Is killing the disabled ‘eugenics’, or just a merciful release?

Jul 29, 2019 by

by Michael Cook, MercatorNet:

Eugenics is not a word to be trifled with. It evokes the horror of Nazi atrocities during World War II as well as widespread human rights violations in the early part of the 20th Century in the United States, Canada and some European countries.

But, contend the authors of a special issue of the Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, killing the disabled because they are disabled must be called eugenics. The authors cover a number of areas, too numerous to summarise. But here are few memorable points:

Yes, euthanasing the disabled is eugenics.

“… a conception of what our culture takes to be a human life properly so called appears to be at odds with the condition of IDD. To the extent that this happens to be the case, empirically, there is truly a link with what the supporters of the “old eugenics” believed in the late 19th and early 20th century. The link regards the justification of terminating human lives affected by [Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities] in current medical practices as described in this article. Ultimately, these practices appear to be driven by the view that these lives of poor quality are in defiance of what a human life properly so called is like.”

Euthanasia is an easy way out for society

The difficulty with legalized euthanasia is that it becomes normalized, as we have seen. This makes it perhaps all too easy for people to request euthanasia, and to be granted such a death as a “way out” of painfully difficult situations and circumstances, rather than addressing underlying issues of inequality and a lack of ade- quate support for people with very complex needs.

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