What happens when we fail to educate our citizenry on basic science and history? One of the many unfortunate consequences is that we have contemporary Republican legislators actually advocating eugenics proposals:
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that state Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) said yesterday that “he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.” LaBruzzo worries that people receiving food and housing assistance “are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated residents”
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What science education would have prevented this? What history lesson, other than Nazism, which is hardly analogous, would have prevented this. Better, how is this even wrong? It might well be, but you don't say. Is it wrong because it is one step away from coerced sterilization? Is bribing the poor, in fact, a form of coercion?
ReplyDeleteEugenics originated in the United States long before "Nazism" was a word.
ReplyDeleteIt is wrong for many reasons, but one such reason includes the fact that associating one's income with the genetics of their parents is utterly unscientific (recombinant DNA) and it is unethical to offer or request sterilization in exchange for compensation to better societies ills.
A better education in history and science would make these facts, lessons, and points more readily known and not fit for serious repeating.
More education makes people more thoughtful. This is a question which requires thoughtfulness. On the surface it is hard to say exactly what is wrong with this Gary Becker type proposal. Wait … add a little thought … let marinate. This solution would reduce unwanted pregnancy but unwanted pregnancy is not the problem. The problem is a life style steeped in poverty, discrimination, violence, ignorance and despair. Unwanted pregnancy is a result of these problems. So we need to focus on alleviating these problems, not their results.
ReplyDeleteBTW - the same also largely true of HIV.
ReplyDeleteThere is not a matter of a 'culture of poverty;' there is a matter of poverty. The fact of the matter is that where you were born, not who your mother was, is the most robust metric for poverty. Born in Calcutta? Probably poor. Born in Palm Springs? Probably not.
ReplyDeleteThe question here has nothing to do with either of these things. The question here has to do with the fact that an elected official to the US Congress in 2008 is openly advocated eugenics and a well educated member of this blog is actually bothering to question why this is wrong.
"It is wrong for many reasons, but one such reason includes the fact that associating one's income with the genetics of their parents is utterly unscientific (recombinant DNA) . . . "
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to associate income with DNA; rather, you need only associate poverty with a breeding (no pun intended) ground for social pathologies. So, this first point is a straw man.
" . . . and it is unethical to offer or request sterilization in exchange for compensation to better societies ills."
Perhaps, but you still do not say why.
and it is unethical to offer or request sterilization in exchange for compensation to better societies ills."
ReplyDeleteThis is what I was getting at. It is not inherently wrong, it is disingenuous. Such a “solution” treats the symptoms, not the cause. Our focus should be on bettering people’s lives by providing them more freedom/opportunity (opposed to which stands poverty, discrimination, violence, ignorance and despair). I do not agree with everything Amartya Sen says, but it is worth mentioning the title of his 1999 book, “Development as Freedom”.
Assuming you are correct about symptoms and causes, are you willing to so treat short term symptoms in the mean time while you are fixing the long term root causes? Radical, but it follows from what you are saying.
ReplyDeleteSure, when the problem is radical enough (simple utilitarianism). But that means China in 1950, not New Orleans 2008. Our society has plenty of resources to provide better forms of social support as short term relief.
ReplyDelete" . . . a well educated member of this blog is actually bothering to question why this is wrong."
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, because that is what well educated people do.