Eugenics: self euthanasia as customary procedure by gradualism
Some introductory food for thought...
"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"
- George Bernand Shaw
"The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand of the clearest reason and if systematically executed represents the most humane act of mankind"
- Adolf Hitler
"Instead of baby we say fetus; instead of killing we say aborting; instead of dissect we say research; instead of extermination chambers we say abortion clinics"
- Chuck Norris
An introduction to early pre-war eugenics...
Before the true picture and full story of what had been happening in Central Europe during the second world war had reached the United States, for a period of time eugenics had been considered a credible science and was respected publicly in that way. Eugenics is the study of genetic human traits, and until being discredited by it's use in the systematic mass human slaughter under the Nazi regime, heavily influenced by eugenics in it's hatred towards Jews, Romani people and the disabled, it had influenced the general public of the US in the eugenics movement of the early Twentieth century.
Gradualism and eugenics as leading to public acceptance of euthanasia?
Gradualism, as a method utilised to influence the political, social and economic spheres is among the most powerful techniques harnessed toward achieving ends without large change all at once, rather, small and seemingly sporadic adjustments made over lengthier periods of time proves to avoid public quarrel. It is by it's exploitation of the wider human tendency for a general sense of social cryptomnesia, that it achieves what would be a large change, made unnoticed by having been brought about one small step at a time. The concept derives from the ancient Roman General and Politician, Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, whose employment of gradualism in military tactics toward enemy morale meant he had won all his battles before any blood was shed. Gradualism in modern times is employed by any and all smart enough to acknowledge it's effectiveness, and who would plan in advance of ultimate goals to achieve their ends.
How does Gradualism in modern times apply to current movements in eugenics and euthanasia? Well, I am but a person who likes to theorise plausible possibility based on historic and psychological evidence of human nature (a vague understanding at that), but here I would like to assess the future of euthanasia starting from the current political topic of abortion rights. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a rather outspoken eugenicist and at times expressed some racist views:
"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its
infant members is to kill it"
- Margaret Sanger
But getting to the point, how can abortion rights have a plausible possibility of leading to wider euthanasia in society? As previously discussed gradualism is very effective when applied to the social/political sphere, and to look how western society has transformed over such a seemingly short period of time from almost complete moral refusal of the idea of infanticide, to today, where a large proportion of society now upholds it as a moral ideal to allow it. What has influenced society toward such a radical change in views? Certainly the influence of progressivism and postmodernism injected into society, in media and educational institutions. So surely it is not a radical question to ask, what next? Is it radical, when society has seen such a polar shift in what is considered moral, to suggest the possibility of postnatal abortion as a possibility to manifest in society? Abortion rights were achieved by attacking the moral conscience of the public through guilt, making it seem immoral to refute the concept of liberal abortion. Perhaps the same method could be applied to the encouragement of another step, and even further. Here's a possible chronology of the steps toward extensive euthanasia through gradualism:
• Abortion rights for women makes infanticide a societal norm
• Abortion rights were granted and accepted on the basis that to do otherwise would cause harm
• Postnatal abortion rights are granted and become a societal norm on the same basis
• Euthanasia is recommended to the growing elderly population, particularly the ill on the basis that thier continued existence causes harm
• Euthanasia then becomes recommended for ill, disabled, and mentally damaged children on the basis that it is moral to do so
• Euthanasia becomes recommended to the ill and disabled generally for the same reasons
This would be a possible chronology of the gradual devaluing of human life into a medical-moral symbiosis in which the continuance of life is discouraged on a new moral basis. Euthanasia then becomes a societal norm through gradual means, to which the end is a society that values moral utilitarianism over the individual. The primary facet of gradualism is that one technique can be applied to anything in that field of attainment, i.e. using the above chronology, when approaching the legality of abortion rights for women (step one) from a moral basis, one can then also approach the legality of postnatal abortion (step two) from a moral basis once the previous step has been achieved. This can even be simplified to a mathematics style equation:
Clause + Rationale = Institutionalisation/Normalisation
This method can be applied to various other aspects of the social, economic and political sphere, such as the gradual increase of the police state for example. The clause being increased police and militarism; the rationale being increased crime or the threat of terrorism, etc; and the inevitable institutionalisation and normalisation is that of a militarised domestic police force, especially when created gradually. Perhaps some time in the future, if it isn't too radical a notion, rather than have people treated for illness, it will be seen as better, maybe even ones moral duty, to instead take their euthanasia tablet over being a burden to society or to themselves. Similarly, today it is better that people have their babies killed than be a burden to society, or the child a burden to them.
Nazi Germany as an example of eugenics and euthanasia with public consent/apathy?
It was not too long ago in the history of man, that a seemingly civilised society manifested within it one of the most monstrous genocidal regimes to have existed. However, before the systematic rounding up and extermination of mass populations took pace at the latter end of the Nazi regime, society in Germany had undergone a process of gradualism and propaganda that swept aside the value of human life toward certain areas of the population; Völkisch equality, cultivating among many a degree of apathy and social crytomnesia in the face of a new society. The story of eugenics and mass extermination by the Nazi regime did not start when the first gas chamber was built, nor did it end when those camps where liberated in 1945. Much had gone on in preparation for such a colossal regime.
The early, Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, 1934 began the Nazi sterilisation programme that specifically targeted the disabled, and what was termed the 'hereditarily diseased', which is subjective by Nazi standards and there were at least 400,000 know cases of forced sterilisation in Germany during their rule. There was also of course the Nuremberg Laws, 1935 that placed the ideologically degenerate as second class citizens. Nazi euthanasia would later progress into Aktion T4 that would allow German physicians to euthanize patients deemed incurably sick, something also vague and indiscriminatory, and at least 70,000 people were killed by this method from 1939 to 1941. This of course later transitioned into Action 14f13 that allowed the systematic slaughter of concentration camp prisoners by the Nazis. Along side the gradual legal process of the inevitable systematic extermination, there was the societal and cultural aspects that coincided. For many decades Germany had cultivated a culture of antisemitism and growing ideologies of racial purity, with organisations such as the Pan-German League and the German Society for Racial Hygiene, coupled with the extensive Nazi propaganda that had existed before and during power. It is therefor quite conceivable that society could and can manifest a culture of euthanasia and eugenics by gradual means, and if it can be done in part by force under the Nazis it can certainly be done by consent under new influences.
- a short essay by FabiusSideman