The New Eugenic Nation

It’s here, and has been for some while – our New Eugenic Nation.

And it’s becoming more and more visible to the point that only now are parents getting to see it up close, ugly, and very personal – that their child’s disability is used as a tool of discrimination to deny them treatment. Predictably, parents and lay people are astounded.

They shouldn’t be. This has been going on for years and as we become less sensitized to issues of death and dying, and as the pro-death movement keeps up a constant drumbeat that dying is better than living, people with disabilities will see their treatments increasingly going to other people.

The new scarlet letter is “D” for disability, and those bearing it are judged as less worthy of treatment and life than the rest of us.

On Sunday I posted the heartbreaking story of a parent whose child has been refused a kidney transplant because she is “retarded.” (here).

Yes, the cold assessment of the medical team was that a transplant for the child was not worth it because she was retarded and would not benefit as much as someone, apparently, who was not retarded.

This is, unfortunately, the current state of affairs. How did we get here?

Well, many people, even those who think the culture of death has it wrong, disagree with me that we are in an age of new eugenics. For many, it comes too close to what the Nazis espoused and is therefore, for some reason, off limits.

Unfortunately, they are wrong.

Eugenics is back.

The idea of eugenics is not hard to understand. It is based on the notion of the pursuit of perfection (or as close as humanity can come to perfection). Eugenics says that humans, like all animals, reproduce to keep the species not only alive, but in good shape. What this means is “survival of the fittest,” which is achieved by the law of the jungle: the stronger (more perfect) will live to reproduce and the sickly and disabled (less perfect) will be abandoned or destroyed. Over generations, this will mean that the species grows stronger and more perfect and therefore have better chances of survival.

This is exactly what, in the 1920s, the eugenicists in the US, the UK, and Germany fervently believed. Of course, they not only believed it, they put their fatal ideas into practice. In the US and Britain, hundreds of thousands of people considered “inferior” (including the retarded, the blind, the deaf, those who did not conform to society) were sterilized or institutionalized to prevent them from “breeding.” It was the next step from natural selection: deliberate dividing of populations into those who were worth something - usually their ability to contribute to society in some meaningful way - and those who were of less worth – those who couldn’t contribute and who were a drag on society.

The Nazis took eugenics to a very active form by killing their own citizens with disabilities as a means of preventing weakness.

And that’s exactly what we, here in the US, are doing today.

And it’s being pushed by the medical profession, those who previously had pledged to “do no harm,” now morphed into “do no harm to those who are more perfect, never mind doing harm to those judged less perfect.”

How so?

Well, when medical decisions have to be made about the care or treatment of the disabled, that judgment often goes against their best interests. In the piece I referred to above, the doctor made the mistake of actually saying what he meant: That the child was not worth the transplant. The subtext here, of course, is that there is another more perfect child who would benefit more.

Plain and simple: In the US today, having a disability makes you a second class citizen likely to get less consideration because you won’t ever be what the nondisabled population will be.

Now, the child in the piece will not likely be deliberately killed by doctors as the Nazis did, but in refusing her the transplant, they will be killing her nevertheless.

Dr. Mark On The Andy Caldwell Show Tonight

I'll be on the Andy Caldwell Show (am 1440 central coast) from 7.30 - 8 pm eastern time tonight. I'll be doing a wrap-up of the important stories around disability, assisted suicide, and euthanasia for 2011.

Nabil Shaban: Pro-Deathers Worst Nightmare

Nabil Shaban is a take-no-prisoners person with a disability who is perhaps the pro-deathers worst nightmare. Take a look:

For A Change: A Positive & Meaningful Life

Here’s the antithesis of pro-death: someone who, with a severe disability, sees life as valuable and worth living. We need to hear form more people like this to counter the pro-death poster people that tend to get all the attention.

Paralysed Leicester Tiger Matt Hampson talks about his inspiring life

WHEN Matt Hampson was left paralysed after breaking his neck in a freak rugby accident, he plumbed the depths trying to find meaning in his life.

But the former Leicester Tiger prospect and England U21 international soon realised he could either “get busy living, or get busy dying”. more

Increasingly Disability = Death

Yes, here's the ugly truth - disability will get you killed in many areas of today’s society. This report shows that children in the UK are now being aborted for having even minor "defects." Simply depraved, no question.

Aborting abnormality

In a multi-ethnic society, we must be exposed to diversity in order to accept it without fear or hostility. No matter how friendly or open- minded we may be, awareness and exposure are the only way to make something 'new' and 'different' become normal and even mundane. more

BBC Exposes Abuse Of People With Disabilities Part 4

UK: The Disabled Are Increasingly Abused

The UK is further down the road to eugenics than we often suppose. Here's a commentary on a TV undercover investigation into how institutionalized people are treated. Beatings, goading, etc. The UK is fast becoming a culture where only the nondisabled matter or are cared for.

The Panorama exposé revealed a culture of contempt for the disabled. Do we share in it?

Last night’s Panorama undercover investigation of a “care home” for adults with learning disabilities and autism has led to four arrests. It should lead to a complete shake-up of a culture that holds the disabled in contempt.

Viewers who squirmed and winced at the sight of “care” workers (a truly sick term in this context) slapping and punching their disabled charges must admit some complicity in this systemic cruelty. In Britain, the abortion law allows an expectant mother who discovers her child is disabled (and this umbrella term covers everything from Downs Syndrome through unformed limbs to a cleft palate) to abort in her third trimester. This, despite scientific evidence showing that by then the foetus is capable of living outside their mother’s womb, reacting to sound and touch, and capable of feeling pain. The message of such legislation is clear: disabled beings are better off unborn. more

The UK War On Children With Disabilities

You may not know that unborn children with disabilities are routinely aborted in the UK - even for minor and easily correctable "imperfections" like cleft palate. Of course, the pro-deathers in the British Government want to keep under wraps how many children with disabilities are killed (hint: many more than anyone could guess). However, they have just lost in the British High Court, and presumably must now make those figures public. Prediction: There'll be much more effort from the pro-deathers to keep this quiet. Why? because this is eugenics that even Hitler would have been proud of.

Release the figures on late abortions, orders High Court

Figures on late abortions of ‘less than perfect’ foetuses must be released to the public, the High Court has ruled.

Campaigners claimed victory last night in a long-running secrecy row with the Government over terminations of embryos diagnosed with conditions such as club foot and cleft palate. more

Eugenics Of People With Disabilities In England - Aren't We Lucky?

The culture of death has a new branch - open eugenics. Sterilizing women with disabilities is baaacckkkk!!

UK court mulls sterilizing mentally disabled woman

LONDON (AP) — A British judge ruled Tuesday that more evidence is needed before deciding whether to grant a mother's wish to have her mentally disabled daughter sterilized — a case that is troubling medical ethicists.

The 21-year-old woman, who has a significant learning disability and has been identified only as P, already has one child who is being cared for by her mother, Mrs. P. The woman is scheduled to give birth via cesarean section on Wednesday and her mother had proposed that doctors could sterilize her daughter at the same time. more

Disabled And Medically Vulerable Will Be The First To Die

Yes, it’s true, the medically vulnerable and disabled will, indeed, be targets if assisted sucide or euthanasia are legalized. That’s what this piece argues. Also, if you want a slice of how the general population sees this issue, read the comments section after the article – chilling.

Don't allow deaths 'under cloak of assisted suicide'

Vulnerable people could be pressured into ending their own lives under laws on assisted suicide, a peer warned today.

Onora Sylvia O'Neill, Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve, said any future legislation could never carry enough safeguards to stop people being exploited.

Speaking ahead of her appearance at the Commission on Assisted Dying today, Baroness O'Neill said she believed there is "no way that we can pass safe legislation that could sufficiently protect vulnerable people". more

Kill Your Kid After Asking About Euthanasia - Why Not?

Oh, I’m shocked, I tell you. Severely disabled toddler drowns. Uh-oh parents had enquired about euthanasia beforehand . . . I’m sure that, on their art, it was simply an academic exercise . . . Not.

Parents of drowned toddler 'asked about euthanasia', inquest hears

THE PARENTS of a severely disabled toddler who drowned in an inflatable pool made inquiries about euthanasia, an inquest has been told.

The two-year-old girl, who cannot be named, was discovered face down in the pool at her Curl Curl home in December 2007.

In the months before her death, she had been diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, a neurological condition that occurs almost exclusively in girls and results in a deterioration in speech, balance and co-ordination. more

A Good Primer On Eugenics In The US

If you’re not up to speed on eugenics and people with disabilities, this is a good place to start. Of course, I would go further and suggest that we have eugenics of people with disabilities happening n the 21^st century in the good ol’ US of A.

When America believed in eugenics

In the second of her series to mark disability history month, Victoria Brignell investigates America's past enthusiasm for eugenics and the profound suffering this inflicted on disabled people.

In the decades following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, a craze for eugenics spread not only through Britain but through America as well. Overbreeding by the poor and disabled threatened the quality of the human race, American campaigners warned. Drastic measures must be taken to avert a future catastrophe for humanity.

Amid popular fears about the decline of the national stock, one of the main drives behind the formation of American immigration policy at the end of the 19th century was the desire to exclude disabled people. The first major federal immigration law, the Act of 1882, prohibited entry to any 'lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.' more

An Eloquent Defense Of A Severely Disabled Child

Here’s an eloquent defense of a child with severe disabilities – by a man who, when faced with his newborn son, came to eschew his agreement with Peter Singer, that such children should be killed.

A Life Beyond Reason

My son, August, has a number of quirks that distinguish him from the typically developing 10-year-old. He lives with cerebral palsy, is a spastic quadriplegic, has cortical visual impairment (meaning he is legally blind), is completely nonverbal and cognitively disabled, has a microcephalic head, and must wear a diaper. Moreover, he is immobile—he can't crawl or scoot around or hold himself up or even sit in a chair without being strapped in it. If someone were to put him on the floor and leave him there, he would be in the same location hours later, give or take a foot. more

Disabled: Let's Kill You - It's In Your Best Interests, Really!!

Ah, yes, it’s in your best interests for us to kill you – at least says a Belgian court. Unborn child has a disability, undetected. Child born with said disability. Parents sue hospital, because the medicos missed the disability, thus, the parents now have a child that should have been detected and aborted. That is, killing the unborn child would have been in the child’s best interest rather than subjecting the child to the “hell” of living with a disability. Breathtaking. Rough Google translation:

. . . This is the first time in Belgium that an appellate court receives such a wrongful life action (wrongful life). Previously, a trial court of first instance of Brussels, released April 21, 2004, had adopted a similar solution, about a child with Down syndrome. more

Yes, There Is An Alternative To Murder Of The Disabled

Finally, some pushback to the coming sainthood of murderer Robert Latimer. It’s about time.

Latimer chose one path, this family chose the other

In the fall of 1993 two families — one on a Saskatchewan farm, the other in downtown Toronto — made life-and-death decisions about their daughters’ futures.

Both girls, one nearly 13 at the time, the other almost 18, had profound developmental disabilities.

In Saskatchewan, Robert Latimer ended his daughter Tracy’s life, later saying in interviews he acted “out of love” to end her suffering.

In Toronto, Christy and Bill Barber were appalled when their daughter Nancy became grievously ill and an intern asked, “Would you like us to do everything we can?” Nancy had developed peritonitis after a procedure to insert a feeding tube and required emergency surgery. more

In Canada: Kill Your Disabled Daughter - Home For Christmas

The Canadian legal system shows it’s bias in the Latimer case. Latimer murdered his disabled daughter claiming that he did her a favor. When he came to trial I wasn’t surprised (but many were) that many Canadians thought he did the right thing. He’s been on partial release for a while, and now the monster’s free. Tracey, his dead daughter, is forgotten.

Robert Latimer granted full parole

CALGARY – Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan wheat farmer who killed his severely disabled daughter, has been granted full parole, his lawyer said Monday. more

Indian Disabled Push Back Against Euthanasia Musical

Here’s some push-back to the new Indian musical about euthanasia. Good for Indians with disabilities who are questioning the premise and bigotry that says if you have a disability, you’re probably better off dead.

Hope scores over death

Hrithik Roshan may be winning accolades for convincingly playing a quadriplegic, Ethan, in Guzaarish but the fact that his character resorts to euthanasia is being regarded in poor light. Activists and even those living with physical challenges believe the film sets a poor example. For the lakhs of Indians suffering from spinal injuries who brave each day, trying to live a normal life despite their injuries, the film seems to ignore their need for hope and validation. Hrithik’s character’s plea for euthanasia goes against the grain in a country that boasts of glowing examples of quadriplegic survivors living successful, productive, happy lives. more

Yes, Legalized Killing WILL Target People With Disabilities

Aussie Erik Leipoldt gets it right – legalized assisted suicide & euthanasia will target those with disabilities first. How many people can’t see this is beyond me.

Euthanasia in Australia: Raising a disability voice

The Australian euthanasia debate is inviting us to conclude that lives lived with disability are often not worth living, while actual disability experience points to a contrary reality. more

Some Sanity In The Aussie Fascination With Euthanasia

Given the Aussie flirtation with assisted suicide and euthanasia, here’s a refreshing and utterly rational defense of people with disabilities as valuable, something that the pro-deathers routinely deny.

DISABILITY AND EUTHANASIA – A PERSONAL REFLECTION

It’s probably quite difficult to understand the viewpoint of a person living with a disability.  I once thought it almost impossible. But that all changed when I met my wife-to-be. Anne’s older brother lived all his life with a significant intellectual disability.

My introduction to my future brother-in-law was handled extremely gently. I guess having grown up with Mark, Anne understood that people were often visibly uncomfortable in his presence and expected me to be no different. She was right. more

Excellent UK Piece Linking Pro-Deather Ideas To Abuse Of People With Disabilities

An excellent piece out of the UK connecting the abuse of people with disabilities to the assisted suicide/euthanasia debate. I’ll post a link to Rosa Monckton’s movie as soon as I find it.

A terrible truth: it's natural to pick on the weak

Some time in the last 50 years, a collective decision was made to try to behave better towards the disabled and the mentally handicapped. Why was such a decision considered necessary? Rosa Monckton's powerful television programme helped give the answer.

Rosa, who herself has a 15‐year-old with Down's syndrome, filmed the lives of three families, and of one man living alone, who are persecuted because of their disability. Their suffering is caused not by the public authorities – though Rosa is critical of failures by those authorities to respond – but by neighbours. more