@Tantris

I said I'm on the fence, and if you'll notice I agree that in the situation you talked about it should be permitted. I'm worried about legalizing it because of how the politicians might deal with the issue - will they actually restrict it to only when the individual being euthanized has decided to be euthanized? If we could trust the politicians I wouldn't have a problem legalizing that.

Legalized abortion in the US and Nazi Eugenics are two different things. The selected use of abortion in Nazi Germany was an extension of their racial theories. The Nazis were so insanely fucked up about a lot of things. People need to stop applying what the Nazis did to other situations, because the Nazi examples are so extreme.

@Grumbledook

I'm not saying anyone is a bunch of Nazis. Depending on the circumstances I agree with the use of abortion; however, the majority of abortions in the USA are simply for economic or social convenience (generally because the mother is trapped between a rock and a hard place and feels she has no other way out).

That's one of the greatest issues I have with it, because many (I don't know the numbers, but I personally know women who have had this problem) suffer PTSD as a result of having an abortion and a women should be able to keep her baby if she wants, not be forced into aborting the baby because she's scared of what others will think of her for getting pregnant out of wedlock or something like that.

Euthanasia/abortion shoul dnever be required. Life and death decisions of a person should belong to that person. If a mother's life is at stake, she should have the right to choose her life over the baby's. If a person's quality of life is so bad that they no longer desire to live, they should have that right to chose. And we should all have the right to chose, in a living will, whether or not we feel life support systems should or shouldn't be used and what conditions should be set before our survivors or doctors choose to turn off the life support. My own living will states that if my doctors are of the opinion that I will never recover enough to be of sound mind to make the decision myself about any additional life-support, then they should pull the plug. But if there is a reasonable chance that I could recover to the point of making that decision, it stays on.

Couldn't find anything about Sanger and Mengele, so I presume what I've read about that before is false. She did write about eugenics, though. One quote among many:

"Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring." -Sanger, "A Plan For Peace", Birth Control Review, April 1932, p. 106

Therefore, eugenics at the very least played a role in the early abortion movement in USA. Please note, as I earlier stated, that I am not entirely anti-abortion and am not trying to make generalizations about people here. I'm simply trying to point out how an issue not unlike euthanasia has gone in the past.

@Draugnar

Agreed, on the general/legal part. I myself don't have a living will yet...I'm not sure how I want to be dealt with personally, so to speak.

I have some real world things I should be concentrating on, so I can't keep this up indefinitely...

I'm not saying there are some unsavory aspects to Sanger's ideas, she also denounced what was going on in Nazi Germany though. You can pick almost any public figure from the Victorian era or early 20th century and find some point of view we would find objectionable today.

Sanger came to believing in legalized abortion because of the work she did amongst poorer women in New York. She saw what carnage it caused. Women were getting abortions regardless of legality. It's why she started to advocate for birth control as well - you cut down the pregnancy rate and people are less likely to consider abortion.

@Grumbledook

Whatever else she may have believed, it's undeniable that she desired to clean out the gene pool, so to speak, and that's eugenics. She wrote about it, and it played a role in her stance on birth control and abortion. She was also against allowing immigrants into the USA if they would contaminate the gene pool (the quote about that is on wikipedia as are many others, along to references to her writings).

Oh, and I hear you on the real world stuff...I work graveyard so I'm supposed to be asleep now. Unfortunately I can't sleep, hence why I'm sitting on here so much in the middle of the day, lol.

I already spend too much time on here, now I'm getting into forum debates! Oops.. Good thing the weather kept a lot of people home from work today.

I'm aware of her views. Again, I said she had some ugly ideas (second paragraph above).

I think the eugenics debate is getting us off track. So, on that note - Woo Hoo! Thread hijack! *high fives SteevoKun*

BTW, while we are talking about early 20th Century quack science - Phrenology. For or against?

Okay, I think we're more or less in agreement then, lol.

*high five*

Phrenology? Lulz!

...seriously, though...I'm sure there's people who claim they can prove it (or else no one would buy into it), but despite knowing next to nothing about it I'm skeptical. Then again, that's just me in general...skeptical.

I don't know if this would technically count as phrenology, but I guess the shape of the skull could be related to the size of different areas of the brain, which might somehow determine things? I don't think that's the idea behind phrenology though...guess I should do some reading...

Yeah...googled it...completely b.s.

Oh, and while we're the only ones talking on this thread anymore, what sort of work do you do grumbledook? Is the lack of people coming into your place of work keeping things easy?

I work at a hotel (at least until Sunday, woo!) and am hoping this mess gets bad tonight so I have little to no work to do. :)

WRONG!!! : p

Which part? Lol.

It's just office work - educational non-profit dealing with non-US students. I've actually done a lot of work today, it's just that I'm logging up quite a bit of internet time.

No one is here because there is a snowstorm right now - Lake Michigan has keep the city relatively clear (the lake is still warming things up) but I guess the suburbs and elsewhere are being hit hard. There are lots of flakes outside my window but nothing is sticking at the moment.

Needless to say I'm bored and I'd rather be drinking coffee and reading.

Sounds like bundles of fun, lol.

It's been raining and been rather windy here (last night's walk home from the pub a few blocks away was thoroughly unenjoyable...), but I haven't been outside since 2 am. Last time I looked outside it was a little rumbly, but had calmed down some.

It will be nice out again... sometime in May. Maybe.

Lol. Like living in the South. :)

I put the heat on 71 yesterday and had to turn it off this morning because it was too hot in here, lol.

Just checked the thermostat...it's 77 degrees in here right now, lol.

*!#&!(&%)!!

;) 70 degrees outside. =P

I vote we all go beat the shit out of SteevoKun and take over his house for teasing and torturing us with his weather reports. :-)

It's supposed to be 17 later in the week....

Uh oh... *assembles Diplomacy fleets in the puddle out front* ...watch them get me now... ;)

I don't recall the last time is was that cold here in southeastern Virginia, lol.

34 now, and that is the high for the day. Tomorrow it's only supposed to get to 22.

Back on topic, though. What happens when somebody uses the exagerrated exasperation and says "Somebody just kill me now!" and someone does. Did they commit murder? Or do they have legal defense of "He asked to be euthanized."?

@Steevo - I was born in Norfolk General Hospital during the worst snowstorm recorded in Norfolk at the time. So, are you part if the tidewater area? My almost 90 year old grandma still lives in the house in Va Beach that my grandfather built in the early 50s. Grandpa worked for a civil engineering and construction firm and worke don the MacArthur memorial, so building a brick ranch was nothing for him.