The Wrong of Eugenic Sterilization.
Dehumanization
Eugenics
Expressivist argument
Procreative autonomy
Sterilization
Journal
Journal of bioethical inquiry
ISSN: 1872-4353
Titre abrégé: J Bioeth Inq
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 101250741
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
05 Jul 2024
05 Jul 2024
Historique:
received:
03
10
2023
accepted:
25
02
2024
medline:
6
7
2024
pubmed:
6
7
2024
entrez:
5
7
2024
Statut:
aheadofprint
Résumé
I defend a novel account of the wrong of subjecting people to non-consensual sterilization (NCS), particularly in the context of the state-sponsored eugenics programmes once prevalent in the United States. What makes the eugenicist practice of NCS distinctively wrong, I claim, is its dehumanizing core: the fact that it is tantamount to treating people as nonhuman animals, thereby expressing the degrading social meaning that they have the value of animals. The practice of NCS is prima facie seriously wrong partly, but crucially, on these grounds. I consider and reject accounts of the wrong of NCS that make no reference to its animalizing character, such as that it violates victims' (procreative) autonomy, amounts to treating them merely as a means, inflicts psychological harm on them, or constitutes an affront to their human dignity. My discussion suggests that the critical vocabulary of bioethics should be expanded beyond talk of rights violations, benefits and harms, and equal treatment-and that the language of dehumanization is indispensable to bioethicists.
Identifiants
pubmed: 38969915
doi: 10.1007/s11673-024-10350-2
pii: 10.1007/s11673-024-10350-2
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Informations de copyright
© 2024. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Pty Ltd.
Références
Abbate, C. 2018. Harming (respectfully) some to benefit others: Animal rights and the moral imperative of trap-neuter-release programs. Between the Species 21(1): 94–127.
Barclay, L. 2018. Disability with dignity: Justice, human rights, and equal status. New York: Routledge.
doi: 10.4324/9781351017114
Boonin, D. 2003. Robbing PETA to spay Paul: Do animal rights include reproductive rights? Between the Species 13(3): 1–8.
British Broadcasting Corporation. 2022. Liver-branding surgeon Simon Bramhall struck off medical register. January 11. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-59954321 . Accessed April 4, 2023.
Conly, S. 2016. One child: Do we have a right to more? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190203436.001.0001
Cudd, A. 2006. Analyzing oppression. New York: Oxford University Press.
doi: 10.1093/0195187431.001.0001
Davenport, C.B. 1911. Heredity in relation to eugenics. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.57725
Diekema, D., and N. Fost. 2010. Ashley revisited: A response to the critics. The American Journal of Bioethics 10(1): 30–44.
doi: 10.1080/15265160903469336
pubmed: 20077335
Disabled Peoples International. 2000. Disabled people speak on the new genetics. London: Disabled Peoples International Europe.
Dworkin, R. 1993. Life’s dominion: An argument about abortion, euthanasia, and individual freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Earl, J. 2022. Against procreative moral rights. Bioethics 36(5): 569–575.
doi: 10.1111/bioe.12976
pubmed: 34908181
Edwards, S. 2004. Disability, identity, and the “expressivist objection.” Journal of Medical Ethics 30(4): 418–420.
doi: 10.1136/jme.2002.002634
pubmed: 15289542
pmcid: 1733889
Fofana, M. 2022. Time and time again: The reincarnations of coerced sterilization. Journal of Medical Ethics 48(11): 805–809.
doi: 10.1136/medethics-2020-106924
pubmed: 34127527
Foster, C. 2011. Human dignity in bioethics and law. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Glover, J. 2006. Choosing children: The ethical dilemmas of genetic intervention. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290925.001.0001
Hampton, J. 1999. Defining wrong and defining rape. In A most detestable crime: New philosophical essays on rape, edited by K. Burgess-Jackson, 118–156. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
doi: 10.1093/oso/9780195120752.003.0007
Haynes, J.R. 1918. Eighth biennial report of the state board of charities and corrections of the state of California from July 1, 1916 to June 30, 1918. Sacramento: California State Printing Office.
Killmister, S. 2010. Dignity: Not such a useless concept. Journal of Medical Ethics 36(3): 160–164.
doi: 10.1136/jme.2009.031393
pubmed: 20211996
Kirchhoffer, D.G. 2019. Dignity, being, and becoming in research ethics. In Beyond autonomy: Limits and alternatives to informed consent in research ethics and law, edited by D.G. Kirchhoffer and B.J. Richards, 117–132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi: 10.1017/9781108649247.008
Kittay, E.F. 2005. At the margins of moral personhood. Ethics 116(1): 100–131.
doi: 10.1086/454366
pubmed: 16578953
Kronfeldner, M. 2018. What's left of human nature? A post-essentialist, pluralist, and interactive account of a contested concept. Cambridge: MIT Press.
doi: 10.7551/mitpress/11606.001.0001
Kühl, S. 1994. The Nazi connection: Eugenics, American racism, and German National Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
doi: 10.1093/oso/9780195082609.001.0001
Laughlin, H.H. 2009. Calculations on the working out of a proposed program of sterilization. Buck v Bell Documents 77. https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/buckvbell/77 . Accessed February 2, 2024.
Liao, M. 2016. Biological parenting as a human right. Journal of Moral Philosophy 13(6): 652–658.
doi: 10.1163/17455243-01306003
Lombardo, P., ed. 2011. A Century of eugenics in America: From the Indiana experiment to the human genome era. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
MacKinnon, C. 1987. Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Marx, K. 1988. Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844. Translated by M. Milligan. New York: Prometheus Books.
McMahan, J. 2002. The ethics of killing: Problems at the margins of life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
doi: 10.1093/0195079981.001.0001
———. 2005. Preventing the existence of people with disabilities. In Quality of life and human difference: Genetic testing, health care, and disability, edited by D. Wasserman, J. Bickenbach, and R. Wachbroit, 142–171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Overall, C. 2012. Why have children? The ethical debate. Cambridge: MIT Press.
doi: 10.7551/mitpress/8674.001.0001
Palmer, C., S. Corr, and P. Sandøe. 2012. Inconvenient desires: Should we routinely neuter companion animals? Anthrozoos 25(1): 153–172.
doi: 10.2752/175303712X13353430377255
Pearson, Y. 2007. Storks, cabbages, and the right to procreate. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 4(2): 105–115.
doi: 10.1007/s11673-007-9047-4
Quigley, M. 2010. A right to reproduce? Bioethics 24(8): 403–411.
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00722.x
pubmed: 19222439
Robertson, J. 1994. Children of choice: Freedom and the new reproductive technologies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
doi: 10.1515/9781400821204
Sandøe, P., S. Corr, and C. Palmer. 2016. Companion animal ethics. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Saxton, M. 2000. Why members of the disability community oppose prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion. In Prenatal testing and disability rights, edited by E. Parens and A. Asch, 147–164. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Singer, P. 2011. Practical ethics, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511975950
Smith, D.L. 2011. Less than human: Why we demean, enslave, and exterminate others. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
———. 2016. Paradoxes of dehumanization. Social Theory and Practice 42(2): 416–443.
———. 2021. Making monsters: The uncanny power of dehumanization. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Steinbock, B. 1995. A philosopher looks at assisted reproduction. Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics 12(8): 543–551.
doi: 10.1007/BF02212918
pubmed: 8589574
Stern, A.M. 2016. That time the United States sterilized 60,000 of its citizens. Huffington Post, January 7. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sterilization-united-states_n_568f35f2e4b0c8beacf68713 . Accessed April 4, 2023.
Tännsjö, T. 2006. Non-voluntary sterilization. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 31(4): 410–412.
doi: 10.1080/03605310600860783
Wilkinson, S. 2010. Choosing tomorrow’s children: The ethics of selective reproduction Oxford: Clarendon Press.