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Attention Democrats: People Have Value. Even Poor Black People.
Over at National Review, Dominic Pino examines Janet Yellen’s rationalization of abortion from an economic perspective. Remarkably, Ms. Yellen said the following to Sen. Tim Scott:
…one aspect of a satisfying life is being able to feel that you have the financial resources to raise a child, that the children you bring into the world are wanted and that you have the ability to take care of them. In many cases abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often black, who aren’t in a position to be able to care for children…
As you might imagine, Sen. Scott was unpersuaded by this argument: “I’ll just simply say that as a guy raised by a black woman in abject poverty, I’m thankful to be here as a United States Senator,” Scott told Yellen.
Mr. Pino goes on to eloquently explain the roots of this perspective of modern leftists:
More fundamentally, Yellen’s view of human beings is incorrect: She views them as macroeconomic liabilities rather than macroeconomic assets. In her view, they take up space, consume resources, and impose burdens on those who care for them. And of course, they do those things. But they don’t just do those things. They also come up with new ideas, produce resources, and care for other people. On balance, they are assets, not liabilities.
This is a point that progressives have failed to understand for years. From the eugenics proponents of the early 20th century to the environmentalists of today, progressives have never believed that human beings are, as economist Julian Simon called them, the ultimate resource. They’re forever stuck in the zero-sum world of Malthus, where people are problematic mouths to feed, instead of the positive-sum world we actually live in, where people are a creative force to invest in.
I often hear leftists rationalize their support of abortion by saying, “Look, I’m just being practical here. We’ve got to deal with realities, right?”
Mr. Pino explains why leftists’ economic arguments are even more absurd than their ethical rationalizations. No, killing babies does not make sense. Even if the mother is going through financial difficulties at the time of her pregnancy. Even if the mother is black. Even then, Ms. Yellen.
People have value. They have value from an ethical and spiritual perspective. We’re all God’s children, for Heaven’s sake.
But even if you don’t believe that, surely you can see that they also have economic value. Perhaps you might think they are limited economic value today. But what about some years from now? Could it be that they might improve themselves someday? People can do that, you know. Even if they are black and poor, Ms. Yellen. Even those people.
I’m struggling to get past the elitism and racism oozing from Ms. Yellen’s statement about poor black mothers like Sen. Scott’s Mom (pictured above). But even if I could get past that, I would point out to Ms. Yellen, “People have value, you idiot. Even poor black people, you racist snob. Who on earth are YOU to suggest that some people should be killed because they are currently of insufficient economic value? You’re a government bureaucrat, for Pete’s sake. What is your economic value to society? Should we vote you out of office, or take you out back and shoot you? Are you listening to what you’re saying? Do you want ME deciding if your life is worth living? Do you want anybody deciding that, other than yourself? Do your words make sense to you? Honestly?“
Every rationalization for abortion sounds absurd to me.
But some of them sound like pure evil.
I can’t believe Democrats are saying stuff like this out loud. To a black man, no less. In public. On national TV. Oh my God.
They can’t recognize evil, even when they say it themselves.
But at least they are helping others recognize evil. Make evil this obvious, and anyone can see it. Anyone who has eyes to see.
Just writing about Ms. Yellen’s statement makes me feel unclean. I feel like I need a long hot bath. And all I did was copy and paste it. She said it out loud. In public.
How do these people sleep at night?
Published in General
Actually, if eugenicists were honest/rational, the sick (or genetically flawed) don’t need to suffer and die, they just need to not reproduce.
But they don’t ever seem to stop there.
That’s still a bit superficial. What about C-sections?
What about them?
Nope. I have written about how some forms of existence are worse than non-existence. Oddly I mentioned Dr. Bastiat before in that post.
The death of a five month old fetus has made me remember why I morally approve of various forms of feticide and suicide. Recently, a pregnant lady got into physical confrontation with another woman over the infidelity of the father of her child. The non-pregnant lady took out a gun and shot the lady in self-defense. Were I the soul of the child conversing with the Angels\gods of birth in the emergency room. I would prefer to die rather than be born into the world with the genetic material of my biological originators.
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The death of a five month old fetus has made me remember why I morally approve of various forms of feticide and suicide. Recently, a pregnant lady got into physical confrontation with another woman over the infidelity of the father of her child. The non-pregnant lady took out a gun and shot the lady in self-defense. Were I the soul of the child conversing with the Angels\gods of birth in the emergency room. I would prefer to die rather than be born into the world with the genetic material of my biological originators. Maybe if I had amazingly high I.Q. and a genetic resistance to mental illness, it might be worth it but I’m not very confident with the DNA that comes from those two hominids. Honestly, I would prefer to be left alone on a hill after I was born and die from exposure. The cold night would be very unpleasant but it would be short. Life with parents like that would feel terribly long.
Alternatively, The people on Ricochet, genuinely regretted the death of the five-month baby. I think this has to do with religion. As Dr. Bastiat has noted,
While I agree that humans have value irrespective of the genetic lottery, I don’t think that the world cares about you. I see the world as not caring about children or anybody else. As some famous atheist put it, “I may prefer champagne to dishwater but I don’t presume that the universe does.” I too would prefer that children be protected and civilized by decent parents but I don’t think the physical universe cares much for children or for making parents decent.
As far as I can tell, religious people believe that G-d protects babies and the poor and the mentally ill in some kind of way. Lacking that belief seems to push people towards being OK with death as a means to avoid suffering. It’s not that human consciousness isn’t precious, it’s just a view that the universe doesn’t care about suffering so it might not be worth the risk.
Never thought of Dr. Fauci as an opponent of genetic engineering … more like an enthusiast …
I think that was the point.
Aside from a lunatic fringe (in Germany a few years back), eugenics advocates were always into preventing reproduction without anybody suffering or dying; in fact, to prevent suffering and dying in the next generation.
For example, institutions for the mentally retarded simply kept males and females apart.
I think this is a naive view of what eugenicists have been up to, and I wouldn’t call the Nazis a “fringe” either. Among other things eugenicists are utopians and utopian ideas have a history of leading to death and destruction.
Eugenics literally means good genes. Anyone who wants to cure sickle cell anemia is a eugenicist.
Actually, my comment goes back forty years at least, when people were noticing that (so it was said at the time) women were getting slightly broader shoulders and slightly narrower hips — suspected to be because of male hormones injected into beef, but this also could have just as easily have been caused by natural processes of inheritance.
Secondly, child birth was always a frequent cause of death to young women before the advent of modern life-saving surgeries. And the mortality largely went away simultaneously with frequent (some said too frequent) C-sections.
And thirdly, if there is any heritability of bone structure (and there assuredly is) then allowing the off-spring of children born to narrow hipped women, increases the risk of problematic and fatal deliveries requiring even more C-sections.
To allow this genetic deficit to continue is not good eugenics.
I don’t accept this thinking for several reasons, but it is a eugenetics argument against life-saving surgical procedures.
No, it’s not. At most it’s an argument against narrow-hipped children born to narrow-hipped women, reproducing in the future. There’s no need to kill them/let them die at birth.
Highly tendentious interpretation of the reasons for DNA research – the drive was mostly to be able to treat many diseases. Many of those disease were not even inherited but still DNA based, like cancer. There were many reasons for trying to understand the mechanisms that were at the basis for all life and eugenics wasn’t a major one.
Not exactly. Anyone who wants to prevent sickle cell anemia through selective breeding might be described as a eugenicist.
The Nazis took eugenics a step further than anybody else, to actual murder and not just sterilization.
That is the hope. Also to engineer replacement tissue. To do so researchers are all to happy to have available on a wholesale basis pristine fetal tissues from carefully performed abortions to study the process of that tissue replacement. Or the opportunity to create dozens of human embryos with CRSPR technology, as did the researcher in Oregon to try to correct an autosomal dominant cardio-hypertrophy gene, then destroy the embryos to analyze every cell to see what happened. Interesting work if you have no compunctions regarding the wholesale destruction of human organisms.
I posted a long (way too long) essay about human consciousness that included a long discussion of Eugenics. If you scroll about two thirds of the way through that essay you’ll find the discussion of eugenics. The link Noesis, the book
Your entire comment is fascinating and I have many questions that come immediately to mind. As an aside, though, the above quote made me chuckle. I had heard it somewhere but had forgotten it. A lot of truth in that. But I’m tempted to turn it back onto your own point of view and reword it slightly:
“Henry may prefer being dead to to having crummy parents but I don’t presume that every child feels that way.”
My own life experience has taught me that things I couldn’t abide other people tolerate quite willingly. Such things as debt, drug abuse, relationship drama, et cetera et cetera ad nauseum. For a long time I would try to rescue people in my orbit from crises of their own making. It took me a long time (too long) to accept that what I find intolerable other people choose intentionally. And they will generally choose it again soon after being rescued from it by someone else.
But my sincere question relates to something that I found myself wondering after reading your post – especially your concerns about inherited DNA. Do you believe that free will is real, or are we just living out our genetic programming? Or our environmental conditioning? Or some amalgamation of the two?
And, if it happens that you do not believe in free will, how do you reconcile that with any notion of political freedom being real, or political philosophies being freely chosen? Are we wasting our time here on Ricochet?
These are not rhetorical questions and I’m not trying to make a point. I’m curious as to where you’re coming from. Or maybe I’m guilty of reading your comment too closely.
I don’t know any serious Christian who thinks this way or believes that the universe “cares” about suffering. I’ve been around (foolish) people who think life should be “fair,” but they’re nominal Christians, at best, and always on the Left. Sometimes I think you’re a plant from inside the faith, Henry, to challenge us Christians to answer tough questions. Sharpening swords and all that.
The universe is not a person. To treat it as such is like people who worship nature (ecofascists) without acknowledging that Nature just wants to kill you. That’s what the b-b-b-witch does from the moment you’re born until she succeeds. It wouldn’t be surprising if such believers drove the species extinct, one way (refraining from reproducing) or another (abortion/genocide).
But, God is a person, and in his Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, he chose to enter into our suffering to show us how it’s done (with grace) and to what purpose (bringing salvation (good) to others). We don’t believe God protects babies or the poor or the mentally ill (Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents right after Christmas — the children murdered by Herod). But, we do believe He’s commissioned us with the job. As Archbishop Chaput says, “If you don’t care for the poor, you’re going to hell.” That weighs on me pretty heavily every day.
People often say Christians have the most difficulty answering for the problem of evil and suffering. I think the opposite is true. I think atheists have no answer for evil and suffering, although, like Henry, at least they acknowledge evil exists. Leftists make up fake evil (climate change, systemic racism, . . .) because they’re either spiritually blind to the real thing or too cowardly to face its existence. I counsel my kids, who have suffered more than your average kids as kids at their ages (early 20’s), there is no point to it without Christ on the Cross. In that way, I guess I agree with Henry.
But didn’t G-d make the universe?
Right. We worship the Creator, not the creation.
I know your next challenge: but why did He create a universe with evil and suffering? The evil part is easier to answer than suffering from natural causes. Evil exists because God prioritizes freedom (free will). He knows that love isn’t love unless it is freely chosen.
Suffering from natural causes gives us an opportunity to love and care for the sufferers. It can be a process of purification for both the sufferers and their caregivers, if they unite their suffering to Christ’s. “My yoke is easy” because Jesus is sharing the burden.
To address your first paragraph. If we have free will, it is quite limited. It’s mostly genetics and environment. For example, I have a mediocre mathematical I.Q. from genetics so I can’t seriously debate string theory. In terms of environment, I was raised in America so I never really had a chance to debate the divine rights of royalty. It’s possible I have free will but I can only exercise that free will in some limited circumstances.
To address your second paragraph, political freedom is still better than political tyranny and open debate still leads to better results even if humans are just meat robots.
That doesn’t explain parasites.
A philosopher who believes in free will might answer that heredity and environment merely determine what kind of creature it is that exercises free will.
And if we are doing all that, try to imagine what the Chinese Communists must be up to.
Nonsense. Free will has to do with your moral choices, not your intellect. You make them every single day, whether it’s what to eat and how much or whether to cut someone off in traffic. It’s why we don’t hold children responsible for much of their (bad) behavior. They need to reach the age of reason — some of them never do (mental disabilities and leftists, but I repeat).
It’s also why the homosexual agenda breaks down. Having homosexual inclinations is not volitional, but choosing to act on them certainly is! And it’s pretty hard to argue that sodomizing someone is “love” (willing the good of the other, even at your own expense). Disordered use of the sexual faculties isn’t love whether homosexuals or heterosexuals are doing it.
Or mosquitos! The question for the ages. LOL.
Sodomy prevents abortion Western Chauvinist. Pick a hill.
If anyone wants to continue discussing abortion, I did a post.
So does abstinence/chastity. I choose better moral choices for everyone. Authentic love.