How is using existing science in determining whether to abort a baby due to its sex equal to eugenics?

Where was it conventionally established that what you are describing is eugenics.

Certainly the legal abortion argument arose out of a the eugenics movement as a means of controlling the population of “undesirables”.

But what you are describing is a different context and different use of willful abortion as a tool.

Same station, different train.

I don’t think it could be considered eugenics so long as the decision lays with the parents. Eugenics is aimed at a broader goal of changing the biological make up of society and that would require some sort of regulating body make the decision.

@josie But what you are describing is a different context and different use of willful abortion as a tool.
Same station, different train.
If a person uses legal science to decide or not to have a child of a particular sex based on their preference, how can they be influencing society in ridding it of ”undesirables”? The parents would have to be in line with what society thought were undesirables and be willing to end any pregnancies fitting the bill on their own because they support it. I am not seeing how the personal choice allows or rids society of undesirables.

You defined eugenics as increasing .. the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics… – that is exactly what choosing the sex is – increasing the likelihood the off spring will have the desired characteristic. It is eugenics at its most basic, most predictable level.

If boys are aborted, because they are more likely to have certain genetic diseases, I guess in that case it would be eugenics, but gender on it’s own isn’t really eugenics in the strictest sense of the word. I guess some people look at selectively aborting, or even any aborting as eugenics, but it really isn’t in my opinion. I guess they feel any abortion is akin to genocide, and any killing of a particular population, including gender, counts.

@zenvelo that is exactly what choosing the sex is – increasing the likelihood the off spring will have the desired characteristic. It is eugenics at its most basic, most predictable level.
How can sex be considered a characteristic? That is just the way the baby will be born if left alone. There is no guarantee of height, weight, hair or eye color, texture of hair or anything, the sex was already in play before the ultrasound was even done, aborting because it is an undesired sex is just deciding or not to keep what was already in play that humans had no part in less that back seat of the Oldsmobile 300 boinking like bunnies.

I guess if you get rid of all the boys or all the girls in a particular race you stop that population from continuing. Or, stop it from being “pure” or 100% going forward. If there is such a thing.

@Hypocrisy_Central Eugenics doesn’t change anything after conception, it is exactly what you are describing “aborting because it is an undesired….”. The only difference is one of degree, one knows what the sex is, but one is only guessing at eye color, height, hair color, weight.

^ It is one thing to send the steak back to the kitchen, it is another thing to have the steak changed in some way or done different than the recipe dictates; the two acts are different, just as not accepting what is in play, or genetically trying to change things to that which you can live with.

@Hypocrisy_Central Eugenics is a matter of taking steak off the menu so you can get lobster. And turning the waiter around before the food arrives at the table. Isn’t that what culling for gender is?

@zenvelo Eugenics is a matter of taking steak off the menu so you can get lobster.
All of the definitions I have read taking the steak off the menu doesn’t actually fit the bill. The heart of eugenics is to direct or steer characteristics or traits to one’s liking, making tweaks and other changes to alter what would have been. To simply jettison the option of steak and make the request for lobster leaves one with an optional course of action, not amending the current action. I am no longer getting steak but a whole different meal. To terminate a baby you are not getting anything in its place unless you go boinking again, to create a new and different baby”. To somehow get in there and tweak the baby that is coming to create a different baby, that is altogether a different thing.

@Hypocrisy_Central One cannot tweak the embryo to create a different child. Doesn’t work that way. That is the Huxleyan pipe dream.

You can’t swap out the dominant brown eye gene to get a blue eyed baby, you can’t delete the extra chromosome on chromosome 21 to interrupt Down Syndrome. You do work on that before conception, and once the zygote is created, you abort it if it is not to your liking. That is eugenics.