Eugenics, Abortion, and Us

Ebeneezer Scrooge, while watching Tiny Tim in a vision, to the Spirit of Christmas Present: "If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Later, the Spirit to Scrooge: "Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child."

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At the beginning of the year I wrote about Nancy Pelosi making it very clear that poor children are draining the economy and that Planned Parenthood in low-income areas will help staunch the flow of government spending. Ruth Bader Ginsburg made similar comments a few weeks back. I've had conversations with friends in the past year where they've expressed the same sentiment: abortion is bad, but maybe it keeps people who would have a bad life from coming into the world.

So who has a bad life? Who drains the economy?

Eugenics is the practice of human breeding. Positive eugenics involves encouraging the supposedly healthy, wealthy, and bright to have children-- not too many, but just enough to push their genes into the next generation and still give their kids the best life possible. Negative eugenics is about preventing "undesirable" people from procreating; this is most horrifically exemplified with Margaret Sanger's "Negro Project" which forced sterilization on thousands of black women in the rural south. Sanger was a strong supporter of eugenics and believed her Planned Parenthood centers would encourage more and more poor black, disabled, mentally troubled people to have fewer and fewer children.

Have we come so far since then or has Sanger and the other early 20th century eugenicists dream of a "better" race of people started to take form?

Disabled children are often headed off at the OB/GYN or the geneticist's office. The amnio that will "help you decide before its too late" should there be something "wrong" and the IVF that ensures only a "good" egg implants is probably why, in some places, the number of Down Syndrome births has been halved. Is this a victory for the human race?

Poor children have people like the speaker of the house and supreme court justices against them. A friend of a friend recently had an abortion at her doctor's suggestion. She explained that although the couple was in their mid twenties, were married, and both held jobs the fact that they were on Medicaid showed they were not financially ready for children. Like the line from Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up," everyone encouraged them to wait for a "real" baby, one that would have all the material provisions needed to be successful. And so the couple aborted their first child.

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A better generation of people-- a smarter, healthier, whiter, wealthier, less expensive generation of people--- is that what would make things better? Is it possible that in supporting abortion we encourage the ideas of Margaret Sanger and the ideals of eugenicists to live on in the minds of other people who hate?

Marriage and Time

Sink your teeth into this piece by Caitlin Flanagan from Time. Its about marriage in the States. Flanagan does a good job of bringing together recent media bits about marriage with the cold hard facts.

I enjoyed two of the photo collections linked into the articles as well, the one of couples married 50+ years and the "very special wedding" taken of a Down Syndrome couple's Hindu and Christian weddings. Sadly, though, the Down Syndrome duet has sworn off children, a hint at the eugenics issue, which will be my next post...

Toss Salad and Scrambled Eggs

A lighter post-- I was going to write about eugenics, but I'll put a little fluff in between the heavy stuff this time.

So yesterday we trekked up to Seattle with the fam for the Bite of Seattle festival. There are few re-creative activities in this world that I think are better than a food fair!

We took the light rail from Tukwila and I am proud to say we were among the first passengers to ever do so as it was the opening day (which also meant no charge for the day). The kids watching the traffic and scenery from the big railcar windows. Once in Seattle we took the monorail to the square below the Space Needle.

The food tents were set up around a giant fountain. The walkway around the fountain spirals down so people can sit on the dry concrete or go down to play in the water. The day was hot so there were tons of kids running around in bathing suits. It reminded me a bit of the World's Fair park in Flushing Meadows but with a much more ethnically diverse crowd and a waaaay more laid back feeling to the affair.

So the food-- oh my glory the food! The three of us went off on our own to sample what the vendors had to offer and we ate:

A chicken gyro-- tender bread, thinly sliced and perfectly seasoned chicken, great yogurt sauce
Gyoza-- this was mostly for Lucy, a favorite of hers and very tasty
Calamari-- like butter, not chewy at all, with the perfect amount of salt and lemon
Jerk chicken-- spicy and sweet though hard to enjoy when I realized there was no johnny cake :(
Frozen custard-- enough said
Frozen yogurt with fresh fruit-- again for the baby and what I ate was great as it tasted just like thick, tangy greek yogurt
Cinnamon roasted almonds
Thai tea
Samples of a dozen different sodas and juices

By the end of the day we were stuffed. The kids ran around in the fountain while we all sat back and digested. If you are ever in the area and can make it to the Bite of Seattle (or the Taste of Tacoma) I highly recommend it.

Groucho and Grandparents: Another Rant

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old.
All you have to do is live long enough." -Groucho Marx

Helping out my husband's grandmother has got me thinking about being old. When do you become old? We hear adages like "you are as young as you act" or "you are only as old as you think you are" in reference to the latter years. And in some instances it is wrong to mention the word as it has been heaped on the pile with "poor," "foreign," and others.

And isn't that the funny part of it all? Most people want to avoid making elderly people feel bad by calling them old but they certainly don't want to participate in their daily care. In fact, many are of the mindset these days that suicide is a caring alternative to life when the pains of growing older become a lot to bear. Now I don't necessarily agree with the aforementioned sayings in all instances-- yes, sometimes you let yourself get old before your time. But some people are stuck with crippling illnesses, depression, and loneliness that, despite their best efforts, knock back the desire to act and think young. But I am only 25 so what do I really know about life being preferable to death wrought at your own hands?

Just as with feminism, care for the environment, migrant workers, all the people-centric "issues" I get so ornery about, we often miss the point. We talk about rights and liberties, which I strongly believe are small matters when compared to a person's dignity. You can give an elderly person all their rights-- Alan's grandma can vote, protest, draw social security, sign up for Medicare, participate in commerce, drive, work, marry. But what good would all these supposed freedoms be if she wasn't treated with dignity by those around her? People are liberated when they are respected for being people rather than being useful. Our founding fathers missed that one, we as Christians too often forget it, and when it comes to the elderly it is seldom treated as the main issue.

Dignity folks-- get in touch with the old people in your life (even if you are old yourself) and give them some respect.

(And while we're at it-- here is a post from my grandfather, an almost-octogenarian who I not only respect but also tend to agree with on some political matters)

233 years later...

Yesterday we celebrated the 4th as best we could. I always try to pick out some positive points to contemplate each Independence Day, stop short of dwelling on the bad, and forget it all to enjoy food and fireworks.

We went to a picnic with Alan's siblings & co. and had a nice time-- in the morning we marched in the Steilacoom parade (it is a lovely old pioneer-type town that overlooks the Sound), Lucy and her cousin Sophia waving to the onlookers. Then we hung out at the hostess' house, eating tasty food and watching the kids run around. In an effort to be environmentally conscience everyone brought their own reusable plates and cups, nothing disposable (which was great, though I could have lived without hearing the words "green" and "footprint" a dozen times as it is a sad reminder of most people's ecotrendiness).

When we got back to Tacoma the three of us spent some time at Grandma's and I stayed up with her to see the fireworks in New York on TV. After Lucy was in bed Alan and I sat out to watch the fireworks over the tops of the trees. Despite a hefty fine granted those in Tacoma proper that set off firworks we saw hundreds of them go up (with the sounds of police sirens heading in the direction of the bigger displays). Just a little f-you to the law I suppose, which I have to admire when it is done in good fun and happens on the 4th of July.