Sterilizing the Handicapped

Wait a minute -- there is a HUGE difference between handicapped and retarded. No WAY should this be dumped into the same boat.

Handicapped:

No WAY should handicapped people be sterilized just because they're handicapped.

Case in point: two dear friends of mine are blind and married. They sing and play guitar/piano like angels, and they already work with children. They'd be PERFECT parents.

Retardation:

There is retarded, and then there's retarded.

I believe that sterilization IS something that a court of law should be able to decide in the case of mental retardation.

it depends on whether the condition is a random mutation or a genetic disorder. If its not genetic, sterilization won't achieve anything anyway.

In my humble opinion , no person , no matter what judicial , legislative , or executive potition they hold , has the right to decide if another person can reproduce.

You have every right to your opinion, but as the parent of three kids, and knowing people who were mentally "gone" -- no WAY would I even let them babysit one of my kids.

Honestly.

Children are a huge responsibility.

I'm in favour of it but then I'm in favour of mandatory contraception until the prospective parents are able to pass a stringent test.

IMO, 50% of so-called "nomal" people should not be parents.

If this were the case, there's no way in hell I'd have passed the test. Discriminating against people with mental illness is one of the easiest ways to filter people out. The problem is is that many parents on paper seem lovely, but are terrible parents. The opposite is true as well. The whole idea of a "test" for reproduction is tossed around all the time but any practical application of it would be ludicrous.

This is a very slippery slope, indeed. I think the idea is slightly less reprehensible than the way it would ultimately be implemented. It was tried once before early in the 20th century and it was such a dark chapter of history that most people don't even know there is a term for it (eugenics) let alone that America was a driving force behind it.

In fact Naziism was the ultimate expression of it, which is why even the history books are silent on it now. Not all of them, though. There are plenty of books about it, but a good one just recently came out.

I sympathize with the concern that there are some people who are in no shape to raise children, compounded by the fact that their dehiblitating condition is inheritable. But there must be any number of solutions to be tried before we resort to eugenics.

In this thread, the women seem to be making the most sense. A very good mixture of compassion and reason and a refreshing lack of ego.

Well, eugenics means directing evolution. It doesn't have to be something as severe as sterilizing handicapped people though.
And this seems like a contradiction. The fact that you seek a solution to stop "unfit" people from having children is eugenics, is it not?

I am enjoying reading so many thought-provoking responses.

I like how you commanded "Discuss"

Too funny hotstuff.

I've no personal stake or experience in this and so I will keep my opinions to a minimum.
This was actually pioneered soon after the turn of the century in the United States, with Nazi Germany following suit and they did not begin by killing them, they merely sterilized them as other countries who began the practice too, it was eagerly accepted by the public at large in all of these countries as a means to produce 'medically superior offspring' - a german coinage.
It is humane in the long run for severely impaired and handicapped children, but this, like many other issues, including abortion, will perpetually be hung up on the forever elusive agreement on the "cut off point".


P.S. anyone interested in euthanasia/sterilization and the human pursuits of 'medical superiority' and/or the nazi concept of the master race and it's inherent pros/cons/evils - and how the benign beginnings of humane sterilizations can spiral out of control must read this book, it is fascinating, I read it years ago and now you've piqued my interest to it again, beware it is not for the faint of heart:

Amazon.com: The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide: Robert Jay Lifton: Books

The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing ... - Google Book Search

Well I wasn't speaking of a written test, per se.

I was thinking more along the lines of ability to manage anger, repsonses to stress and the like.

There are parents with no mental illnesses beating their children,
shaking their babies and worse. This is what I'm talking about when I say "normal" people. I'm not speaking of mental illness.

I understand exactly what you're saying, and though I agree in principle because of some of the awful parenting I see, I just don't see how a fair test could be devised. To one extent or another, adoption agencies and foster parenting agencies try to do just what you're saying, but they don't do all that good a job. There are plenty of abused adopted and foster children.

We can't even properly police the clearly abusive parents that already have children, let alone ones yet to reproduce that would only be run of the mill shitty parents.

This kind of crap came out of Nazi Germany.

I'm with WOB on this one, i think non-permanent birth control solutions are a good option when a ward of the state. Whether you are retarded or just a run away teenage girl in a girls home. I also can imagine that abuse upon the mentally handicapped in facilities is probably as bad as those in nursing homes.