Should infanticide be allowed in cases of severe disabilities?

[mheslep]

Unarguably Unequal
Defined: Any person born that would be unable to have a self-sustained life...

1) No infant or toddler can self-sustain life, and if you mean upon achieving a later age, then 2) the planet can only support a population a small fraction of its current size consisting of people acting utterly self-sufficiently. At the current world population the vast majority of us survive and thrive only by depending on one another in some form.

 

[Huckleberry]

I'd love to see the evidence of this fact. It's been shown time and again that even the most advanced mammals (dolphins, primates, pigs) do indeed practice forms of infanticide from direct killing to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runt" neglect.

I'm not trying to be derisive here, I'd honestly like some evidence of non-human animals that cater to malformed or diseased offspring. Preferrably I'd like to see evidence that shows a trend of this behavior consistently. Exceptions to rules are just that.

I'm not saying humans don't commit infanticide. I'm saying humans have different social structure, biology and survival pressures. It shapes our evolution in ways that are different than other animals. If we were placed in a similar situation to those animals you would see many of the same behaviours. Your argument for infanticide suggests that we live like animals. What you are really after is the absence of morals. I think I understand why you would have such an opinion, but it isn't based on rational thought or logic.

Based on your examples this would be an equally acceptable way for humans to live. A woman gets a new boyfriend and he comes over to kill all her offspring. After mating she should chew his head off and give birth to a litter of babies. It's certainly possible for us to arrange that, but I don't think it's beneficial to our evolution. For my next trick I'm going to make an oak tree grow apples because it's more natural for the oak tree, and I'm hungry.

You see compassion as a weakness. I see it as a strength. More accurately, because a person has the ability to be compassionate to others it means they can provide more than they require for their own survival, or the survival of the many is more important than the individual. I don't believe compassion is a weakness.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

It's not. Allowing them to breed however is, assuming their issues are genetic in nature.

Again this is just one aspect of the overall detriment that is posed by nurturing those that are incapable of self-sustenance.

This is quite the hard-lined stance. I don't expect many to agree. What I would hope however is that people at least consider the cost at which we as a society and species pay to support anyone that cannot or will not provide for themselves. Once that is considered I ask why? Is it merely for the sake of preserving life, or is it because we've been sold into a belief of moral wrongdoing? If it's the latter then I believe we need to step back and reaccess the situation.

What do you believe is the likelihood that any person with a severe genetic debilitation, such that they take from society without direct contribution, is going to reproduce? Few such people survive childhood and even fewer still are capable of taking part in society to such a degree that they are likely to reproduce. And even if they do their children could easily turn out perfectly normal and capable of contributing to society. Do you have any stats that could show us just how much these genes are polluting the pool? Since people are more likely to keep children that are disabled do you think maybe that having one such child will be enough for them and they will be less likely to have more? Generally in human and animal groupings the deformed and sick children would be killed and then the parents would have yet more children. This would seem more likely to perpetuate the defective genes.

I would also echo Huck's opinion that compassion can be a strength. The more people are capable of caring for others the stronger our community will be. I think its fairly obvious that one of our primary strengths as a species is our capacity to form ever larger and stronger communities. This is why I asked if you could point out where you see that these tings have hindered human evolution, that is actual real world examples with statistics and such that show we have slowed or been hindered in our progress, because you really need to prove that the possible disadvantages out weigh the possible advantages. Simply asserting it as a disadvantage is not enough.

I hope 'committed' is the right word there, not practiced. At least in this society infanticide is not acceptable, it is murder. I thought that statement would be pedantic, but after reading this thread so far, maybe not.

I used the term to indicate an action that is taken with regularity among a group or groups. To use the word "commit" may make the actions seem as isolated incidents as opposed to something that is commonly done. While infanticide may not be "practiced" (but rather "commited") here in the US or other similar countries there are those places where it would be more aptly described as a "practice".

 

[BWV]

empathy and compassion are necessary attributes for human society. People that lack these attributes are called sociopaths and they impose far greater costs on society than those unable to care for themselves. Any rationally designed euthanasia program would first start with them. Moreover people who advocate murdering disabled people based upon some sense of duty to natural selection are not only sociopaths but plain stupid and should be moved to the front of the line

 

[seycyrus]

From a societal perspective.

In a program of enforced infanticide one must consider the possibility that potentially beneficial genetic traits will be culled from the gene pool.

The definition of a genetic advantage might change as our species evolves.