The Quiet Progress of the New Eugenics. Ending the Lives of Persons With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities for Reasons of Presumed Poor Quality of Life

Abstract This paper considers recent developments in terminating human life affected by intellectual and developmental disability. It brings these developments together under the heading of a progressing eugenics. It argues that the acts under discussion are eugenic with regard to their moral justification, even if not in their intention. Terminating human life in contemporary society is aiming at the alleviation of suffering, not the enhancement of the human gene pool. Three distinct cases are traced in the literature: ending the lives of severely disabled prematurely born infants, terminating pregnancies after positive outcomes of genetic screening and testing, and ending the lives of persons with IDD by means of euthanasia. It is shown from the literature that in each of these cases the justifying reason is the prospective judgment of a ‘poor’ quality of life, which ties these acts to the justification of terminating human life within the history of eugenics. The pervasive judgment of poor quality of life is criticized as ignoring alternative views, most of all the views of persons and families directly implicated who do not consider living with IDD identical with a life full of suffering.