What are your thoughts on eugenics?

[HOT_HEAD]

As the title suggests, I'm curious about what are others' thoughts when it comes to eugenics.
If you're not familiar with the term, simply put it's a belief (in some cases put to practice) that reproduction should be controlled, meaning the disabled, ill, weak, evil, etc. should not be allowed to reproduce and the people with "good genes" should be encouraged to reproduce.

Personally, I understand how people would mostly view this as bad (inhumane), but I see both sides of it.
Maybe it's immoral, but it's highly practical, especially when we are facing an inevitable doom if we continue to grow our population at this speed.
I see many other positive sides, but other than the one I stated, they are mainly my views and something that others are welcome to disagree on, so I will probably get into that later.

Only serious posts, please, so we can continue the debate in a professional manner.

[iluvpie60]

Eugenics will likely be the future whether we like it or not, it is already happening slowly as a soft roll out in many Western countries.

They screen your babies for Mental Illness as it is now and ask you if you want to abort it. Tons of other things they do to dissuade you from having an M.R. baby. Eugenics is already here.

[HabBear]

Personally...but I see both sides of it.

Maybe it's immoral, but it's highly practical, especially when we are facing an inevitable doom if we continue to grow our population at this speed.

Would you see both sides of it if your son or daughter were determined "not genetically attractive enough" to be kept alive in the community? Answer that question when you have a child.

Some parts of this world are about ensuring people have the freedom to live, love, work, pray, and be however the want (as long as they aren't acting in a way that violates anyone else's right to do the same). Some parts of this world aren't about ensuring those things or may place more emphasis on one thing at the expense of another.

To me, eugenics is beyond insane, it goes against the laws of nature. Nature is run by the law of survival of the fittest. And that means that every living thing gets a chance...some don't make it, and some do, and the fittest among us survive. BUT...every living thing gets that chance. Eugenics doesn't offer that chance.

[HOT_HEAD]

I disagree with your last statement. Humans are going against the nature in every possible way and what we're doing is making evolution lose it's meaning.
You are right, everyone is given a chance, but if more people have to supervise one person who was born mentally handicapped, how is he fit in any way?
Same goes for antibiotics or any other unnatural way of curing a disease for humans.

Only thing similar to the evolution's mechanism is the survival of the wealthiest, because not everyone can afford to take care of themselves and you're not gonna get a good "chance", that you mentioned, if you do not have the money to buy the certain things. That's certainly not natural, if you ask me.

As for the first thing you asked me, I guess what I say won't be much valid until I do become a parent, but I strongly believe that if I get the chance to know that my unborn child will be ill in some way, I rather wouldn't go through the pain of raising an unhealthy child and bring suffering to both him/her or me/my wife. It's nothing different than an abortion, but that's another topic..

And just to remind, I don't want to kill or prevent anyone from living a functional life, apart from not being able to have an offspring, so it's not that extreme from my point of view. (this applies to those who are already born, so exclude the previous example with abortion for this)
It's the same exact thing as homosexuality in case of the results, even though people who are homosexuals are okay with not carrying on their genes in most cases.

These are all sketchy analogies, but the main point is that I highly condone sterilization when it comes to ill, disabled and people who are harmful to the society. Everything else from stupid to ugly is another story.