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Week 10 – Population Control: Eugenics and Other Evils

Week 10 – Population Control: Eugenics and Other Evils

            Synopsis

            Eugenics was an ideology popularized in the early 20th century to improve the human race, in large part by removing “undesirables” through involuntary sterilization and euthanasia. Learn the role of the Christian community in stopping the resurgence of this evil ideology which is increasingly being codified into our laws.

            Further Study

            Too Many People – The Concept of Population Control

            Overpopulation

            As Cassils (2004, 171) aptly points out, “If we humans reduce the global population to a fraction of its present level to, for example, two billion or the equivalent of the population of the Earth (sic) about 1930, it would provide extraordinary benefits. The quality of life of all people would soar. We would have all the advantages of modern technology but little, if any, environmental deterioration.” Below is a partial list of significant global movements and programs. I want you to notice the common thread of population control and reproductive control that is a corner-stone of each of these.
            • Environmental movement (too many people for the planet)
            • Scientific movement (improving the population through science)
            • Social Justice movement (women trapped in poverty by early pregnancies)
            • Reproductive Freedom & Women's movement (sex without fear)
            • World Health movement (fewer, healthier kids)
            Many have pointed out that the contentions of these groups is essentially correct: There are too many people for our current resources to sustain, women are trapped in poverty by early pregnancies, the ability to avoid or eliminate unwanted pregnancies has freed women in society, and too many sick children does overtax the health care system. The big question when managing population is, who decides? In all of these movements, you hear phrases like "for the good of the whole", or "for the collective", or "for the betterment of society". We must understand that "the whole", the collective" and "society" is nothing more that all of us as individuals. If we, as individuals choose to not have children, then that is fine - it's our choice. But that is not what these programs advocate. They require a person or a group to make decisions for the whole of society. This is where reproductive freedom is placed at risk. Who is that person or group? What gives them the right to decide if you can have children? Or if the children you already have, are permitted to live? Or if you are permitted to live?

            History

            Matheus

             

            Eugenics in America

            Eugenics - Galton, Margarette Sanger, George Bernard Shaw

            George Bernard Shaw, quotations. Certainly a man whose words are worth remembering:
            "I appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. Deadly by all means, but humane, not cruel"
            "The notion that persons should be safe from extermination as long as they do not commit willful murder, or levy war against the Crown, or kidnap, or throw vitriol, is not only to limit social responsibility unnecessarily, and to privilege the large range of intolerable misconduct that lies outside them, but to divert attention from the essential justification for extermination, which is always incorrigible social incompatibility and nothing else."
            "We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living, and to leave living a great many people whom we at present kill. We should have to get rid of all ideas about capital punishment …
            A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them."
            "The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”
            Margaret Sanger

            Nazi Eugenics

            The Population Bomb

            Cloward & Piven

            The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty". – Wikipedia
            The 8 steps in the strategy are:
            1. Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people.
            2. Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
            3. Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
            4. Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state
            5. Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives. (Food, Housing, and Income)
            6. Education – Take control of what people read and listen to us“ take control of what children learn in school.
            7. Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
            8. Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

            Save the Planet!

            Population Density

            War Against the Weak

            Abortion

            To gain some insight, perhaps we need to reconsider Gerbel’s assertion that if a mother could be convinced to kill her child, she could be convinced to do anything. This is a reflection of propaganda, which has only two possible motives – ideological, or politico-economic.

            Infanticide

            Homicide is the 13th leading cause of death among infants (i.e., children aged <1 year) in the United States (1). Infant homicides occurring within the first 24 hours of life (i.e., neonaticide) are primarily perpetrated by the mother, who might be of young age, unmarried, have lower educational attainment, and is most likely associated with concealment of an unintended pregnancy and nonhospital birthing (2). After the first day of life, infant homicides might be associated with other factors (e.g., child abuse and neglect or caregiver frustration) (2). A 2002 study of the age variation in homicide risk in U.S. infants during 1989–1998 found that the overall infant homicide rate was 8.3 per 100,000 person-years, and on the first day of life was 222.2 per 100,000 person-years, a homicide rate at least 10 times greater than that for any other time of life (3). Because of this period of heightened risk, by 2008 all 50 states* and Puerto Rico had enacted Safe Haven Laws. Over a 16-year period in North Carolina, we report on 34 newborns known to be killed or discarded in the first day of life by (or likely by) the parents, an annual rate of 2.1 per 100 000 newborns. The majority of the cases (91.2%) were ruled homicides, while 3 were found to be unintentional or due to natural causes. Mothers were the perpetrators in all cases where a perpetrator was positively identified. Approximately one fifth were married and a similar proportion had received some prenatal care. To our knowledge, this study is the only population-based case series that has been conducted in the United States.

            Elderly

            Disabled

            Mental Illness / Depression

            Minorities

            Sterilization

            Transgender Sterilization

            Prisoners

            Poor

            Euthanasia Today

             

            War & Genocide

            Christians as the Enemy

            • Punish pro-life
              • As noted by historians, the final step in solidifying the rule of a totalitarian regime is to eliminate dissent. We must make a careful distinction here: Eliminating action is a common and necessary role of society. Certain behaviors are antithetical to the values and morals of a given people. Eliminating dissent, by contrast is removing the type of discussion required for a free society to function. As a species we think in words. Once certain words are forbidden, the thoughts that generate them must be curtailed.
              • Over the course of many decades the legality and acceptance of abortion has changed, but what has remained constant is the frequent and robust debate surrounding it. It recent years, though, speech in favor of life or apposed to abortion has been increasingly branded as “hate speech” and prohibited by law, policy, or simply social pressure, the net result being a one-sided narrative in favor of a specific political ideology which is becoming increasingly totalitarian in its actions.
              • While many often argue their right and ability in states which limited abortion to refer women to abortion services elsewhere is a prohibition to speech, we must never confuse the debate about an issue, with instruction to engage in it. One may feel compelled to speak out against increased land development and deforestation, but that is wholly different than providing instruction on the sabotage of construction equipment.