The history is that it did start that way and one of the current discussion points is whether or not to allow people to abort children that are found to have genetic abnormalities such as pre-natal screening for Down Syndrome.
Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable."
Of course the unspoken corollary here is that to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics one must prevent the reproduction of undesirable heritable characteristics.
It's plainly obvious to many of us today that such a policy is dangerous if we decide to select on characteristics such as color of skin, but as the GP says, maybe in 50 years we will find that people with Down Syndrome will consider today's approved abortions for their condition to be just as barbaric.
>Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable."
So, for abortion to be a eugenics project, they should be arranged by some central governing body - a "board of eugenics" or "baby optimization committee" if you will - and not simply done by the choice of each pregnant person. Maybe you could argue that a high-level propaganda campaign could have the same effect, but that's beyond the realm of the legislative or judicial branches of government, and possibly beyond government entirely.
I think the biggest implication of any type of abortion being outlawed is that it subjects all pregnant people to the potential violence of the state on behalf of anyone close enough to know about their pregnancy. Add to this the massive grey areas introduced by the base rate of miscarriage, drugs that can be used for multiple things including abortion, what defines a threat to the life of the mother, and you've got a recipe for endless justifications for violations of privacy, bodily autonomy, and completely arbitrary prosecutions of uterus-havers.
There is no requirement for Government to be involved in eugenics given the definition I quoted -- you put that forward as assumed, but you recognize that it can happen beyond government entirely.
I would suggest that eugenics could also happen at a local level. Specifically for the only argument I am making here, a mother deciding not to have a child that is likely to have Down Syndrome.
This is an example of non-government enforced hyper local eugenics that is currently seen as okay but maybe in 50 to 100 years may be seen as barbaric the way that we currently see the idea of aborting babies based on the color of their skin.
As another commenter noted, the reasons that some people choose to abort their children would likely be cheered as a good example of eugenics in practice from the perspective of a historical eugenics loving evil caricature of your choice. If we're being charitable, we might term this "accidental eugenics".
Given what you have written, I believe I may presume that we are both on the same page that you would potentially be upset if the government forced people to get abortions for eugenics purposes as well, but perhaps I am wrong on that.
Regardless, I am not making any arguments for or against abortion here; rather, I am arguing first that there is some necessary overlap between abortion and eugenics and second that our current view of which kinds of eugenics are acceptable may be found to be distasteful to people in the future who are even more progressive than ourselves.
They say Sparta practiced eugenics with late-term abortions according to legend though we don't have any physical evidence of this to my quick search. Wikipedia offers this quotation as a source[0]
Haeckel, Ernst (1876). "The History of Creation, vol. I". New York: D. Appleton. p. 170. "Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race."
Sparta was a small, barbaric slave city state that after a flash in the sun, quickly faded into obscurity due to its ossified economic and political structures.
There's six orders of magnitude more people who have lived in political, and ethical systems over those thousands of years that had nothing to do with Sparta. I'm not sure why you are cherrypicking needles out of haystacks, but it's as much a fallacy as pointing out that since Ghenghis Khan wore pants, ergo, pants are evil.
I'm not sure what you think my position is as you seem to be arguing past me about something else completely.
My position is that I agree with a specific claim of the GP whose exact words were "A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongside eugenics (alongside which it originated) as a mistaken wrong turn in the arc of progress."
The specific parts that I agree with are that:
1) Abortion and Eugenics are related and originated somewhat together, and
2) 100 years from now Abortion as a Right instead of as Legislation may be seen as a wrong turn much like Eugenics is now
In your first response to me you only addressed point #1 by stating erroneously that "Abortion has a millennium-long history that precedes eugenics". I clarified in my response that I meant "recent history" in which Abortion and Eugenics were very intertwined; however, I also provided a link to a Wikipedia page that starts out telling us that Plato in Ancient Greece was a proponent of Eugenics which shows that concept also has a millenium long history. I didn't quote that section, but instead, I quoted a section referring to the legendary tales of Sparta engaging in eugenics and late term abortion.
In your second response you failed to read the source link I provided detailing the history of Eugenics and pick up on your mistake; instead, you have gone down some strange argument disparaging Sparta and claiming I am cherry picking needles out of haystacks.
It doesn't matter that you view Sparta as a "barbaric slave city state" which "faded into obscurity" -- that doesn't change the fact that they are a millenia old example of eugenics and potentially very late term abortions.
Even if it did, none of this works to refute my position that possibly 100 years from now Abortion as a Right instead of as Legislation may be seen as a wrong turn much like Eugenics is now. The specific example I gave of Down Syndrome stands as a current issue that may turn into a future view of our current peoples as barbaric for aborting babies with Down Syndrome.
Do you have any arguments against that, or do you think I'm just anti-abortion in general and you're having a general argument with me about abortion? Because I am neither anti-abortion nor am I arguing against abortion.
Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable."
Of course the unspoken corollary here is that to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics one must prevent the reproduction of undesirable heritable characteristics.
It's plainly obvious to many of us today that such a policy is dangerous if we decide to select on characteristics such as color of skin, but as the GP says, maybe in 50 years we will find that people with Down Syndrome will consider today's approved abortions for their condition to be just as barbaric.