Eugenics not Eradication: How People with Disabilities Have Lost the Right to Life

• Main Author: Standish, Ava
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholars Crossing 2023
• Subjects: Down Syndrome; Abortion; Eugenics; Eradication; Human Rights; Right to Life; American Politics; Disability Law; Human Rights Law; Natural Law; Political Theory; Iceland
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/hsgconference/2023/liberty_justice/15; https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/context/hsgconference/article/1329/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf

Disability-selective abortion stems from a eugenical philosophy not a hope of eradication. Disabilities cannot be eradicated because they are not diseases. Eugenics seeks to purify society from those who are considered “inferior” and to encourage the rate of births considered “superior.” Eugenics continues today through selective abortion of children with disabilities. These children deserve the right to life guaranteed by natural rights, human rights, and the laws of the United States. Children with disabilities, particularly Down Syndrome, have lost this right to life in the United States and abroad. In the United States, 67% of children with Down Syndrome are selectively aborted. Countries like Iceland consider Down Syndrome “eradicated” because on average only one child is born with the disability each year. This label is inaccurate. Children with disabilities deserve the right to life that has been stripped from them because of an immoral attempt to preserve a “better” society that aligns with the Darwinian idea of Natural Selection presenting itself in the eugenics ideology. This ideology is the basis of selective abortion.