now because they were interfered with by people who placed low (or no) value on those lives.
Stan,
I'm not arguing that "a human" would ultimately arise from these embryos. Let's limit our discussion to a ball of cells unrecognizable as "human," without developed nervous system, etc. -- because, as I've said, I'm not sure we aren't in agreement over the more developed form, with brainwaves, possible perception, etc.
Yes, I'm drawing a line, or rather, I'm saying that we as a civilization should draw a line. This ball of cells is not a human, this fetus is, etc. I'm not saying _I_ alone have the power to mandate anything (nor do I want it). But something along these lines is as close as we're going to come at this time, given our limited understanding of the emergence of an individual human, of coming to a resolution that may sit with everyone, not sit well, but sit.
Re: interfering with a life... Sorry I don't mean to sound insulting in any way but this is too fuzzy. A sperm and egg (separated) can arguably be called "life," so can a sloughed skin cell. I'm calling for a more accurate and useful definition for HUMAN, a life that should be protected under the full weight of law. You're still under the influence of this ill-formed notion of "potential life." I'm sorry but I don't understand the meaning in that.
Play with words all you want, but the issue is not whether a skin cell is a human. It clearly is not a human. There are a number of known steps in the development of that which matures into an adult human. A sperm does not. An egg does not. A fertilized egg does. And every step thereafter is a link in the chain, and the chain is called "being human". There is no "divine addition" to it. It is right there in front of you.
Moreover it is not potential life; it is life, part of the chain of being human, which when interrupted, denies the continuation of that life. The attempt to refute this concept is not even logically arguable. It is plain, easy to see.
Want to falsify it? Kill an embryo at any stage...any stage...and then try to make it become a human. If you can do it, then it is falsified. But guess what! You can't do it. The killing of the embryo absolutely prevents the formation of any subsequent stages in human development.
This is so blatantly obvious that only blinkered absolutists in the pursuit of abortion would not see it.
Interrupting that chain in another's development of "being human" by force of your decision not to allow it to continue, is what we are talking about here.
When you take on the responsibility of deciding when another developing human (at any stage)should be snuffed, you are operating outside your individual rights. I cannot snuff you just because of my opinion of your level of development, or my opinion of your value to society.
But you assume that you CAN do so, so long as you project certain limits of your choosing. The limits of my choosing have no force here. I am unable to stop you from snuffing whoever you wish, as your limits develop and change...evolve. So you assume that, within whatever limits you choose to devise, snuffing is your right. Make that "Right", as in abortion "Rights".
This is the harvest of relative thinking: if it also applies to me as well as to you, then I can choose to snuff you; it becomes my Right, within the ethical framework and set of limitations that I choose.
Don't bother to argue that rational people would do only that which you would do, ie. use your limits. The snuffing out of another's chain of human development is not rational, it is rationalized.
Beez,
If you are arguing that it is necessary to compromise, I disagree totally. Compromising rationality for benefit of those intent on convenience killing is not an option in this case.
The compromising has already occured in favor of the convenience killing of those without defenses, and at the expense of rationality as explained above.
This must be resolved in favor of rationality, with the protection of human developmental rights, which now are compromised in favor of convenience killing. So in a sense, we must uncompromise that which has been lost to compromise.
Beez says,
We both agree that a human has a right to exist and a right to develop, no matter what stage it is at, no matter how helpless. In other words, that we can snuff out life doesn't give us the right to, might does not make right. The question will always boil down to this: What is a human? what constitutes human life. I am a human, you are, nobody has the right to snuff us out. Was Terry Shiavo, brain dead by all medical opinion, still a human being? Yes, she was alive, just as a developing embryonic ball of cells is alive. That is not the question. Was she a human individual at that "stage" of her existence? Is a ball of cells a human individual? I say no, you apparently, say yes. I'm saying that I think ontology, psychology, biology, and a lot of other -ologies are on my side. "Potential" human (embryo), and previous human individual status (Shiavo), don't constitute human.
Your rationalizations and loose reference to the "ologies" notwithstanding, you have provided nothing in the way of logic, nor in facts, to support your position. You have an opinion on who you would allow to be called human. Many other people including sundry dictators have had their opinions of who was and was not human, too, and acted on them. Perhaps their opinion of the definition of human might differ somewhat from yours, but the personal arrogation of the right to terminate a "unit" in a segment of the chain of life is exactly the same.
What I gave you is a series of facts, the chain of life that you went through to get to where you are today. If that chain were terminally interrupted, you would not be here. Now try to give me some fact, any fact, that refutes that. I don't need or care about opinions; just facts.
As for Shiavo, she was killed by a man shacking up with another woman, who very well could have allowed her willing family to care for her. But he demanded her death. This is a clear case of eugenics and mandated death; ie. murder, based on a definition: eugenics. She wasn't a human? Many coma patients have recovered. Perhaps its OK to snuff any coma patient? No? Then what is the limit? Whatever you choose is arbitrary.
Do I say yes, she was human at that point? What I say is that neither you nor anyone else has the right to decide that. To make that decision is to engage in eugenic control of another person's complete existence. You feel qualified to do that. That is called arrogance.
Since you don't know anything about Peter Singer, it is clear that have not done any study on the subject of eugenics, and that what you state is not fact, it is opinion apparently formed of leftist slogans, not objective research and conclusion. As I keep advising you, you should investigate things before you form opinions, not the other way round.
Beez said,
Sorry Stan, I don't mean to be too annoying. You and I obviously have vast differences in how we view reality. When you talk of the chain of life I progressed to become who I am I understand what you mean, but it's such an abstract thesis. How many other individuals didn't make it to realization, people who probably would have been quite a bit more celebrated than me, in fact, dare I say, more worthy of life. It's all a pointless exercise of imagination. As pointless, I would say, as postulating "who" a ball of cells would become.
Is it arrogance for an ob/gyn to aspirate an early embryo? In my opinion, no, because it is clear that a ball of cells is not human, and there is nothing magical, or sacred, about it. Now you can rail against my heresy, but given my opinions of reality, they are consistent, and moral. There is no more a crime here than expunging a wart. "Potential" human: The very word should be the clue. A human is the incremental combination of development and experience. A ball of cells has neither.
The Shiavo case: If there was even a modicum of chance she would recover we're in complete agreement. The doctors didn't seem to think so, Frist’s television assessment aside.
I never intended to imply "potential human" with respect to any stage of human development. It is logically clear that a fertilized egg is, in fact, a human at that stage of development. It is not a potential human, it is a human, period, your definitions notwithstanding.
Your definitions are designed to to bestow your consideration of their value (to you, in your opinion) upon them. And there is no logical outlet for you to escape the bloody fact that by aspirating a human embryo it has been denied a subsequent life. That is not abstract as you wish it to be. It is obvious. If you deny it, then you have abandoned logic and rationality in favor of something else that you wish were true, but is not.
Beelz says,
Stan,
I don't see how anything I've said abandons logic or rationality. There is a sperm, there is an egg, neither are human, but the two come together and poof, magically a human is created. The burden of explanation for this strange discontinuity rests with you.
The unwillingness to face subtleties of life and death is what causes the virulence of the abortion debate in my view. The idea that the instant sperm and egg unit, the true moment of conception, is what begins a human individual is a fundamentalist take on what constitutes life. There are gradations of life and death. Terry Shiavo, if permanently brain dead, was not "alive" in the sense of a living vibrant human being; a 32-cell stage embryo is not a human being in the same sense that you and I are. This is my opinion. Can you give me a definition of "human" that refutes it?
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