Very fair article from Stanford...
plato.stanford.edu
"...Advocates of liberal eugenics intend to distinguish it from troubling historical predecessors by highlighting four main differences. First, it is individual in nature rather than state-sponsored. The intended benefit of any eugenic intervention is individual/private welfare (that of the child-to-be, or of the family), rather than the welfare of the state as a whole. Second, it is premised on individual liberty, the freedom of parents to choose according to their own values and conceptions of the good life. The state does not mandate contraception, sterilization, prenatal testing, abortion, or any other form of eugenic intervention (note: there are potential exceptions in which judges or states have offered long-term contraception such as Norplant as a condition of probation related to a criminal offense or for the continued provision of welfare, see e.g., Dresser 1996). Rather, it allows individuals to choose among a range of alternatives. Third, it presumes value pluralism, recognizing that individual parents will often desire different things for their offspring. This means allowing others to choose in ways that we ourselves would not, in the interest of preserving a liberal society that is neutral about particular conceptions of the good. The aim of a liberal eugenic program is to expand reproductive choices for individuals, in contrast to the historical eugenic programs that clearly cut off reproductive options for many. (That said, even liberal eugenics advocates typically presume that some limits would need to be in place, to ensure that prospective parents could not act in ways clearly contrary to the interests of their future children, or in ways that seem clearly vicious; how and where those limits would be set are intensely controversial, as will be discussed below.) Finally, advocates of liberal eugenics highlight the difference between the kind and quality of the science underlying the reproductive policies. Past eugenic programs relied on views of race, intelligence, and genetics that were, from our current perspective, “hopelessly wrong” (Agar 2004: 7). A cursory summary of these kinds of distinctions between old and “new” eugenics can be found in Caplan 2004, and the same collection of distinctions underlies most liberal or “new” eugenic arguments..." |
